I just needed some help with an assignment I was given in my philosophy class. I've narrowed it down to either unqualified authority or begging the question, but could someone explain to me which one it would fall under and explain why it falls under that specific fallacy? I'm struggling with the identification of it. Thanks in advance!
What is the difference between formal and informal fallacies?
Example: Every part of a human being has a function, therefore human beings have a function.
If I understand the fallacy correctly; this would be a Fallacy of Composition, right? Let me know if I'm incorrect.
(this is for a school related discussion)
According to this article
> Fallacies divide into two distinct types:
>
>Formal - a structural error in a deductive argument
>
>Informal - a substantive error in an inductive argument
Is it true that informal fallacies always stem from faulty inductive reasoning?
That is they are caused by improper generalization on the basis of one or a few instances.
I was under impression only some of informal fallacies fall into that category: anecdotal evidence, composition, false analogy, hasty generalization, No true Scotsman etc.
As I understand it, all informal fallacies are formally valid. The problem is that informal fallacies follow from weak or demonstrably false premises.
Is that true?
If so, it occurs to me that some arguments that could fall under the heading of "informal fallacy" could actually be trustworthy arguments.
Example of trustworthy "informal fallacy:" (Slippery Slope Type)
If a toddler is toddling toward the busy highway now, he will continue toddling in that direction until he toddles into traffic.
The toddler is toddling toward the busy highway now.
Therefore, he will continue toddling in that direction until he toddles into traffic.
Obviously, the person who does not act on this conclusion because it is technically an informal fallacy is not being reasonable.
Wouldn't every type of informal fallacy yield some examples of trustworthy conclusions?
I came across a comment on Reddit recently that made me be like... waaait a minute. I know this is an example of some sort of fallacious reasoning, but I'm not entirely sure which one it is.
I'm familiar w/ the big ones, like slippery slopes, or strawmen. But is there a book (preferably not a textbook, unless it's old and cheap as hell) I could read where I could really drill down into the whole world of them? What they are, why they are, etc?
I'm not looking to be better at shutting down dopes on the internet, I just felt like I had bumped up against a limit of my knowledge, and I'd like to broaden it for no good reason.
"You're white." and "YOU MUST BE AN MRA!" are not, in fact, statements one can make in actual lieu of an argument and be on the right side of intellectual honesty.
i'm trying to teach myself fallacies and the like
formal fallacies - where the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises
informal fallacies- where the content of the argument is ambiguous
are formal fallacies invalid, but truthful in their premises
and informal fallacies valid, but not truthful in their premises?
is there even some kind of bridge we can draw between truth/validity
AND formal/informal fallacies?
thank you
So an example of the scenario would be the old joke "what's the fastest way to lose 11 pounds?.... is with a guillotine.
This is popularized by the Roll Safe meme
-Is there a term for the situation where an informal fallacy (typically authority, tradition or nature) doesn't apply because of differing belief systems held by the parties in a conversation?
e.g. a christian quotes the bible in support of something; an atheist says "that's just an appeal to authority".
I just noticed someone on another subreddit suggest that Hume's Guillotine applied.
-Occasionally, labelling of logical fallacies is used in a robotic manner by someone who doesn't care to engage with other aspects of a debate. The last time I saw this behaviour, the poster was later said to be sealioning (i.e. basically trolling). In more formal approaches, are logical fallacies always the be-all and end-all, or is there another way that this sort of thing is addressed?
Politicians, marketers, and anybody paid to convince you of things are aware that people aren't intuitively good at logic. They know where the holes in our understanding are and know how to exploit them. If you're aware of what they're doing, why it sounds good, and why it's wrong, you won't be easily swayed by misleading arguments.
Logic is pretty easy to learn, despite the fact that humans are intuitively very bad at it. I'm interested in teaching a class of basic logic, both formal and informal, with emphasis on common informal logical fallacies that we encounter on a daily basis. Any interest?
EDIT: Plenty of interest! I'm going to be crazy busy this weekend, but I'll start working on a course page.
EDIT2: Wow, this really took off! I'm going to have a syllabus and course page set up on Sunday. In the meantime, go to my Doodle and tell me when you'd like to have the first lecture!
EDIT3: The course thread has been posted! Upvote this link and sign up for the class!
First of all, I really like this comic
It seems to me that there has been a trend on reddit of pointing out logical fallacies in cases when the arguments are valid. There are often situations where either the definition of a logical fallacy doesn't really apply, or the "fallacy" isn't really wrong at all. Some logical fallacies are obvious, like strawman - but a strawman is essentially a lie, and we all know not to lie. Here are some specific cases of fallacies which I think are broadly misapplied:
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Argumentum ad hominem - while appealing to the opponent's characteristics is usually a weak argument in my opinion, I don't think it's right to dismiss this kind of argument as "fallacy". For example, when somebody has an incentive to promote a specific viewpoint, it is likely that he omits important evidence to the contrary, and therefore since we don't have infinite time to investigate the case thoroughly, disregarding that person's argument might be a useful heuristic in determining the truth. A more obvious case is dismissing the claims of a known liar. I think ad hominem arguments should be judged on a case by case basis instead of being dismissed altogether. Tu quoque is a more specific case of ad hominem, which might be useful for the same reason.
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Appeal to authority, on the other hand, is kind of a reverse ad hominem, when we use a person's credentials to argue for their position. The website yourlogicalfallacyis.com says that appeals to authority are wrong when we say "it must be true because an authority says that", but I don't think people use deductive arguments often. We usually say "X is likely because Y" instead of "X is certain because Y", therefore, ad hominems and appeals to authority are fair game.
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Argumentum ad populum. Again, it might be a useful heuristic. For example, the reasoning might go like that "the vast majority of people think Lincoln was a good president, so there must be some good reasons for it, therefore it's likely to be true". An even better case is when we accept a claim based on the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it. However, ad populum is not necessarily a strong argument, so there might as well be an argument which outweighs it.
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Slippery slope argument. It's a type of argument from consequences, which is completely valid if the slippery slope can be expected to occur. Similar to ad hominem,
Just a thought I had the other day. It seems to me that people tend to use declarations that the other party to a conversation has committed an informal fallacy as a thought terminating cliche. The issue is that such informal fallacies are described with the blanket term "fallacy" which may call to mind logical fallacies. But informal fallacies are fallacious because of content, and so any declaration of a fallacy which is merely informal ought to address the incorrect content of the argument.
As an example, the slippery slope "fallacy" is a logically coherent form of argumentation, but if the premises it uses are too weak or incorrect, this is where it becomes wrong. The slippery slope is essentially A leads to B, B leads to C, C leads to D, and D is more undesirable than adopting A, so let's not adopt A. Whether or not the argument is correct depends on whether it is true that such a process occurs, which is a matter of content. If the premises are correct (A does in fact lead to B, B does in fact lead to C, and C does in fact lead to D, and D is in fact less desirable than adopting A), then it is sound argument by content and logic.
Informal only. Not formal valid inference rules like modus tollens.
My local community college is currently organizing its own Philosophy Club in which students will be exchanging verbal argumentation between eachother for the purpose of developing better rigor. Most of these students are Philosophy Majors and are already aware of the principle of Charity. However, we've had some incidence in which students were getting off topic unintentionally when evaluating philosophical topics a few semesters ago .
Has there been any systematic investigation into the use of the informal fallacies as heuristic devices where actual proof of a proposition is not available? Could such use be justified or classified in terms of schools of thought and not just assumed to arise from individual biases?
I am studying Logic this semester. I had a problem come up during class that I just don't understand. Say one made an argument that because Global Warming hasn't affected us for 500 years, we should be in the clear for another 500 years. It is obviously fallacious, but I am having trouble categorizing it. I believe it is a fallacy of weak induction, and possibly hasty generalization because industralization was only a small part of the 500 years.
