Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate

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Profile j mercer
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Message 1917594 - Posted: 8 Feb 2018, 3:12:14 UTC

Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html
Introduction

This is a guide to using logical fallacies in debate. And when I say "using," I don't mean just pointing them out when opposing debaters commit them -- I mean deliberately committing them oneself, or finding ways to transform fallacious arguments into perfectly good ones.
Debate is, fortunately or not, an exercise in persuasion, wit, and rhetoric, not just logic. In a debate format that limits each debater's speaking time, it is simply not reasonable to expect every proposition or conclusion to follow precisely and rigorously from a clear set of premises stated at the outset. Instead, debaters have to bring together various facts, insights, and values that others share or can be persuaded to accept, and then show that those ideas lead more or less plausibly to a conclusion. Logic is a useful tool in this process, but it is not the only tool -- after all, "plausibility" is a fairly subjective matter that does not follow strict logical rules. Ultimately, the judge in a debate round has to decide which side's position is more plausible in light of the arguments given -- and the judge is required to pick one of those sides, even if logic alone dictates that "we do not know" is the answer to the question at hand.

Besides, let's be honest: debate is not just about finding truth, it's also about winning. If you think a fallacious argument can slide by and persuade the judge to vote for you, you're going to make it, right? The trick is not getting caught.



So why learn logical fallacies at all?

I can think of a couple of good reasons. First, it makes you look smart. If you can not only show that the opposition has made an error in reasoning, but you can give that error a name as well (in Latin!), it shows that you can think on your feet and that you understand the opposition's argument possibly better than they do.
Second, and maybe more importantly, pointing out a logical fallacy is a way of removing an argument from the debate rather than just weakening it. Much of the time, a debater will respond to an argument by simply stating a counterargument showing why the original argument is not terribly significant in comparison to other concerns, or shouldn't be taken seriously, or whatever. That kind of response is fine, except that the original argument still remains in the debate, albeit in a less persuasive form, and the opposition is free to mount a rhetorical offensive saying why it's important after all. On the other hand, if you can show that the original argument actually commits a logical fallacy, you put the opposition in the position of justifying why their original argument should be considered at all. If they can't come up with a darn good reason, then the argument is actually removed from the round.

...
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Message 1917937 - Posted: 9 Feb 2018, 22:33:43 UTC

Message 1917592 - Posted: 8 Feb 2018, 3:06:26 UTC
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=78752&postid=1917592#1917592
Ok, let's just stop this. Maybe someone can start a thread on debate strategies and argumentative logic, but otherwise, please keep the discussion about the topic rather than the way posters are expressing themselves.

Just following Mr. Gordon Lowe's superior suggestion.

A play book by which to get the ball in the end zone and win the game.

A list of labels to trash your antagonist's posts with.

I like to copy & pasting neat stuff. har...
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Profile MOMMY: He is MAKING ME Read His Posts Thoughts and Prayers. GOoD Thoughts and GOoD Prayers. HATERWORLD Vs THOUGHTs and PRAYERs World. It Is a BATTLE ROYALE. Nobody LOVEs Me. Everybody HATEs Me. Why Don't I Go Eat Worms. Tasty Treats are Wormy Meat. Yes
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Message 1917956 - Posted: 9 Feb 2018, 23:53:48 UTC

When ninety per cent. out of the ten or twelve people one meets in a month not only say but feel and assume a thing, it is very hard not to fall into the belief that the thing is so. Imperceptibly almost Ann Veronica began to acquire the new attitude, even while her mind still resisted the felted ideas that went with it. And Miss Miniver began to sway her. The very facts that Miss Miniver never stated an argument clearly, that she was never embarrassed by a sense of self-contradiction, and had little more respect for consistency of statement than a washerwoman has for wisps of vapor, which made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at their first encounter in Morningside Park, became at last with constant association the secret of Miss Miniver’s growing influence. The brain tires of resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently active, the same phrases, the same ideas that it has already slain, exposed and dissected and buried, it becomes less and less energetic to repeat the operation. There must be something, one feels, in ideas that achieve persistently a successful resurrection. What Miss Miniver would have called the Higher Truth supervenes. Yet through these talks, these meetings and conferences, these movements and efforts, Ann Veronica, for all that she went with her friend, and at times applauded with her enthusiastically, yet went nevertheless with eyes that grew more and more puzzled, and fine eyebrows more and more disposed to knit. She was with these movements— akin to them, she felt it at times intensely— and yet something eluded her. Morningside Park had been passive and defective; all this rushed about and was active, but it was still defective. It still failed in something. It did seem germane to the matter that so many of the people “in the van” were plain people, or faded people, or tired-looking people. It did affect the business that they all argued badly and were egotistical in their manners and inconsistent in their phrases. There were moments when she doubted whether the whole mass of movements and societies and gatherings and talks was not simply one coherent spectacle of failure protecting itself from abjection by the glamour of its own assertions.

H. G. Wells. Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story
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Yes IndeedEEE. BRAINIAC REPETITION Leads to ZOMBIE Acceptance of False Movements.

Yes MadamPELOSER I WILL DO AS YOU....

Yap Yap Yap Yap Yap Yap Yap Yap Yap

May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!
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Message boards : Politics : Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate


 
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