Two Kinds of Arguments from Authority in the Ad Verecundiam Fallacy
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There Is No Fallacy of Arguing from Authority
There is no Fallacy ofArguing from Authority EDWIN COLEMAN University ofMelbourne Keywords: fallacy, argument, authority, speech act. Abstract: I argue that there is no fallacy of argument from authority. I first show the weakness of the case for there being such a fallacy: text-book presentations are confused, alleged examples are not genuinely exemplary, reasons given for its alleged fallaciousness are not convincing. Then I analyse arguing from authority as a complex speech act. R~iecting the popular but unjustified category of the "part-time fallacy", I show that bad arguments which appeal to authority are defective through breach of some felicity condition on argument as a speech act, not through employing a bad principle of inference. 1. Introduction/Summary There's never been a satisfactory theory of fallacy, as Hamblin pointed out in his book of 1970, in what is still the least unsatisfactory discussion. Things have not much improved in the last 25 years, despite fallacies getting more attention as interest in informal logic has grown. We still lack good answers to simple questions like what is a fallacy?, what fallacies are there? and how should we classifY fallacies? The idea that argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) is a fallacy, is well-established in logical tradition. I argue that it is no such thing. The second main part of the paper is negative: I show the weakness of the case made in the literature for there being such a fallacy as argument from authority. First, text-book presentation of the fallacy is confused, second, the examples given are not genuinely exemplary and third, reasons given for its alleged fallaciousness are not convincing. -
Physics 496 Introduction to Research Lecture 2.0: Tools for the Scientific Skeptic (Lance Cooper, Laura Greene, Tony Liss, Doug Beck)
PHYS 496, Spring 2014 02/14/2014 D.H. Beck Physics 496 Introduction to Research Lecture 2.0: Tools for the Scientific Skeptic (Lance Cooper, Laura Greene, Tony Liss, Doug Beck) Critical Evaluation Scientific papers and research presentations, when well done, are very convincing. How do you know if they are correct? How do you know if your own research is correct? Answer: Apply logic. Critique the arguments made to arrive at the conclusions. “Science is simply common-sense at its best; that is, rigidly accurate in observation and merciless to fallacy in logic.“ (The Crayfish, 1880). “Darwin’s Bulldog” Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist 1825-1895 Copyright © 2014 Board of Directors of the University of Illinois 1 PHYS 496, Spring 2014 02/14/2014 D.H. Beck Aside: Oxford Evolution Debate Held at the Oxford University Museum seven months after the 1859 publication of The Origin of Species. Bishop Samuel Wilberforce to Huxley: “On which side do you claim your descent from a monkey, your grandmother or your grandfather?” Huxley: “I would not be ashamed to be descended from a monkey. But I would be ashamed to be descended from a man who uses his great gifts to obscure the truth!” The Scientific Method 1. Observe and describe a phenomenon or group of phenomena. 2. Formulate an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation. 3. Use the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations. 4. Perform experimental tests of the predictions. -
The Argument Form “Appeal to Galileo”: a Critical Appreciation of Doury's Account
The Argument Form “Appeal to Galileo”: A Critical Appreciation of Doury’s Account MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO Department of Philosophy University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV 89154-5028 USA [email protected] Abstract: Following a linguistic- Résumé: En poursuivant une ap- descriptivist approach, Marianne proche linguistique-descriptiviste, Doury has studied debates about Marianne Doury a étudié les débats “parasciences” (e.g. astrology), dis- sur les «parasciences » (par exem- covering that “parascientists” fre- ple, l'astrologie), et a découvert que quently argue by “appeal to Galileo” les «parasavants» raisonnent souvent (i.e., defend their views by compar- en faisant un «appel à Galilée" (c.-à- ing themselves to Galileo and their d. ils défendent leurs points de vue opponents to the Inquisition); oppo- en se comparant à Galileo et en nents object by criticizing the analo- comparant leurs adversaires aux gy, charging fallacy, and appealing juges de l’Inquisition). Les adver- to counter-examples. I argue that saires des parasavant critiquent Galilean appeals are much more l'analogie en la qualifiant de soph- widely used, by creationists, global- isme, et en construisant des contre- warming skeptics, advocates of “set- exemples. Je soutiens que les appels tled science”, great scientists, and à Galilée sont beaucoup plus large- great philosophers. Moreover, sever- ment utilisés, par des créationnistes, al subtypes should be distinguished; des sceptiques du réchauffement critiques questioning the analogy are planétaire, des défenseurs de la «sci- proper; fallacy charges are problem- ence établie», des grands scien- atic; and appeals to counter- tifiques, et des grands philosophes. examples are really indirect critiques En outre, on doit distinguer plusieurs of the analogy. -
The Impact Factor Fallacy
bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/108027; this version posted February 20, 2017. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 1 Title: 2 The impact factor fallacy 3 Authors: 4 Frieder Michel Paulus 1; Nicole Cruz 2,3; Sören Krach 1 5 Affiliations: 6 1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, University of Lübeck, 7 Ratzeburger Allee 160, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany 8 2 Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK 9 3 Laboratoire CHArt, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris, France 10 Corresponding Authors: 11 Frieder Paulus, phone: ++49-(0)451- 31017527, email: [email protected] 12 Sören Krach, phone: ++49-(0)451-5001717, email: [email protected] 13 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, University of Lübeck, 14 Ratzeburger Allee 160, D-23538 Lübeck, Germany 15 Author contributions: 16 FMP, NC, and SK wrote the manuscript. 17 Running title: The impact factor fallacy 18 Word count abstract: 135 19 Word count manuscript (including footnotes): 4013 20 Number of tables: 1 21 Number of figures: 0 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/108027; this version posted February 20, 2017. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 22 Abstract 23 The use of the journal impact factor (JIF) as a measure for the quality of individual 24 manuscripts and the merits of scientists has faced significant criticism in recent years. -
35. Logic: Common Fallacies Steve Miller Kennesaw State University, [email protected]
Kennesaw State University DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University Sexy Technical Communications Open Educational Resources 3-1-2016 35. Logic: Common Fallacies Steve Miller Kennesaw State University, [email protected] Cherie Miller Kennesaw State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/oertechcomm Part of the Technical and Professional Writing Commons Recommended Citation Miller, Steve and Miller, Cherie, "35. Logic: Common Fallacies" (2016). Sexy Technical Communications. 35. http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/oertechcomm/35 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Educational Resources at DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sexy Technical Communications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Logic: Common Fallacies Steve and Cherie Miller Sexy Technical Communication Home Logic and Logical Fallacies Taken with kind permission from the book Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense by J. Steve Miller and Cherie K. Miller Brilliant People Believe Nonsense [because]... They Fall for Common Fallacies The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. ― George Eliot, in Silas Marner In the last chapter we discussed passages where bright individuals with PhDs violated common fallacies. Even the brightest among us fall for them. As a result, we should be ever vigilant to keep our critical guard up, looking for fallacious reasoning in lectures, reading, viewing, and especially in our own writing. None of us are immune to falling for fallacies. -
Critical Thinking, Common Fallacies, and Leadership
Critical Thinking, Common Fallacies, and Leadership Judge Hal Campbell, Ph.D. One of my all-time favorite movies was Tom Clancy’s, Hunt for Red October. Within that movie there is a scene that I found fascinating within my capacity as a university professor teaching logic and statistics. The scene involves a meeting of top level decision makers who are gathered around a table in the basement of the Whitehouse, and after a briefing given by Jack Ryan pertaining to the design, construction, and launch of a new Russian submarine, the National Security Advisor who is chairing the meeting asks Admiral Greer (the character played by James Earl Jones) what conclusions he has made. The Admiral responded, “Sir, the data support no conclusions as of yet”. I thought this statement was one of the more profound expressions that I had ever heard in any movie. What an astonishing and refreshing response I thought to myself. He was exactly right that it was premature, given the limited information available at the time, to base any decision about the Russian’s intent, mission, or objectives. The data simply didn’t support any conclusion, yet there at the conference table, sat a gaggle of top-level executives who were actively engage in supposition and speculation resulting in the fabrication all sorts of boogie-men, end of day’s scenarios, and rationale for a first strike option that needed to be recommended to the President. As I have pointed out in previous articles, critical thinking, logic, and reasoning are not taught as a separate academic discipline within our K-12 school system. -
Checking Your Arguments: 2
Checking Your Arguments: 2 The kind of logic that is used in constructing an essay is not dependent on specialized learning or some esoteric technique. It is the kind of logic that normal people use every day in making decisions and in trying to persuade other people to share their opinions. But every word of a written argument is generally scrutinized very carefully by its readers, so special care is needed to keep logical fallacies from ruining the argument. By getting into the habit of searching the first draft of your papers for logical fallacies, you can not only improve your writing but also refine the logic that you use in everyday discussions and decisions. Here is a check-list of some of the logical "fallacies" (or mistakes) that even good writers may easily fall into. The use of logical fallacies often results in faulty conclusions; it can lead people into terrible difficulties, not just in writing, but in making real-life decisions. A fallacy may, however, appear in an argument for a perfectly correct idea; it may, in that case, discredit even that correct idea--but it will certainly discredit the author. Suppose, for instance, that someone argued that roses, like human beings, are living things, that there is a similarity between plants and people, and that, therefore, because all plants eventually die, we can expect that all people will eventually die, too. Now, it's perfectly true that all people will die; the problem is that the argument that is used to prove this (an argument by analogy) is so fallacious that it could never, in itself, establish the fact of human mortality. -
Common Reasoning Mistakes
Common Fallacies (mistakes of reasoning) The fallacy fallacy • There is danger even in the study of fallacies. This study involves identifying certain patterns of reasoning as fallacies. Each pattern has a name. E.g. an argument that attacks a person is ad hominem. But ad hominem arguments are not always fallacies! • Rejecting an argument as a (named) fallacy, based on its pattern alone, is a fallacy that we might call the fallacy fallacy. • In general, an ad hominem is only legitimate when attacking an argument from authority. • But not all such attacks on authority are legitimate. They can be made on irrelevant grounds. Irrelevant ad hominem E.g. Einstein’s physics was attacked on the basis of Einstein being Jewish. Thomas Powers, Heisenberg’s War, p. 41 Fallacy? • Alliance leader Stockwell Day argues that Canada should increase its military expenditure now, by at least 20%, in order to continue to meet our NATO obligations five years from now. But Day is a fundamentalist who thinks the universe is only 6,000 years old! Clearly his view can be dismissed. • Probably a fallacy. If Day is presenting evidence (e.g. based on future NATO obligations) then an ad hominem response is automatically fallacious. Even if Day is arguing from authority, then his (religion based) views about the age of the earth are likely not relevant to his views about military needs. • Mr. Wilson, in his letter of January 16, argues that it would be counter-productive to yield to the demands of the hostage takers. He does not, I take it, have a son or daughter among the hostages. -
Logic and the Common Law Trial
University of Kentucky UKnowledge Law Faculty Scholarly Articles Law Faculty Publications Summer 1994 Logic and the Common Law Trial Richard H. Underwood University of Kentucky College of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub Part of the Legal Profession Commons, and the Litigation Commons Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Richard H. Underwood, Logic and the Common Law Trial, 18 Am. J. Trial Advoc. 151 (1994). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Faculty Publications at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Law Faculty Scholarly Articles by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Logic and the Common Law Trial Notes/Citation Information American Journal of Trial Advocacy, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 151-199 This article is available at UKnowledge: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub/261 Logic and the Common Law Trial Richard H. Underwoodt The only certain ground for discovering truth is the faculty of discriminat- ing false from true.... Otherwise, I can assure you, you will be led by the nose by anyone who chooses to do it, and you will run after anything they hold out to you, as cattle do after a green bough.' I. Introduction Throughout history, right up to the present day, there have been persistent, if somewhat contradictory, attempts by members of the legal guild to attribute to the practice of law some of the characteristics of religion and science.' Fortunately, references to the trial lawyer as "the priest in the [T]emple of [J]ustice" 3 have pretty much disappeared from the literature. -
The Science of Software Engineering the Science of Software Engineering
The Science of Software Engineering Marvin Zelkowitz Department of Computer Science University of Maryland College Park, Maryland [email protected] ESEM - 2009 1 ESEM – October 2009 A Need for a The Science of Software Engineering Marvin Zelkowitz Department of Computer Science University of Maryland College Park, Maryland [email protected] ESEM - 2009 2 ESEM – October 2009 1 Organization of talk Some personal comments on how I arrived at the theme of this talk What are the issues in developing a science of software engineering? What’s next? ESEM – October 2009 3 So what have I been doing for the past 40 years? Most of my professional life has been at the University of Maryland, teaching and doing research in the general area of software engineering. But those who know me, know that I have three other areas of great interest. ESEM – October 2009 4 2 One is attending science fiction conventions ESEM – October 2009 5 A second is my interest in model railroading Layout obviously unfinished. ESEM – October 2009 6 3 A third is that I consider myself a professional skeptic ESEM – October 2009 7 A third is that I consider myself a professional skeptic I belong to an organization of skeptics. Ha! Ha! ESEM – October 2009 8 4 A third is that I consider myself a professional skeptic That’s No! not true! You can’t do that! It’s all bogus! ESEM – October 2009 9 A third is that I consider myself a professional skeptic What does this really mean? And how does this relate to software engineering? This is the general theme of the rest of this talk. -
Breaking Down the Invisible Wall of Informal Fallacies in Online
Breaking Down the Invisible Wall of Informal Fallacies in Online Discussions Saumya Yashmohini Sahai Oana Balalau The Ohio State University, USA Inria, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France [email protected] [email protected] Roxana Horincar Thales Research & Technology, France [email protected] Abstract more appropriate. Fallacies are prevalent in public discourse. For example, The New York Times la- People debate on a variety of topics on online beled the tweets of Donald Trump between 2015 platforms such as Reddit, or Facebook. De- bates can be lengthy, with users exchanging and 2020 and found thousands of insults addressed a wealth of information and opinions. How- to his adversaries. If made in an argument, an in- ever, conversations do not always go smoothly, sult is an ad hominem fallacy: an attack on the and users sometimes engage in unsound argu- opponent rather than on their argument. In pri- mentation techniques to prove a claim. These vate conversations, other types of fallacies might techniques are called fallacies. Fallacies are be more prevalent, for example, appeal to tradition persuasive arguments that provide insufficient or appeal to nature. Appeal to tradition dismisses or incorrect evidence to support the claim. In calls to improve gender equality by stating that this paper, we study the most frequent falla- cies on Reddit, and we present them using “women have always occupied this place in soci- the pragma-dialectical theory of argumenta- ety”. Appeal to nature is often used to ignore calls tion. We construct a new annotated dataset of to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community by stat- fallacies, using user comments containing fal- ing “gender is binary”. -
Questionable Authority Fallacy Examples
Questionable Authority Fallacy Examples Full-fledged and hearing-impaired Bernie often antedating some Trajan salutarily or emceed incontinently. Michal is ditheistic: she pettishly.accumulate unattainably and wears her Natalia. Preventive and rose-cheeked Hussein often triangulate some eglantines thereby or image PowerPoint Presentation San Jose State University. Patrons to wake out materials that contain questionable content and laundry a. Evidence or examples irrelevant to the argument at hand free to. Fallacy Appeal of Authority Nizkor Project. Summary Fallacies of Credibility and Context Fallacy Definition Example extend to current Authority Using testimonial evidence brought a proposition when the. Also dumb as argument from this appeal their false authority argument. The questionable course, questionable authority that? Logical Fallacies Problem Solving from MindToolscom. LOGICAL FALLACIES AND VACCINES The Vaccine Makers. Using our example above we can see that it's very true to whiz the. Perhaps the process clinical information that we see the questionable authority fallacy examples of the initial working of the! For its having sufficient pull to single a reliable claim help how his tie. On the perhaps False Dichotomy Definition and examples False Dichotomy and. Appeal an Authority Examples SoftSchools. Argument from authority Wikipedia. The term authority fallacy results when neither person compose an argument. Fallacies of Relevance Appeal to Authority The domestic to bark or irrelevant authority into a fallacy in learn a rhetor public speaker or writer. Examples and Discussion Let's so a peach at every example 4 My welfare has said my medicine X will facilitate my medical condition Therefore. Macs and fallacies are less expertise: while we will gain the way around the questionable authority because of the motives of hair replacement.