Three fallacies in the rationality debate obscure the possibility for reconciling the opposed camps. I focus on how these fallacies arise in the view that subjects interpret their task differently from the experimenters (owing to the influence of conversational expectations). The themes are: first, critical assessment must start from subjects' understanding; second, a modal fallacy; and third, fallacies of distribution.

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the Stoic treatment of fallacies that are based on lexical ambiguities. It provides a detailed analysis of the relevant passages, lays bare textual and interpretative difficulties, explores what the Stoic view on the matter implies for their theory of language, and compares their view with Aristotle’s. In the paper I aim to show that, for the Stoics, fallacies of ambiguity are complexes of propositions and sentences and thus straddle the realms of meaning (which is the domain (...) of logic) and of linguistic expressions (which is the domain of linguistics), but also involve a pragmatic element; that the Stoics believe that the premises of the fallacies, when uttered, have only one meaning and are true, and thus should be conceded; that hence there is no need for a mental process of disambiguation in the listeners; that Aristotle, by contrast, appears to assume that the premises always have all their meanings, and accordingly recommends that the listeners explicitly disambiguate them, which presupposes a process of mental disambiguation. I proffer two readings of the Stoic advice that we ‘be silent’ when confronted with a fallacy of ambiguity in dialectical discourse, and explicate how each leads to an overall consistent interpretation of the textual evidence. Finally, I demonstrate that the method advocated by the Stoics works in all cases of fallacies of lexical ambiguity. (shrink)

Este libro estudia cuestiones pertenecientes al campo de la lógica aplicada, concretamente de teoría de la argumentación informal. Abarca el análisis de los principales tipos de errores por incom­petencia argumentativa a partir de un enfoque nor­mativo actualizado y con una propuesta de taxono­mía de falacias lógicas informales basada en los cri­terios básicos de buena argumentación. Se identifi­can, describen y ejemplifican, con textos de varios niveles de dificultad, las falacias más habituales (en­tre ellas, las falacias «ad hominem, ad populum, petitio principii», (...) por inducción precipitada, falsa analogía, falso dilema) presentes en diferentes interacciones lin­güísticas interpersonales (documentos políticos, pe­riodísticos, pseudocientíficos, filosóficos) formu­ladas en lenguajes naturales. A lo largo del libro, los principales epígrafes se ilustran con textos extraídos del «Quijote» y de obras de Lewis Carroll. En los capí­tulos iniciales se abordan asuntos previos recomen­dables para la buena comprensión de los capítulos de desarrollo de falacias específicas, a saber, la re­la­ción entre lógica y retórica, los distintos tipos de ar­gumentos, la relación entre razonar y argumentar, el lugar de las emociones en la argumentación falaz y las distintas teorías y definiciones de falacia, así como los errores conceptuales más comunes asociados con el término o el vínculo entre falacias y paradojas. Se re­servan dos capítulos finales, uno sobre falacias bioéticas contemporáneas, y otro con una propuesta de «Código de Buenas Prácticas Argumentativas», fun­damentado en los criterios a partir de los que se ela­bora la taxonomía de falacias del libro. (shrink)

This edition of that chapter is intended to make Buridan's ideas and arguments accessible to a wider range of readers.

Preface -- The importance of critical thinking -- Fallacies of relevance -- Fallacies of evidence -- Fallacies of assumption -- Thinking together.

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

This text is designed to help students construct and evaluate arguments.

In this paper, I challenge a widely presupposed principle in the epistemology of inference. The principle, (Validity Requirement), is this: S’s (purportedly deductive) reasoning, R, from warranted premise-beliefs provides (conditional) warrant for S’s belief in its conclusion only if R is valid. I argue against (Validity Requirement) from two prominent assumptions in the philosophy of mind: that the cognitive competencies that constitute reasoning are fallible, and that the attitudes operative in reasoning are anti-individualistically individuated. Indeed, my discussion will amount to (...) a defence of anti-individualism against a novel ‘slow-switch’ argument against it. This argument contra anti-individualism has it that given anti-individualism and certain auxiliary assumptions, A, a switched reasoner may, in certain slow-switch circumstances, C, reason invalidly by equivocating concepts. More specifically: -/- (Valid 0): Peter is in circumstances C, and auxiliary assumptions, A, hold.(Valid 1): If Peter is in circumstances C, and auxiliary assumptions A hold, then (if the attitudes operative in Peter’s reasoning R are anti-individualistically individuated, then R is not valid). (Valid 2): Peter’s reasoning, R, generates warrant for the conclusion-belief. (Valid 3): Peter’s reasoning, R, generates warrant for the conclusion-belief only if the reasoning, R, is valid. (Valid 4): So, the attitudes operative in Peter’s reasoning R are not anti-individualistically individuated. -/- The argument involves weaker premises than those of familiar slow-switch arguments against anti-individualism. In particular, it requires only that the reasoning be de facto valid. This assumption is much weaker than the requirement that the validity of the reasoning be ‘transparent’ to the reasoner. Indeed, (Valid 3) is simply an instance of (Validity Requirement). However, I argue that anti-individualism and (Valid 0)–(Valid 2) should be upheld at the expense of (Valid 3). In consequence, (Validity Requirement) stands in need of restriction. Thus, I argue for a surprising result in the epistemology of inference from widely accepted assumptions in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The taxonomy and analysis of fallacies in Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations pre-date the formal logic of his Prior Analytics A4-6. Of the 64 fully described examples of ?sophistical refutations? which are fallacious because they are only apparently valid, 49 have the wrong number of premisses or the wrong form of premiss or conclusion for analysis by the Prior Analytics theory of the categorical syllogism. The rest Aristotle either frames so that they do not look like categorical syllogisms or analyses in a (...) quite different way than by categorical syllogistic. (shrink)

Attempts to evaluate a belief or argument on the basis of its cause or origin are usually condemned as committing the genetic fallacy. However, I sketch a number of cases in which causal or historical factors are logically relevant to evaluating a belief, including an interesting abductive form that reasons from the best explanation for the existence of a belief to its likely truth. Such arguments are also susceptible to refutation by genetic reasoning that may come very close to the (...) standard examples given of supposedly fallacious genetic reasoning. (shrink)

Playing the mystery card -- "But it fits!" -- Going nuclear -- Moving the semantic goalposts -- "But I just know!" -- Pseudo-profundity -- Piling up the anecdotes -- Pressing your buttons -- Conclusion -- The Tapescrew letters.

Given that charges of anti-Semitism, racism, and the like continue to be potent weapons of moral and intellectual critique in our culture, it is important that we work toward a clear understanding about just what sorts of conduct and circumstances constitute these moral offenses. In particular, can criticism of a state (such as Israel), or other social or political institution or organization (such as the NAACP), ever amount to anti-Semitism, racism, or other bigotry against the people represented by or associated (...) with it, even if no explicit denigration of them occurs? That a renowned scholar of rhetoric and philosophy takes up the challenge of answering such a question would seem to be cause for optimism, but the recent attempt by Judith Butler turns out to be subverted by faulty logic and blatant misreading. As a result, it obfuscates the issue, and wrongly suggests that expressive acts cannot be blameworthy on grounds of bigotry if they are not intentionally designed to serve such purposes. (shrink)

Methodus Argumentandi Se trata de una introducción a la lógica informal que, además de tratar lo temas tradicionales como los esquemas argumentativos y las falacias, incluye otros provenientes de la lingüística, como los conectores argumentativos, o de la lógica forma, como la teoría de los sistemas de argumentación abstractos.

In this paper, I argue that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious. More explicitly, in certain cases of practical reasoning, the circumstances of a person are relevant to whether or not the conclusion should be accepted. This occurs, I suggest, when a person gives advice to others or prescribes certain courses of action but fails to follow her own advice or act in accordance with her own prescriptions. This is not an instance of a fallacious tu quoque provided that (...) such circumstantial ad hominem arguments are construed as rebuttals to appeals (administrative) authority (of expertise), or so I argue. (shrink)

In 1685, in The Art of Discovery, Leibniz set down an extraordinary idea: "The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate [calculemus], without further ado, to see who is right." Calculemus.

From certain sorts of premise, individuals reliably infer invalid conclusions. Two Experiments investigated a possible cause for these illusory inference: Reasoners fail to think about what is false. In Experiment 1, 24 undergraduates drew illusory and control inferences from premises based on exclusive disjunctions (“or else”). In one block, participants were instructed to falsify the premises of each illusory and control inference before making the inference. In the other block, participants did not receive these instructions. There were more correct answers (...) for illusory disjunctions whose premises had been falsified than there were for illusory disjunctions that had not been falsified. A second Experiment introduced illusory inferences in a real world context that accentuated falsification of premises. Accuracy also improved. Knowledge of how to falsify premises and to consider their implications for true premises transferred to a new problem introduced at the end of the Experiment without the falsification instruction. The participants' ratings of the difficulty of the inferences showed that they did not err simply because illusory inferences are perceived to be more difficult than control problems. The model theory predicts these results because it postulates that the limitations of working memory preclude the representation of false information. (shrink)

This chapter presents a probability logical approach to fallacies. A special interpretation of (subjective) probability is used, which is based on coherence. Coherence provides not only a foundation of probability theory, but also a normative standard of reference for distinguishing fallacious from non-fallacious arguments. The violation of coherence is sufficient for an argument to be fallacious. The inherent uncertainty of everyday life argumentation is captured by attaching degrees of belief to the premises. Probability logic analyzes the structure of the argument (...) and deduces the uncertainty of the conclusion from the premises. The approach is illustrated by prominent examples of fallacies, like the argumentum ad ignorantiam, affirming the consequent and the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

In a recent paper (in Argumentation, 2006) Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin suggest that we ought to recognize two distinct forms of the straw man fallacy. In addition to misrepresenting the strength of an opponent’s specific argument (= the representation form), one can also misrepresent the strength of one’s opposition in general, or the overall state of a debate, by selecting a (relatively) weak opponent for critical consideration (= the selection form). Here I consider whether we as philosophy professors could (...) be seen as sometimes committing the selection form of the straw man through the performance of our regular teaching duties. (shrink)

This paper discusses the fallacies of combination and division as they are presented by Aristotle in chapter 4 of his Sophistici Elenchi. Aristotle's examples are concise, their discussion is unclear, and it is difficult to distinguish the cases of combination from those of division. I analyse the Aristotelian examples and the interpretations offered so far. I show that these interpretations suffer from a major defect: they fail to identify a common characteristic whereby the Aristotelian examples can be classified as instances (...) of combination or division. In my reconstruction of the examples, I repair this deficiency: I give a single pattern of explanation for the fallacy of combination and another (similar) pattern for the fallacy of division. Thus, it is possible to free Aristotle from the following charges: (i) he did not clearly distinguish between combination and division, and (ii) he reduced combination and division to a single fallacy. My explanation of the fallacies uses the notion of scope of an expression: in modern terminology, the fallacy of combination can be described as ?fallacy of the wide scope?, the fallacy of division as ?fallacy of the narrow scope? (shrink)

Crupi et al. (2008) offer a confirmation-theoretic, Bayesian account of the conjunction fallacy—an error in reasoning that occurs when subjects judge that Pr( h 1 & h 2 | e ) > Pr( h 1 | e ). They introduce three formal conditions that are satisfied by classical conjunction fallacy cases, and they show that these same conditions imply that h 1 & h 2 is confirmed by e to a greater extent than is h 1 alone. Consequently, they suggest (...) that people are tracking this confirmation relation when they commit conjunction fallacies. I offer three experiments testing the merits of Crupi et al.’s account specifically and confirmation-theoretic accounts of the conjunction fallacy more generally. The results of Experiment 1 show that, although Crupi et al.’s conditions do seem to be causally linked to the conjunction fallacy, they are not necessary for it; there exist cases that do not meet their three conditions in which subjects still tend to commit the fallacy. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 show that Crupi et al.’s conditions, and those offered by other confirmation-theoretic accounts of the fallacy, are not sufficient for the fallacy either; there exist cases that meet all three of CFT’s conditions in which subjects do not tend to commit the fallacy. Additionally, these latter experiments show that such confirmation-theoretic conditions are at best only weakly causally relevant to the presence of the conjunction fallacy. Given these findings, CFT’s account specifically, and any general confirmation-theoretic account more broadly, falls short of offering a satisfying explanation of the presence of the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Tyler Burge's non-reductive view of testiomonial knowledge cannot adeqautrely discriminate between fallacious ad vericumdium appeals to expet testimony and legitimate appeals to authority.

Fallacies and Argument Appraisal presents an introduction to the nature, identification, and causes of fallacious reasoning, along with key questions for evaluation. Drawing from the latest work on fallacies as well as some of the standard ideas that have remained relevant since Aristotle, Christopher Tindale investigates central cases of major fallacies in order to understand what has gone wrong and how this has occurred. Dispensing with the approach that simply assigns labels and brief descriptions of fallacies, Tindale provides fuller treatments (...) that recognize the dialectical and rhetorical contexts in which fallacies arise. This volume analyzes major fallacies through accessible, everyday examples. Critical questions are developed for each fallacy to help the student identify them and provided considered evaluations. (shrink)

A "slippery slope argument" is a type of argument in which a first step is taken and a series of inextricable consequences follow, ultimately leading to a disastrous outcome. Many textbooks on informal logic and critical thinking treat the slippery slope argument as a fallacy. Walton argues that used correctly in some cases, they can be a reasonable type of argument to shift a burden of proof in a critical discussion, while in other cases they are used incorrectly. Walton identifies (...) and analyzes four types of slippery slope argument. Walton presents guidelines that show how each type of slippery slope argument can be used correctly or incorrectly, using over fifty case studies of argumentation on controversial issues. These include abortion, medical research on human embryos, euthanasia, the decriminalization of marijuana, pornography, and censorship, and banning of American flag burning. (shrink)