General discussion

OSSA Day 3: do we commit or use fallacies?

IGOR Ž. ŽAGAR (Educational Research Institute & Univ. of Maribor, Slovenia)
Fallacies: Do We “Use” Them or “Commit” Them?

Zagar poses two questions . First, an epistemological one: do we (everyone, politicians, the media…) commit fallacies, or do we (intentionally) use them? Second, a methodological one: when we (philosophers, sociologists, discourse analysts…) detect a fallacy, on what conceptual grounds do we differentiate between committed and used fallacies? Is there a difference?

Eg1: "France is hexagonal" is only roughly true.  It's not really true, but roughly so.

Eg2: "Eisenhower won that battle" is only roughly true.  The soldiers won the battle… but it's still acceptable.

So: assessing good arguments (e.g., validity) requires a formal system to be brought in.  They are translated into the system and evaluated according to that system.  The question is whether we are using the appropriate criteria.

Eg3: If A just wants to get B to accept p.  A knows B accepts q, so A gives B the argument: 'q, therefore p.'  Relative to the criterion of rhetorical success, A's argument is good.

Can there be a classification of fallacies? Are they too unruly to classify?  Are there fallacies at all?  If some fallacies seem unavoidable and ever present, then perhaps we should be concerned about classifying it a fallacy.

Eg4: Skepticism about induction becomes acceptance of inductive principles. Asserting from the consequent as abduction.  Vicious circles to coherent systems.

Some conclusions: we don't need to be inflating fallacy theory with more fallacies. Rather, we need to understand the right criteria to understand the various forms of argument we see.  Context-dependence (kn owledge of the speakers, circumstances, purposes of discussion) of fallacy assessments, and once we do that, we see that appraisal and acceptability varies.

Q1: One can evaluate arguments relative to context (e.g. in Walton's work and from the pragma-dialectical perspective) and see lots of fallacies.  Sure, context matters, but we can see fallacies still in the contexts.  Say, they break the conventions of the speech events. Or they are obstructive moves in the contexts.

Q2: Are you really contesting fallacy theory uberhaupt?  Just b/c arg form X is unavoidable in context C, does that really mean that X isn't fallacious? 

Q3: Take Bacon's Doctrine of the Idols.  It's a story of the development of superstitions.  Aren't these observations useful?  We need to cultivate a package of habits that are attentive to these vices.

Q4: Isn't this a false dilemma?  It's either a perfect crystaline form for evaluation or all subjective?  Don't most theories of argumentation work on working out a tertium quid?

Q5: What about equivocation?  Isn't that a fallacy, even on the subjectivist account?

Q6: Isn't reasoning a rule bound excercise?  Fallacies are cases where we break the rules.

General discussion

OSSA Day Two: how many premises?

Geoff Goddu, U. Richmond

"How Many Premises Can an Argument Have?"

Opening question: Is it possible for an argument to have either zero premises or an infinite number of premises?

Goddu's answer is that regardless of how you conceive of arguments  (as sets of propositions, sentences or speech acts), you should accept that an argument could have an infinite number of premises. Goddu's case: arguments that prove that there is a one-to-one relation between all numbers and even numbers (they can have an infinite number of premises).

The zero premise case is more complicated. On certain conceptions there are good reasons to accept the possibility of zero premise arguments, but on other conceptions there are good reasons to reject this possibility.  Goddu's case: Sorensen arguments of the form:

Is there an argument that there are no-premise arguments? Yes: here's one.

————

C Therefore, there are arguments with zero premises.

Cute!

Q1: Can there be arguments with non-denumerably infinite premises?

Q2: Doesn't this misrepresent what arguments are about, namely, making  a transition in thought?

Q3: Aren't demonstrations of tautologies (e.g., with CP or IP) arguments with no premises?

Q4: "Why p?  Just because!"  Can' that be a zero-premise argument?

General discussion

OSSA Day 2: Fallacy Identification

5 Comments

Last session of the day, Mark Battersby and Sharon Bailin's "Fallacy Identification in a Dialectical Approach to Teaching Critical Thinking," argued for the following three points:

  • Fallacies are arguments whose rhetorical value greatly exceeds their probative value;
  • Fallacy identification plays a prima facie role in eliminating bad arguments;
  • Fallacies are not the end of critical analysis, but open the door to more comprehensive evaluation.

Very helpfully, they set their view against some other common approaches to fallacies (Rescher, Hansen, Pragma-Dialectics, Walton–should do a post on these some day).  Interesting about their definition (immediately called into question by Christoph Lumer), was the idea of "rhetorical value."  He maintained that this would exclude many cases of fallacy.  For instance, absurd arguments which have little probative power; or, relatedly, an argument with lots of probative power and little persuasive power.  Battersby stood his ground that rhetorically powerless arguments can't really be fallacious, as no one would by them.

Some good commentary by van Laar (read by Krabbe).

*edited–thanks mustache man.  I was typing this during the session, trying to be quiet.

General discussion

OSSA Day 2: Reasonable Hostility

Karen Tracy, University of Colorado-Boulder

"Reasonable Hostility"

Some background questions: Is there such a thing as reasonable hostility?  Is that an oxymoron?  If there is such a thing as reasonable hostility in argument, then are the constraints of civility improper in some cases?

A rough version of reasonable hostility. First, there's a difference between speaker-hostility and listener-perception of hostility (you can get a non-hostile question, but perceive it as hostile).  Second, reasonable hostility must be to a perceived wrong, but not to initiate a wrong. Third, whatever hostility manifested must be from care for the issue, not hating a speaker.  There must be the required face-work in the midst of that hostility.

Some examples of hostility (and reasonable hostility) from the Hawaii Same-Sex Civil Union debates.  Some features: Passionate speech, some attention to face but still causing insult (e.g., calling opponents to Same-Sex Marriage bigots, face-saving by opponents to Same-Sex opposition… "it's not about hatred…",  Opponents to same-sex marriage point out that the proponents don't apologize for their tone, Proponents responding that they can't apologize because they've been the ones who are being wronged)

One thing to remember: to distinguish between what's persuasable and what's not. Reasonable hostility must take account of what can and cannot be argued in a culture at a time. 

Q1: What's the role of critical thinking?  What, other than argument, changed the culture so that gay-rights issues are arguable now?

Q2: What's the tipping point between arguable and non-arguable? Or is it a matter of degree?

Q3: Why so much face-work?  Is it because of the fact that an issue is becoming non-arguable?

Q4: Is reasonable hostility a norm, or is it a description of how folks are actually manifest hostility?

General discussion

OSSA Day 2: Mannequin

Interesting thing about broad topic conferences such as this is that you'll see people from all sorts of disciplines, places, approaches present papers on all sorts of topics.  This morning, for instance, I heard Emma Engdahl, Marie Gelang, and Alyssa O'Brien's "The Visual Rhetoric of Store-window Mannequinas," the title of which gives you a good idea what the paper was about.  Luckily, the presentation was accompanied by a slide show of mannequins from various times and places.  The authors noted the particular phenomenon of headless mannequins, a fact which inspired much discussion.  There are a couple of more papers on the topic of visual arguments (one, in fact, on visual negation–I hope to see that one tomorrow).   

General discussion

OSSA Day 2: Epistemic community

Michel Dufor, Univ. Sorbonne Nouvelle

"Epistemic Communities and Arguments for New Knowledge"

Dufor's background presumptions: Communities are epistemic when sharing specific beliefs, interests and arguments. E.g., religious and scientific communities.  The question is how knowledge is produced in these communities.

Dufour's suggestion: Poincare on the difference between justification and intuition in mathematics is a model for mathematical creativity.

Q1: What about Socrates and Meno's slave boy?  Is the slave boy creative, or is the means of demonstration with Socrates only about justification?

Q2: What is the difference between intuition and mathematical induction?  Is there only a difference in modes of presentation?

General discussion

OSSA Day One: Religion in Critical Thinking Class?

The last paper of the day for me was Donald Hatcher's "Should Critical Thinking Courses Include the Critique of Religious Beliefs?" 

Hatcher argued for various reasons that religious beliefs ought to be subject to critical scrutiny.  He ran through about eight potential objections to critiquing religious beliefs (I'll try to get a copy of the handout if not the paper), answering them all and concluding that indeed religious beliefs ought to be subject to critical scrutiny in critical thinking courses.

So far so good.  One questioner wondered, however, whether there are special considerations in college courses.  Most of Hatcher's arguments concerned the general question of scrutiny of relgious beliefs, not, as advertised, the particular question of classroom critique.  The paper commenter had similar intuitions, pointing out that some religious views might best be considered in opposition to certain scientific views (such as for instance evolution).

General discussion

OSSA Day One: Emotion and Reason

Robert Pinto, University of Windsor

"Emotions and Reasons"

Pinto argues:  (1) emotions can provide reasons for action because the evaluative attitudes at their core can, together with cognitive attitudes, provide reasons for the conative attitudes (desires and intentions) – which are reasons to act

(2) evaluative attitudes can be rooted in reasons insofar as they arise from a combination of cognitive attitudes together with other evaluative or conative attitudes which (potentially) render them rational.

Q1: Can one fear something without believing it is impeding (e.g., is it right to say that some S can live in fear of cancer without having the belief that it is impending?)

Q2: What is it to value wrongly?  How does one determine that one has done so?

Q3: What about irrational fears/emotions?  E.g., one certainly can fear spiders without having any beliefs about their badness.  One can even fear them despite actively believing them to be good thing!

General discussion

OSSA Day One: Presumptions

David Godden, Old Dominion

"Presumptions in Argument: Epistemic versus Social Approaches"

Godden's paper is a response to Kauffield's 'commitment-based' approaches to presumption.  The commitment model is one where there are socially grounded defeasible presumptions about the right sort of ways for people to behave.  The question is whether these 'ought' claims are a basis for making presumptions about how people will behave.

The main issue of contention was whether the moral expectations about people (e.g., that people ought not drive drunk, or that people ought to do their jobs), when defeated (e.g., when you see that S is visibly drunk and behind the wheel of the car, when you see serious dereliction of duty) disappear.  Godden says yes:  he calls them 'busted bubbles'.

Some questions:

Q1: Are presumptions about duties really predictions?

Q2: Surely the duties don't go away when our predictions are defeated.  Is this a matter of what you expect morally vs expect epistemically?

Q3: Should it be Dr. Livingston, I assume?

General discussion

Ossa Day One: arguing for the sake of it

1 Comment

In hte 2 O'Clock Daniel Cohen read a paper called "academic arguments."  Simply put, an academic argument is one that really matters not–a knowledge for its own sake argument in other words.  The question raised was basically whether one has any justification for engaging in such an argument.  Though Cohen is skeptical that any such purely academic arguments exist (he didn't give any examples), he argued nonetheless that it would be worthwhile, on ethical grounds, to engage in them. 

One interesting objection, the last one made at the end of the session, concerned whether we can really abstract the question from other ones: in particular, though knowledge may be intrinsically valuable, it is the least of intrinsic goods, so there will likely always be something better to do than argue for the sake of it. 

Your argument is invalid