Asking The Right Questions - Chapter 7

Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning?

Summary

In previous chapters, we learn to extract some essential information from the raw reading material for a meaningful overall structure, including the issue, the conclusion, the reasons, the value and the assumptions. After knowing the necessity to judge the acceptability and the worth of author's conclusions, we now move to questions requiring us to make judgments more directly and explicitly about the worth or the quality of the reasoning.

The first step to evaluate the reasoning is to examine its structure and determine whether the reasoning has depended on false or highly doubtful assumptions. Normally, the author has three tricks which we called fallacies:

1. providing reasoning that requires erroneous or incorrect assumptions, thus making it irrelevant to the conclusion;

2. distracting us by making information seem relevant to the conclusion when it is not;

3. providing support for the conclusion that depends on the conclusion's already being true.

A fallacy is a reasoning “trick” that an author might use while trying to persuade you to accept a conclusion. Instead of being aware of all the fallacies and their numerous types, we can actually spot such tricks by asking the right questions before being unduly influenced by them. The approach to finding fallacies is similar to locate descriptive assumptions or determining questionable assumptions. The more questionable the assumption is, the less relevant the reasoning will be. If the argument is so irrelevant to the conclusion that we have to supply blatantly erroneous assumptions to provide a logical link, then such reasoning will surely be a fallacy that we should immediately reject.

Common Reasoning Fallacies

Fallacy: Ad Hominem:  An attack on the person, rather than directly  addressing the person's reasons.

Fallacy: Slippery Slope: Making the assumption that a proposed step will set off an uncontrollable chain of undesirable events, when procedures exist to prevent such a chain of events.

Fallacy: Searching for Perfect Solution: Falsely assuming that because part of a problem remains after a solution is tried, the solution should not be adopted.

Fallacy: Appeal to Popularity (Ad Populum): An attempt to justify a claim by appealing to sentiments that large groups of people have in common; falsely assumes that anything favored by a large group is desirable.

Fallacy: Appeal to Questionable Authority: Supporting a conclusion by citing an authority who lacks special expertise on the issue at hand.

Fallacy: Appeals to Emotions: The use of emotionally charged language to distract readers and listeners from relevant reasons and evidence. Common emotions appealed to are fear, hope, patriotism, pity, and sympathy.

Fallacy: Straw Person: Distorting our opponent's point of view so that it is easy to attack; thus we attack a point of view that does not truly exist.

Fallacy: Either-Or (or False Dilemma): Assuming only two alternatives when there are more than two.

Fallacy: Explaining by Naming: Falsely assuming that because you have provided a name for some event or behavior, you have also adequately explained the event.

Fallacy: The Planning Fallacy: The tendency for people or organizations to underestimate how long they will need to complete a task, despite numerous prior experiences of having underestimated how long something would take to finish.

Fallacy: Glittering Generality: The use of vague, emotionally appealing virtue words that dispose us to approve something without closely examining the reasons.

Fallacy: Red Herring: An irrelevant topic is presented to divert attention from the original issue and help to win an argument by shifting attention away from the argument and to another issue. The fallacy sequence in this instance is as follows:  (a) Topic A is being discussed; (b) Topic B is introduced as though it is relevant to  topic A, but it is not; and (c) Topic A is abandoned.

Fallacy: Begging the Question: An argument in which the conclusion is assumed in the reasoning.

A fallacy is a legitimate basis for rejecting a part of the communicator's argument. Though we may confirm every reason offered is not a fallacy in the spirit of constructive critical thinking, the information in the article is unavailable for more conversation. Our best bet for an enduring conversation is to ask the person who committed the fallacy whether there are any better reasons for the conclusion.

There are numerous kinds of fallacies, named only a few in this chapter. Next time we encounter or learn another kind of fallacy, remember to add it in our understanding of fallacies. It is a wise move to expand our awareness of reasoning fallacies and become more familiar with them.

Thought

这一章讲解的内容和上一章有些相关，主要讲解了几种推理谬误（reasoning fallacy），并举例说明，阐述清晰有理，直白形象。其中每个例证都可以单拿出来当作教学素材，很有启发，有时间我还会一一整理下。