How To Identify Errors in Reasoning
Argumentation should be devoid of these logical fallacies
Recently, in my home country, a party from the extreme-right started to gain traction. My first reaction was fear and despair, non-surprisingly. After the initial shock, I started to ponder the situation and stop giving in to my primary impulses.
Instead of judging those who support this party, I wanted to take a more understanding approach, to begin with, and analyze how they thought, what they thought about, what were they fears and annoyances with the current political government that had led them to consider such a radical party in the first place.
Yet, to do that, I needed to learn how to argue and debate without getting caught up in my personal feelings. It seemed a sensible idea to research how to argue with others, constructively discuss ideas, and avoid letting the discussion turn into personal attacks. Essentially, keep it cool and respectful.
I think this can be particularly difficult when reasoning with people whose world views are opposites and finding a common ground for discussion seems impossible. Nevertheless, I consider it important to do so as many times in life, we will be faced with someone who does not share our moral values and behaviors. In that situation, we need to be able to hold a good tone and maintain composure.
All this thinking led me to research for the most common logical fallacies not only so I could identify them in my opponent’s discourse but also to avoid them in my arguments. Being able to identify logical fallacies is a time-saving, empowering skill as you can better control the discussion and leverage on your opponent’s mistake.
But what is a logical fallacy?
A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that defeats the argument.
There are hundreds of logical fallacies but for the sake of conciseness, in this post, I will be focusing on the 10 most common ones:
1. The Ad Hominem Fallacy
Most commonly known as the ‘personal attack’, the ad hominem fallacy happens when instead of arguing against their opponent’s point, the person attacks the individual.
This personal attack can be on the opponent’s morals, values, physical appearance, among others. The key problem in this situation is that the person fails to address the actual argument and chooses to focus on prejudice and emotions to win the discussion.
2. The Straw Man Fallacy
The straw man fallacy derives its name from the traditional straw-made scarecrow. With this fallacy, a person attacks a view that the opponent does not hold. Instead of the opponent’s actual argument, the person argues against a weak and easily-defeating position, which the opponent did not hold in the first place.
It is a cheap trick to make one’s argument seem stronger than it is, in comparison, and it greatly misrepresents and discredits the opponent’s viewpoint.
3. The Appeal To Ignorance Fallacy
The premise of this fallacy is that if we cannot prove something, then it must be either true or false. In this scenario, the person takes general ignorance on a particular matter to their advantage and prove their point.
One example would be a statement as such: “No one has been able to prove that X exists, therefore it does not”.
Invoking such a fallacy simply proves that the person is uncertain of the strength of their argument and uses the lack of general knowledge of a topic to validate their position.
4. The False Dilemma Fallacy
This fallacy is used to oversimplify complex topics, portraying the situation as A or B, and creating a fake dichotomy. It is commonly present in discourse especially to illustrate a deceitful and unrealistic all-or-nothing scenario.
This line of reasoning fails when the situation at hand has more than two outcomes. If the situation has only two options then it is not a fallacious argument.
5. The Circular Argument Fallacy
This fallacy happens when a person repeats their initial claims while trying to arrive at new conclusions. It uses the initial conclusion as a premise. One example could be stating “I am reliable but I say so.”. There is no actual valid argument making it an erroneous statement.
6. The Bandwagon Fallacy
The basis of this fallacy is that something is correct/good/true because a large number of people agree with it.
The issue with such reasoning is that the broad acceptance of an argument does not mean its acceptance is well-placed and justified. People can be induced in error and be less resistant to challenge a claim if a large group already supports such a claim.
7. The Red Herring Fallacy
This fallacy is rather common and incites confusion. A person is using the red herring fallacy when she/he tries to lead a conversation away from the topic at hand to an area they are more comfortable debating. They shift the conversation to fit their agenda.
This happens, for example, in political campaigns when a person defends a tax raise, which is generally a disliked topic, and to win the debate, funnels the argument into areas such as children welfare and unemployment benefits with the intent of guilt-tripping the opponent. Just because a person does not support a tax raise does not mean that that person is against investing in future generations and the most vulnerable. The purpose is to misrepresent the opponents and make the audience question their moral values.
8. The Causal Fallacy
This fallacy has a few ramifications but the main point is it tries to attach a cause to an event, without trustworthy evidence.
A classical example is confusing correlation with causation. Economists are particularly against this type of fallacy as it is fairly easy to come up with erroneous conclusions when analyzing variables in statistical models. Just because a couple of events happen at the same time, it does not mean they are related. If I go for a walk and it starts to rain, it does not mean that the act of me walking is the cause of such a change in weather. A clear example of this fallacy is a superstition. This irrational explanation of events and belief in supernatural causes is dangerous and deceitful.
If there is no actual proof, then it cannot be concluded.
9. The Slippery Slope Fallacy
This fallacy is a clear example of an overreaction. Essentially, the person takes an argument from a sensible place and escalates it to make it look like a more extreme claim than what it actually is.
10. The Appeal to Authority Fallacy
The concept of this fallacy is the recurrence to some type of irrelevant authority figure to prove a point.
One example is the great degree of importance that is given to the opinions of celebrities over general issues. This attention is misplaced as celebrities are seen as authority figures from whom advice be received. Unless the topic at hand is something they are particularly knowledgeable about then their opinion has as much validity as any other person.
If one is not an expert in a certain area then the validity of their personal opinion or “seal of approval” should be irrelevant.
Communication is hard. It is fairly easy to misunderstand and paint a false representation of someone simply due to some discourse fails. This just makes it more important to avoid errors in argumentation to keep discussions clear and accurate.
