I’ve seen a few “what fallacy is this?” threads springing up, and while you might assert that every fallacy is the same one (a red herring, any discussion beside the point), I wonder if it’s accurate to even call half of the blathering in Internet discussions fallacies?
A very simple paradigm of genre theory is that any statement or text has an intended audience, takes a particular form, and has an intended purpose. The term “fallacy” suggests that the intended audience is the person to whom the post is directed, the form is an argument, and the purpose is to persuade. I find that frequently is not the case, and the post in question is really something else: it’s not a bad argument, and not an argument at all.
The most common examples of non-argument posts I see are “I’m going to take a pot shot at this guy, but the real purpose is to amuse everyone else,” “I have no interest in persuading you that my position is correct, but I do want you to be ashamed of your own position,” “I would like to stop by and remind everyone that I am above this argument completely by saying something jocular and/or dismissive.”
So instead of asking, “what kind of fallacy is this?” you can ask, “what is this person trying to accomplish?” I think it’s evident that a surprising high percentage of posts are not even fallacious arguments, but asides, appeals to the gallery, taunting and chest-beating, and schoolyard bullying.
If we had appropriate Latin terms for all these things we could work them into the meta-discussion about the quality of a debate.
I think people can make fallacious arguments for a number of reasons:
Intentionally with the hope to score a “point” for their side of the argument and hope no one notices.
Unintentionally. They may really think it is a good argument and not spot the fallacy themselves. Some fallacies can be a bit obscure and easy to fall into unwittingly.
It is worth pointing them out for anyone else who may be reading the thread. Presumably you want to persuade people to your way of thinking. One way to do so is to point out that those making the counterargument are making bad arguments. Pointing out a particular line of reasoning is fallacious certainly does that.
You need to quote a specific example, because I’m not sure I understand what you are talking about. It seems that you object to calling out a fallacious argument. But calling out a logical fallacy is just standard debate practice. It’s not my job make the other person’s argument for him, and if he makes a fallacious one, I’m going to call him on it.
No, I don’t object to calling out fallacies, I just think that sometimes a post is not even substantial enough to be a fallacy, and is not meant to be an argument, even a fallacious one. I guess you could read through a thread and ask, “is this person actually trying to persuade anyone of anything?” I am not going to link to examples here, because it would make it personal and about certain posters, which is not my intention.
If they’re not trying to persuade anyone of anything, then what does it matter how someone responds to them? For me, if you post something in GD, you are making an argument. If it’s a joke, then make sure it’s clearly a joke or put a smiley on it. But lots of people try to sneak in arguments and then, when called on it, claim they are just joking.
It’s done all the time, and it’s not taken personally.
I agree that a great many of the so-called arguments are playing to the gallery or the other wingnuts who already agree with the bizarre position that someone is attempting to defend or promote.
Don’t. Coming into GD on the SDMB without the intention of engaging in an honest and rational debate is missing the point of the site and the forum.
Most of the behaviors you listed in the OP, in this forum, count as threadshitting, trolling, or thread derailing. Report posts like that to the moderators.
I think part of the problem is that people assume that there is a relatively small number (perhaps several dozen) of logical fallacies which explain all possible errors in argumentation. They assume that all possible errors can be sorted into exactly one kind of fallacy, that the fallacies cover all possible types of errors, and that the fallacies are sufficiently well defined so that it’s clear whether a given error falls under a given fallacy. I don’t think that’s true. I would assert that teaching people about standard logical fallacies is useful, but it doesn’t completely explain all possible mistakes in argumentation. (Also, it’s probably better to call them argumentation fallacies rather than logical fallacies, since they often have nothing to do with logic in a mathematical or philosophical sense; rather, they are sometimes ways of using psychological tricks in one’s claims.)
The list in implicit’s link to cracked.com shows that, far from making argumentation clearer and easier to check, new fallacies have been created on the Internet. I think that it might be better not to try to classify all errors in reasoning and just explain what the error is without trying to fit it into a category. Incidentally, one of the common errors I see is just that the arguer can’t be bothered to do the arithmetic. Instead of calling this a fallacy, just tell him that his arithmetic is wrong.
Of course fallacies are logical fallacies. That is the whole point. The person making the argument has made an error in logic. The idea being that the conclusion cannot follow from the premise. The logical progression is broken so you cannot conclude what you are asserting should be concluded.
Granted logical fallacies can be subtle in some cases but if a fallacy is committed the conclusion is, by definition, in error (at least using that line of reasoning). Therefore their argument cannot be relied upon. It may be possible the conclusion is correct but not using that line of thought. The person needs to restate their argument or give it up and concede the point (not that this happens here but in theory).
I wouldn’t say that at all. They have made an error in argumentation, not in logic. The term “logic” should be reserved for discussions in philosophy or mathematics, not for other types of argumentation. Often what people have done is use some psychological trick to distract the other people from noticing what they have done. I wouldn’t call that a matter of logic.
I tend to reserve “logical fallacies” for arguments that take a logical structure, but I can see where the term can mean any flawed reasoning; it’s really two different meanings of “logical,” one specialized and one common.