This should be able to stand alone, but you may want to check out parts one, two and three.
I decided to talk about some more of the thinking errors called fallacies; not because they are the most important thing, but because they are both a common impediment to good reasoning and easy to sum up. This does not mean that they are easy to spot, or to stop. Just that they are simple to explain and learning to avoid any or all of them will immediately lead to better thinking in a noticeable way. Learning the rules of good thinking that could help you avoid all fallacies, including those I am not going to list, is a longer if even more worthwhile process which will not be covered in this post. Instead this post is going to focus on some specific problems often found in direct debate or discussion particularly when it comes to politics, religion, and other belief systems.
The Fallacy of the excluded middle*:
Also known as the false dichotomy. This fallacy comes from presenting an idea as a binary choice, it is either A or B and ignores all other possibilities; Your politics must either be Right or Left, excluding the middle. It is not always the middle that is excluded, really you should think of this as being presented with two possibilities when there are more than two, whatever they happen to be. The question "Is your favorite flavor of ice cream chocolate or vanilla?" excludes at least 30 other options according to some sources. The problem in the other direction is the Continuum Fallacy as described below.
Continuum Fallacy:
How many hairs do you have to be missing to be considered bald? The idea here is that, because there is a continuum of states that you cannot address the question. However Sam Harris put it well when he stated that just because there is not a clear definition of wellness, does not mean that we can't make a distinction between a healthy person and a dead one.
Ad Hominem:
Literally against the person. This fallacy involves attacking the arguer and not the argument. There are a whole range of specific fallacies contained in this general one. But it basically ignores the argument in favor of attacking the person (direct such as don't listen to her, she's a progressive), or unfairly takes part of the argument and puts it in a bad light (indirect such a poor comparison to Nazi Germany) Either way, the goal is the dismissal of the arguer not the argument. You should be careful to differentiate this from claims that a source is unreliable; But as the saying goes even a broken clock is right twice a day. We must evaluate claims on their own merits and as a source shows itself to be unreliable we can downgrade the importance of what it says but it can be dangerous to dismiss it entirely without consideration.
Petitio Principii:
Begging the question, sometimes called circular reasoning, means that the argument assumes and uses as a premise what it is setting out to prove. The bible is true because it was written by god, I know because that is what it says in the bible. It means that reasons haven't actually been made; you have just repeated yourself. On a more personal note: This is the most commonly abused term in all of logic (excepting perhaps logic). Almost every time someone says something begs the question they actually mean that it raises the question or leads to the question; If you hear someone use this incorrectly, slap them for me.
Post Hoc:
Post hoc ergo propter hoc means "after this therefore because of this" in Latin. Latin of course is not just an ethnicity and dance style but also the language of the Roman empire its colonies which makes it the default language for logic or almost anything else the Greeks invented. This fallacy is in thinking that a temporal relationship means causation. The fact that it's sometimes true makes this one difficult to stop or spot. The difference is in whether the first event can be labeled a cause or not. Sometimes mentioned by the phrase: correlation does not mean causation. The sentence -I ate a potato then I lost my job- is a series of events and not equivalent to -I ate a potato which caused me to lose my job-. Now either sentence could be true and the second one sounds like a great story. But the first sentence is not the same thing as the second one.
Hasty Generalization:
Jumping to conclusions is a special skill, one we should cherish as having kept us safe in our evolutionary past and one that allows us to make inferences based on things we don't really know that we know. But there is of course a down side to it. When you make a hasty generalization it means you don't have enough evidence to support your claim. This is slightly different from the famous black swan problem; Until Europeans arrived on the continent they dubbed the Southern continent (hint: not Antarctica) all swans that had been seen (by them) were white. This could allow for the claim All swans are white to be generally unchallenged. However a single piece of evidence was enough to refute the claim provided there was no form of evidence denial.** It wasn't hasty at the time, but given our current circumstances it can now be said to be hasty, what a difference a day makes give or take 400 years. This type of thinking is often found in reasons put forth by racists. There is also a critique of evidence based thinking called the problem of induction that is based on this idea which I will have to discuss in another post.
Conjunction Fallacy:
This is when you believe that a specific case is more likely than a general one. This is thought to be caused by use of a representative heuristic, which makes a certain less probable solution seem more likely because it is more representative. For example which is more likely: Jim is a member of the NRA or Jim is a member of the NRA and votes Republican. Hopefully you chose the first one, if not please note that the second option is actually a subset of the first.
Loaded Question:
A type of Ad Hominim attack, the famous example is "When did you stop beating your wife?" The idea is that you are set up for failure. If you answer with a specific time you are implicating your self and if you say you didn't you imply that you are still beating your wife. "I never have" is the best response in this easy to understand situation. But in reality you may not notice that you are being set up to fail. The idea is that the question implicates you in something and acknowledging it as a valid question confirms that implication.
Argument from Fallacy:
This is the idea that because someone uses a fallacy to support an idea then the idea is necessarily false. This is dangerous because you can give bad or false reasons to believe a good idea.So in learning about fallacies you are learning about reasons and their presentation and not about the truth or falsity of any specific sentences that aren't about fallacies.
Scotsman Fallacy:
The art of moving goalposts, the classic formulation has to do with what a Scotsman would and wouldn't do. But I will use a different example: We start with "no American can support Guantanamo Bay and other secret prisons." When it is pointed out that these are still sanctioned by the government and supported by certain pundits the arguer would change to "No true American...." Now I picked something that I personally disagree with, that is I am in favor of closing down secret prisons, but it is important to acknowledge when a bad argument is put forward for something you agree with.
There are a number of aspects to clear thinking, and being aware of some common errors is but a small subset. I have yet to focus on specific ideas as I am hoping to set the ground rules for the type of discussion that will occur here. In this series I have been attempting to talk about discourse (the communication between parties) and argument (the formulation and presentation of ideas). It is not meant to be a shining pillar in the darkness of unreason but instead a beginning to a discussion of various topics I hope to address. I am making this as a reference and tool for which the rest of this blog can rely upon. If you find it of some use, then I am gladden'd because it is really for our interactions that I am building this whole blog. If you find these posts boring or of little use please bear with me. Please at any time let me know if there is something that you would like to see discussed, have clarified or just express your agreement, disagreement or amusing non-sequiters in the comments section.
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* A note on the law of the excluded middle:
There are times when it is not a fallacy and is instead a good rule. We must learn to distinguish them. The danger is in abusing the law of the excluded middle in ways that lead to the fallacy which is why I listed it first and put this note all the way down here at the bottom.
** A note on evidence denial:
There is a difference between the questioning of evidence and the denial of it. The key part being if you would admit to accepting it unless presented with it or would never admit to it no matter what then it is denial. You should be happy to trade your false beliefs for true ones, and if you think that makes the world less amazing; just remember we're putting robots on Mars.
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