It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct. -- W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing UpBrandon at Siris has written a number of good posts over the years on the taxonomy, lore, and misuse of the notion of fallacy. Having stumbled, not long ago, on his article in First Things on Reification, I was moved to the following few reflections (not as deep as his), when I encountered this cutely-illustrated Little Book of Bad Arguments recently and was struck again by how much this word "fallacy" is abused, and used to abuse. (It is not sufficient, to refute an contention, to say, "But that's a slippery slope argument!" One must say why, in any particular case, the particular slippery slope argument is not compelling.)
The book gives an example of the "fallacy of irrelevant authority": "Astrology was practiced by technologically advanced civilizations such as the Ancient Chinese. Therefore, it must be true." Put this way, of course, this is clearly fallacious. But the observation that "Astrology was practiced by technologically advanced civilizations such as the Ancient Chinese" might well feature as an exhibit in a set of arguments aiming to demonstrate the plausibility of astrology. It functions more or less as a kind of testimonial, as in a court of law or in a résumé. It is meant to establish the credentials of astrology in light of the fact that it is associated with a culture we have, presumably, other grounds for respecting. "Practiced by the ancient Chinese" here serves as an index, not (on pain of fallacy) as proof. (One possible rejoinder here, of course can be, "Yes, so was foot-binding," which presumably would press the champion of astrology to explain why the precedent matters in one case and not -- let us hope -- in the other).
One sees a variation on this from time to time in what amounts to informal "expert testimony" in various disputes, e.g. about science and religion. Someone points to Professor N., a respected professor of molecular biology or cosmology who is also a member in good standing at the local mosque or synagogue. This is frequently met with groans, and rightly so if it is supposed to demonstrate anything very far-reaching, like God's existence. But it is certainly a relevant piece of evidence for the claim that it is possible to believe in God and be a practicing scientist. The counter-interpretation that "all it proves is that scientists are not immune to wishful thinking," or "scientists can intellectually compartmentalize too," is just that -- an interpretation. If someone wanted to argue for the claim that scientists can intellectually compartmentalize and hold incompatible beliefs, and they adduced as evidence the example of Professor N., they would have (on certain premises) a decent Exhibit A, but to hold that this clinched the matter would be, well, fallacious.
Then there are the times when no fallacy has been committed at all. The most frequent occasion for this, depressingly common, is the accusation of "ad hominem" in a case like:
He thinks that's evidence that there must be a God? My God, he's an idiot!This is, strictly, different from:
Yeah, he has an "argument" for God's existence, but why even consider it? He's an idiot!Both arguments exhibit bad manners, but only one of them is, strictly, a fallacy (unless you want to quibble that the definition of "idiot" haven't been clarified sufficiently).
Very frequently, when tempted to cry "fallacy!," what one really means is that a step in the argument has been left out (or more than one). Rather than snort "ad hominem!" or "reification!" or "slippery slope!", the proper (and Socratic) response to most instances of apparent fallacy is "And why is this relevant?" When you remember your manners and press someone to explain the omitted steps, not only do they usually see where their own case is weak without your rubbing their nose in it, but both parties expand the context from which they are arguing. What is really at stake, motivating the dispute, becomes clearer, and very often, you find it is not what you thought it was at first.
Moreover, it is worth recalling that even a true claim can be argued for (badly, of course) with fallacious reasoning. (And, to be sure, rudely, as well.) To think otherwise is --
I guess I interpret the term "*informal* fallacies" to actually mean something like "argumentative clichés". Some of them - like the strawman fallacy for instance, or the appeal to ignorance, or circular reasoning - are not only invalid, but dangerously confusing and counterproductive, but others - like the appeal to authority, or ad hominem, perhaps - are merely tactics that *could* be valid, but are misused *so* often that it's useful to have labels for such misuse. And in fact, I think that the misuse is often in the form of an overt or tacit "...and therefore X is clearly true/false".
ReplyDeleteI admire anyone who has the patience to act as a midwife for *all* the miscarriages of logic that their opponent carries to term, but in reality I think it's useful to have an informal catalogue of common missteps in reasoning. I personally have found it extremely helpful to be able to have a language for such things, and they regularly serve as a handy keyboard shortcut to revealing flaws in both other people's arguments and my own.
I do agree that the term "fallacies" might be inappropriate and misleading, though, since it implies that such tactics are never acceptable, and that the prevailing expertise regards them as amateurish - and that would be an egregious example of straw-manning and appealing to authority, so we can't have that :) Then again, saying (and I'm not entirely sure you *are* saying this) that we have to ditch the whole system because some (even many/most) people abuse it seems a little too extreme to me.
Hi Michael, and welcome.
ReplyDeleteA catalog of the Greatest Hits of the Mistaken Intellect is indeed a useful compendium. I think there's quite a lot to your comparison with cliches, for in the same way that good writing needs to eschew cliches (which are essentially dead figures of speech), good thinking does best to avoid what we might call "dead figures of thought." It takes a genius even to go wrong in one's thinking in a deep and original way, so most often when we make mistakes, we are just trudging the well-worn path of the boring old errors of the past. Nonetheless, I think that the question "Why is that is relevant?" covers a multitude of sins. On the other hand, it does take a saint to not loose patience when confronted with the umpteenth straw man. No one said philosophy was easy! I think Socrates may be the only figure in Plato who never looses his temper.
Now although I do not advocate ditching the notion of fallacies, I do want to modify the remark with which I ended the post, when I said that one can argue for a valid point in an invalid way -- or, of course, a rude one. This claim hinges upon the distinction between form and content.
There is also an antithesis to this claim, positing no separation between form and content at all, insisting that you can't argue well (in either logic or manners) for a bad point, or badly for a good one, because it changes the point to do so. The hyperbole of this claim seems a little more blatant than the overstatement of the easy form/content distinction, and I can't argue for it briefly. But even so, I do maintain that only after both sides of this antinomy are asserted does the real work begin -- navigating the dialectic between these two opposite approaches. (Comapre Meillassoux's remark in After Finitude about philosophy's being "necessarily bordering on sophistry", which I remarked upon a bit here.) Until then, we are really only in the antechamber of philosophy: either doing just logical combinatorics (whether civilly or uncivilly), or trading free-association and variations of oh-yeah-says-who?. The alchemy that is philosophical insight emerges when these two interpenetrate and create something strange and new.
Re-reading my comment, I realize I made the same mistake that you and Brandon called out when I used the phrase "missteps in reasoning". I do maintain that *some* informal fallacies represent clear problems with *reasoning*, but it's true that many are actually just problems with *arguing*.
ReplyDeleteI also have to agree that accusing people of informal fallacies is never strictly necessary, and that most such accusations, if leveled, should be immediately followed up by an explanation (as opposed to merely a sneer or a smug look of triumph).
However, I still believe that there are many situations where just asking questions like "How is that relevant?" is extremely impractical. More often, in my experience, it's more expedient to simply say "It sounds to me like you're doing X, which I think we both would agree is a bad argument," and then see if the person can explain to you why it's not X (or maybe explain why X isn't actually a bad argument).
In this sense, informal fallacies work as analogies, or possibly "intuition pumps" as Daniel Dennett calls them. Over the course of time, certain analogies (just like certain thought experiments - the Trolley Problem, Decartes' evil genius, Ship of Theseus, etc) prove themselves useful enough to be inducted into a catalogue of greatest hits. We currently call this list "informal fallacies". I see the danger in that term, but I guess I think it's manageable. Maybe all we need is to add a new informal fallacy that means "appealing to the list of informal fallacies".
As for the form vs. content issue, I think it's a fascinating question, and possibly one that deserves it's own spotlight. It reminds me of the "justified true belief" problems with knowledge - if you posit an invalid argument for a valid position, does that bear anything more than an accidental resemblance to the valid defense of that point?
But most saliently, no one can telepathically read the content of anyone else's mind. If I both disagree with someone's claim AND I can't fathom on my own how anyone might arrive at it, then all I have to work with is the arguments they present.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteAddressing your points, or some of them, in no particular order:
Would adding a meta-fallacy "appealing to the list of fallacies" put us in danger of trying to be the barber that shaves himself?
Your point about certain argumentative tropes like the evil genius and Theseus' ship, etc, is excellent. All of these things are essentially abbreviations, and there is much to be said for building in these sorts of short-cuts. Nietzsche remarks upon this a few times, e.g Will to Power 513 and 799, and he characteristically points out the senses in which it can be seen as feature, and as bug.
The "how is that relevant?" response I advocated is not really an answer for all occasions. Not only is it impractical, (not to mention repetitive) to use it over and over, but every actual conversation develops its own rhythms and mores; a smug look of triumph may be intolerable in one setting, and an index of social idiocy in another, but can easily be an acceptable trope inter pares.
Lastly, the analogy with justified true belief is a good one, and potentially very interesting, in part because of the difficulties with this definition of knowledge. (It is, at any rate, not Plato's doctrine, as it is often held to be.)
As to the mind-reading issue (and I KNEW you were going to bring that up): yes, it's finitude in a nutshell. Indeed, if this didn't obtain, we wouldn't converse at all. The pivot of philosophy is ignorance; but the oil for the pivot is humility.
After I write some Gibranerish like that, I occasionally (and maybe not often enough) think i should add something like "And then the Great Guru blew his nose." But anyway.