Why logical arguments are bad arguments

[Uncle]

mostly posting this here so I can find it again later

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/why-logical-arguments-are-bad-arguments (https://archive.is/1Dycy)

I don't know if I agree with everything he says here, but the section about how most "logical fallacies" are used constantly with no pushback and are actually fine resonates with me

a lot of fallacies always include disclaimers that they're ok sometimes, which just says "these are ok when I like them, when they feeeel more correct"

like, slippery slopes aren't strictly logical guarantees, but come the fuck on, some consequences are near enough to certain to constitute a pretty good argument

"appeal to authority" is only bad when people don't like the authority, "oh that researcher has a clear agenda and was discredited ages ago by other people I already trust implicitly, so you can safely disregard everything they said"



also, this takedown of the Karl Popper shitty meme infographic

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/the-paradoxes-of-the-tolerant (https://archive.is/uuySm)

[Potato]

It usually comes from the person using the logical argument assuming that their chosen logic is the only logic that can be true. Dunno which one that is on the chart, but it must be true because of my feelings.

[Besticus Maximus]

Most ‘logical’ arguments on the internet are semantic arguments, and the debate ‘rules’ around fallacies are largely a load of sophist horseshit.

[Uncle]

Most ‘logical’ arguments on the internet are semantic arguments, and the debate ‘rules’ around fallacies are largely a load of sophist horseshit.

well, I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because some people gleefully dive into fallacies and are just so, so dumb

they will say things like "you can't call my argument a strawman like pulling a red card on a play, this isn't a formal debate, you won't earn points or anything"

but calling argument is a strawman is shorthand for "you've misrepresented my words in the worst possible light, whether because you have abysmal literacy or are actually not willing to discuss this in good faith," and you can either type all that out, or just call it a strawman

people can inherently identify fallacies and call them out in other ways without using the actual words like "ad hominem," and we're at the point where idiots have developed the knee-jerk opposite response that calling out a fallacy is now what "loses you points" and gives them the right to continue attacking a person rather than their arguments etc.

[benji]

"appeal to authority" is only bad when people don't like the authority, "oh that researcher has a clear agenda and was discredited ages ago by other people I already trust implicitly, so you can safely disregard everything they said"

No, appeal to authority is bad because it relies on the unspoken premise that the authority is considered valid by both people. It changes the debate and argument away from itself to focus on the claimed authority and almost never any argument of the authority only its conclusion. It's an attempt to circumvent argument not an actual argument. Appeal to authority isn't citation within an argument, it's a suppression of argument. If you and I are debating if it's raining outside me telling you that the Weather Channel says it is does not trump your argument that we should look out the window. The appeal to authority comes when I ask if you think your amateur looking outside really trumps a multi-billion dollar organization full of experts.

Also generally, appeals to authority come about in the form of appealing to their authority in some other manner to mean you should accept their authority in all things. The most typical example being Paul Krugman's New York Times column where his status as someone who has written an economics text book on mundane rarely disputed basics means you should listen uncritically to his pronouncements on every aspect of society. Or see another form of authority where proclaimed expertise on Biblical canon means your authority about God's unknowable divine plan trumps observation about what orbits what.

In fact, the use of logical fallacies that article is referring to is itself an appeal to authority, a trump card, once you identify the person's logical fallacy you link them to the website and declare victory. This is itself poor reasoning because it assumes that if you find a flaw in reasoning the person must give up their conclusion and adopt yours. In most instance it's the premises, not the reasoning or conclusion, that's the actual source of the dispute. The Born Again type like on ResetERA.com is a good example where the person doesn't challenge their premises (or the reasoning really) they simply change definitions of sins and sinners.

Searching for logical fallacies isn't a panacea because many of the worst arguments are perfectly logical.

I have no idea why that Popper article bothers wasting time with Rawls, it's the exact kind of appeal to authority I'm talking about. That because Popper said it, we should agree. The fact that Popper wasn't stupid enough to say it in the form the meme uses it and that the meme openly calls for the state to suppress the speech of anyone the state does not like plus the fact that the meme favors suppression of the meme itself needs no appeal to an authoritarian authority like Rawls who actually spends most of his time explaining why the state should be presumed to be allowed to violate liberty whenever it wants to.

[Eric Cartman]

mostly posting this here so I can find it again later

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/why-logical-arguments-are-bad-arguments (https://archive.is/1Dycy)

I don't know if I agree with everything he says here, but the section about how most "logical fallacies" are used constantly with no pushback and are actually fine resonates with me

a lot of fallacies always include disclaimers that they're ok sometimes, which just says "these are ok when I like them, when they feeeel more correct"

like, slippery slopes aren't strictly logical guarantees, but come the fuck on, some consequences are near enough to certain to constitute a pretty good argument

"appeal to authority" is only bad when people don't like the authority, "oh that researcher has a clear agenda and was discredited ages ago by other people I already trust implicitly, so you can safely disregard everything they said"



also, this takedown of the Karl Popper shitty meme infographic

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/the-paradoxes-of-the-tolerant (https://archive.is/uuySm)

I don't know if its a linguistic or cultural difference he is approaching a lot of these from, but he kind of fundamentally misunderstand their use in his analysis.

I mean, if he wants to say "These are bad because idiots misuse them in arguments", there's zero pushback from me, but there's plenty of other rhetorical devices morons utilise to prop up their own shitty intellects to try and win arguments once someone has used them against them.

Like, the 'authority' example you give - its not so much 'only when I don't like it'; it is a fundamentally flawed rationale for debate.
"Popular person likes thing, therefore thing is good" is inherently not a strong or compelling argument.
It's literally "Bad person likes thing, therefore thing is bad" from the other direction.
This is the most common usage of this fallacy, but there is also a related fallacy related to unrelated authority - for example, "Harvard scientist says climate change is not real, and they are a HARVARD SCIENTIST!"; if they're not a climatologist, they have fuck all more insight into a topic they are not an expert in than anyone else does.

Logical fallacies being exposed aren't intended to be linguistic cudgels to shut down arguments; they're like narrative tropes.
They are intended to be exposing 'logic traps' where you are either weakening your argument, or failing to meet basic rational standards, for whatever reason.
Even with their use in things like formal debates they're not intended to be 'red card - YOUR OPINION IS NOW INVALID!", they're like... I dunno, fluffing the landing in gymnastics or something. The rest of the argument is where the majority of points would be picked up.
Outside of formal debate structure, they still have use for the exact same reasons understanding the use of tropes even if youre only consuming media and not writing it.

[Uncle]

authority seems reasonable as a metric if both parties can agree that the authority knows what they're talking about

and the opposite scenario -- the idea that no one should appeal to accepted science or consensus of knowledge and instead must fully understand and articulate that information themselves -- that also seems untenable and ridiculous

unless you're going out in the field performing experiments yourself, almost all information we have access to is appealing to some type of authority who gathered that data, and trusting that they did a good job at it

Outside of formal debate structure, they still have use for the exact same reasons understanding the use of tropes even if youre only consuming media and not writing it.

like I said, outside of formal debate structure they have use because even without understanding the formal idea/terminology of a fallacy, you can say things like "you've misrepresented my argument, let me try to explain it again in a way you might understand better"

[Eric Cartman]

I mean... Most anyone who's ever been in an argument is fully cognisant what it means when someone starts nit-picking the specific example cited rather than addressing the underlying point.
The scientific method actively denounces the concept of 'authority' in the first place; nobody gives a fuck who you are if your stated claims are unable to be tested or experiments reproduced (although I'll concede you would get more benefit of the doubt if you have a reputable track record)

[Uncle]

The scientific method actively denounces the concept of 'authority' in the first place; nobody gives a fuck who you are if your stated claims are unable to be tested or experiments reproduced (although I'll concede you would get more benefit of the doubt if you have a reputable track record)

well there are countless types of things that can be debated, and not all of them are going to be rooted in science or a definite answer, it's all about convincing each other or some third party who might see the debate

we could debate some aspect of Tolkien's worldbuilding, and I could cite a quote from Tolkien himself (saying that he must know his own world better than anyone else) and you could cite a quote from a Tolkien scholar (saying that this person has probably invested more time studying and drawing connections between all his writings than Tolkien ever did himself)

those quotes are probably going to include data that supports the argument one way or the other, but the fact that they come from people who ought to know what they're talking about might lend them more credence, and anyone viewing the debate can decide for themselves, since there's really no way to know the answer for certain

[benji]

authority seems reasonable as a metric if both parties can agree that the authority knows what they're talking about

and the opposite scenario -- the idea that no one should appeal to accepted science or consensus of knowledge and instead must fully understand and articulate that information themselves -- that also seems untenable and ridiculous

unless you're going out in the field performing experiments yourself, almost all information we have access to is appealing to some type of authority who gathered that data, and trusting that they did a good job at it

I'd like to appeal to authority of the sociology of science school and the related SCIENCE MUST FALL people who argue that the problem with "accepted science" is exactly that the authority is illegitimate, namely yt cishet men, and their practices like the "scientific method" dismiss other, equally valid, ways of knowing while using epistemic violence to maintain its hegemony. You don't personally observe quarks and so on, you trust the yt cishet men, so there's no difference in me referring to my truth about magical forces and souls.

[Eric Cartman]

The scientific method actively denounces the concept of 'authority' in the first place; nobody gives a fuck who you are if your stated claims are unable to be tested or experiments reproduced (although I'll concede you would get more benefit of the doubt if you have a reputable track record)

well there are countless types of things that can be debated, and not all of them are going to be rooted in science or a definite answer, it's all about convincing each other or some third party who might see the debate

we could debate some aspect of Tolkien's worldbuilding, and I could cite a quote from Tolkien himself (saying that he must know his own world better than anyone else) and you could cite a quote from a Tolkien scholar (saying that this person has probably invested more time studying and drawing connections between all his writings than Tolkien ever did himself)

those quotes are probably going to include data that supports the argument one way or the other, but the fact that they come from people who ought to know what they're talking about might lend them more credence, and anyone viewing the debate can decide for themselves, since there's really no way to know the answer for certain

Ultimately things that are worth debating are worth debating because they are unprovable at their core tenet; which, again, is where intelligent debate ideally stems from a position of reasonableness.
A reasonable person is prepared to listen to reason and - to a greater or lesser extent - change their opinion accordingly.
Considering this, you could look at 'logical fallacies' as reasonable fallacies; the underlying issue the author of this piece has is unreasonable people using them as a cudgel to 'win' at any expense.
"Appeal To Authority" - or any other identified fallacy - through a 'reasonableness lens' rather than as 'logic to construct a solution' should make it clearer as to intended use.
Formalising 'logic' into 'reasonable' arguments is not intended to be a Win Condition - as I say, it is part of the overall point being made; it is strengthening the reasonableness (or, if you prefer, persuasiveness) of a given position.
People who are unreasonable and declare their unwillingness to change their opinion no matter what will still reject any conversational tack, logical conclusion, or evidence presented.

[Eric Cartman]

Like, I think it might have been HaughtyFrank who posted a news story about formal debate teams rejecting the entire premise of debate because bad things are happening in the world - that's not a 'logical fallacy' - its unreasonable behaviour, to reject even the possibility of discussion or persuasion.

[Uncle]

I'm not saying that you'll always arrive at truth by both accepting that some authority is correct, nor that it's not lazy, just that the realities of limited time and resources force us to accept some authorities, and they'll often be correct enough

I'm ok with just believing that pufferfish are highly toxic if prepared incorrectly because someone other than me did the research and I have no motivation to engage with the subject in-depth, and I will even gleefully tell others that I heard it somewhere and isn't that an interesting fact

[benji]

That's a colloquial "appeal to authority" not a logical "appeal to authority" and I think what both me and Eric are pointing out is that the philosophy professor is wrongly conflating the two meaning he's not an authority we should appeal to.

[Eric Cartman]

So "Does incorrectly prepared fugu kill you?" isn't really a subject for debate, in as much as its just a question of information; someone familiar with the subject wouldn't be an appeal to authority if cited as to its truth or not truth.

But something like "Incorrectly prepared fugu kills humans because the Great Pufferfish wants humans to stop eating his children" very much is.

"If that wasn't true, why would Samuel Jackson, Marvels Nick Fury himself, say it was?"*
That would be an Appeal To Authority. And even then, its still not a complete rebuttal of the claim - its just not a very strong logic - or, persuasive - line of discussion to go down.



*im pretty sure he has never said anything of the sort, but you get the point

[Uncle]

so the difference between "others have studied this and arrived at consensus" and "here's a reason I'm right: a smart person also said it, and if you respect him you'll agree with me"

not "they're right because they're smart," but "they're right because they performed the research" (not playing up credentials other than the fact that they helped establish fact)

[Eric Cartman]

so the difference between "others have studied this and arrived at consensus" and "here's a reason I'm right: a smart person also said it, and if you respect him you'll agree with me"

not "they're right because they're smart," but "they're right because they performed the research" (not playing up credentials other than the fact that they helped establish fact)

Like I said, subjects for debate are not should not be factually provable objective elements of consensus reality; they are fundamentally unprovable or subjective 'truths', and the point of the debate is to craft the most persuasive argument, or to make the most reasonable attack / defence of a given subject.

So if the topic of debate was "What is best in life?", you can't shouldn't respond that Conan says to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women, therefore the subject of debate is proven, because fucking Conan said it bro, and you ain't no Conan.

It's a fallacy for the same reason the Chappelle joke about wanting to hear what Ja Rule thinks about 9/11 is a joke; Ja Rule has no particular insight into international geopolitics, but you have heard of him.

[Potato]

What the fuck does that Conan guy know anyway?

Should we really be taking the opinion of a guy who had a deprived childhood with no life experiences? He might have been educated in some exclusive boarding school, but his abusive stepfather didn't really teach him much about life and the dude had to buy him a hooker just so he could lose his virginity.

No I don't think we should be taking his opinion as gospel.

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair is a genuinely valid expression of what is best in life and comes from a guy who had actual lived experience, unlike that Conan shut-in guy.