SarcasticMisha

SarcasticMisha t1_jd94vxx wrote

His distaste for utilizing fallacies based on how his students reacted, says more about the teaching style or the way it was explained rather than fallacy theory itself. He further goes on to say that "arguments that are deemed ‘fallacious’ according to the standard approach are always closely related to arguments that, in many contexts, are perfectly reasonable", which would, to me, seem to imply the arguments are indeed fallacious but are close to being logically sound. This doesn't really address the problem with fallacy theory.

Pointing out a logical fallacy is not like blowing a 'whistle' nor does it automatically make you win an argument. There is actually a fallacy, aptly called the argument from fallacy (or argumentum ad logicam), which talks about the assumption that, if a particular argument for a "conclusion" is fallacious, the conclusion by itself is false.

Fallacies are just a framework to correct the logic within arguments, and in most cases that is to prevent incorrect conclusions. Fallacies are pretty crucial in discussions and debates because what we try to achieve most of the time is a logical outcome, which can be a better understanding, deciding what is true or what is false. A big part of this process is logically sound thinking and arguments.

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