Recognizing Fallacies

Also, learn to understand and recognize fallacies. Fallacies are types of common illogical reasoning. Often when debating, if we have insight into the issue at hand, we might understand or intuit why an argument someone else is providing is faulty or wrong. Nonetheless, this intuition isn’t particularly useful unless we can elaborate and clarify what is wrong about an argument, giving us a means to attack it.

Therefore learning common fallacies gives us an advantage when debating. However, you should also understand fallacies typically concern the validity of an argument, not the truth of its conclusion. You can weaken opposing arguments by attacking their validity, but often you will need to deal with the conclusion too.

The first common fallacy is ‘ad hominem’. This Latin phrase is literally translated as ‘to the man’ and it basically refers to personal attacks during an argument, rather than an attack against the argument itself. An ad hominem fallacy might attempt to undermine an argument by talking about the character of the person displaying the argument, instead of addressing the argument itself (e.g. implying that they are not trustworthy, or intelligent or reasonable).

Argumentum ad verecundiam or argument from authority is a similar type of logical fallacy. In this fallacy an argument is perceived as stronger because it is endorsed by someone of influence. Essentially this fallacy relies on the status of the person making the argument rather the argument itself.

Arguments from authority can be quite subtle – anyone calling themselves an expert, or using an official title such as Dr. is in a subtle way presenting themselves and their opinions as superior to others. When arguing focus on the arguments and points that are being made, rather than the people making them; experts or people of status can, and frequently are, horribly wrong.

Of course, in a sense the informed opinion of an expert is more valuable than the opinion of a lay person. However, this is when we are dealing with opinions relating to expertise rather than arguments. I trust a doctor’s opinion on my health more so than a stranger, but a doctor’s status doesn’t have any weight on their arguments about the existence of god or which political party I should vote for. The key word here is trust; I am placing trust in a doctor because it is convenient and more reliable than my own opinion. My trust doesn’t make his arguments any more or less valid or true.