Informal Fallacies: Towards a Theory of Argument of Criticisms

345 Pages·1987·31.78 MB·English

by  Douglas Walton

INFORMAL FALLACIES
Pragmatics & Beyond
Companion Series
Editors:
Jacob L. Mey
(Odense University)
Herman Parret
(Belgian National Science Foundation,
Universities of Leuven and Antwerp)
Editorial Address:
Department of Germanic Languages
and Literatures
University of Antwerp (UIA)
Universiteitsplein 1
B-2610 Wilrijk
Belgium
Editorial Board:
Norbert Dittmar {Free University of Berlin)
David Holdcroft {University of Leeds)
Jerrold M. Sadock {University of Chicago)
Emanuel A. Schegloff {University of California at Los Angeles)
Daniel Vanderveken {University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières)
Teun A. van Dijk {University of Amsterdam)
Jef Verschueren {University of Antwerp)
4
Douglas N. Walton
Informal Fallacies
INFORMAL FALLACIES
Towards a Theory of Argument Criticisms
Douglas N. Walton
University of Winnipeg
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1987
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Walton, Douglas N.
Informal fallacies.
(Pragmatics & beyond companion series, ISSN 0920-3079; 4)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Fallacies (Logic) 2. Logic. I. Title. II. Series.
BC175.W34 1987 165 86-27055
ISBN 90-272-5005-7 (Eur.)/l-55619-010-7 (U.S.)(alk.paper)
© Copyright 1987 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Herman Parret for first suggesting the feasibility
of a project of this sort. Tom Beauchamp, Monroe Beardsley, and Henry
W. Johnstone, Jr. have helped by offering constructive criticisms of earlier
drafts of this manuscript. Among the many colleagues whose conversations
and written remarks have helped to clarify and improve my arguments I
would especially like to thank Charles Hamblin, Dick Epstein, John
Woods, Lynn Batten, David Harrah, Ruth Manor, Jim Mackenzie, Jaakko
Hintikka, Peter Miller, Krister Segerberg, Stan Surma, John Bishop, Jan
Crosthwaite, George Hughes, David Lewis, Peter Geach, Tony Blair, and
Ralph Johnson. Max Cresswell made some suggestions during a Logic
Seminar in March, 1983, at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zea­
land) that turned out to be both fundamental and fruitful in my approach to
the theory of logical dialogue-games. For sending materials, published or
unpublished, I would like to thank Nuel Belnap, David Harrah, Ruth
Manor, Jim Mackenzie, Erik Krabbe, Rainer Hegselmann, Dick Epstein,
Frans van Eemeren, and Rob Grootendorst.
This book was helped along considerably by research supported
through grants from the University of Winnipeg and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful to Mrs. Amy Mer-
rett for production of the typescript. I would like to thank the editor of
Logique et Analyse for permission to reprint my article 'Enthymemes'
(Logique et Analyse 95-96, 1983, 395-410), included with some changes as
part of chapter 5. Finally my thanks to Harry Simpson for proof-reading the
manuscript.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: A NEW MODEL OF ARGUMENT 1
1. Introduction to the Fallacies 3
2. Some More Fallacies 9
3. Fallacies Combined in Realistic Dialogues 11
4. What is an Argument? 16
5. Criticism as Challenge and Response 22
6. Basic Categories of Argument Study 26
Notes: Chapter 1 31
CHAPTER 2: HOT RHETORIC AND ARGUMENT 33
1. Appeals to Popular Sentiment 33
2. Appeals to Force 39
3. Appeals to Pity 42
4. Overly Personal Argumentation 45
5. The Rhetorical Debate 48
6. Case Study: Parliamentary Debate 51
7. Conclusion 60
Notes: Chapter 2 61
CHAPTER 3: THE LOGIC OF PROPOSITIONS 63
1. Deductive Validity 63
2. Formal Logic 65
3. Classical Propositional Calculus 68
4. Applying Deductive Logic to Arguments 73
5. Invalidity and Fallaciousness 77
6. Relevance and Validity 79
7. Subject-Matter Relatedness 82
8. Relatedness Logic 84
9. Semantics and Pragmatics 88
10. What is a Fallacy? 93
Notes: Chapter 3 96
VIII TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 4: LOGICAL DIALOGUE-GAMES 97
1. Different Approaches to Formal Dialogues 98
2. The Ad Ignorantiam Fallacy 105
3. Fallacies of Question-Asking 108
4. The Fallacy of Many Questions 110
5. Demanding Direct Answers to Questions 113
6. Misconception of Refutation 115
7. Case Studies of Political Debates 118
8. A Game with Dark-Side Commitments 125
Notes: Chapter 4 130
CHAPTER 5: ENTHYMEMES 133
1. The Tradition of Enthymemes 133
2. The Objectives of Dialogue 136
3. Veiled Commitment-Sets 142
4. Strategy and Plausibility 145
5. The Problem Resolved 146
6. Order of the Premisses 150
7. Multiple Premisses in Complex Arguments 154
Notes: Chapter 5 156
CHAPTER 6: LONGER SEQUENCES OF ARGUMENTATION 157
1. Sequences of Argumentation 158
2. Graphs of Arguments 160
3. Case Study: Argument on Sex Education 162
4. Case Study: Circular Argumentation 167
5. Plausibility Conditions on Arguments 170
6. The Missing Links 176
7. Conclusions on Circular Arguments 180
Notes: Chapter 6 183
CHAPTER 7: FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS FROM AUTHORITY 185
1. How Appeals to Authority Can Go Wrong 185
2. Plausible Argument 188
3. Where Experts Disagree 190
4. Expertise and Legal Dialogue 192
5. Dialogue and Expertise 194
TABLE OF CONTENTS IX
6. Conclusions 199
Notes: Chapter 7 201
CHAPTER 8: VARIOUS FALLACIES 203
1. Inductive Fallacies 203
2. Deductive and Inductive Arguments 205
3. Post Hoc Arguments 206
4. Slippery Slope 209
5. Equivocation 212
6. Amphiboly 213
7. Composition and Division 214
CHAPTER 9: ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE PERSON 217
1. Poisoning the Well 217
2. The Sportsman's Rejoinder 222
3. Evaluating Ad Hominem Disputations 227
4. Four Types of Circumstantial Ad Hominem 230
5. Rhetorical Context of Ad Hominem Attacks 233
6. Positional Defensibility 236
7. Conclusion 238
Notes: Chapter 9 240
CHAPTER 10: EQUIVOCATION 241
1. What is Equivocation? 242
2. Vagueness and Criticisms of Equivocality 245
3. The Problem of Subtle Equivocations 249
4. Deep Deception and Equivocal Dialogue 254
5. Many-Valued Logic for Equivocators 259
6. Priests's System LP 261
7. Applying LP to the Fallacy of Equivocation 266
8. R-Mingle as a Logic for Equivocators 273
9. RM and Equivocation 276
10. Conclusions 283
Notes: Chapter 10 287
CHAPTER 11: INFORMAL LOGIC AS A DISCIPLINE 289
1. The Role of Formal Logic 291
χ TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. Dialectic as a Theory of Argument 294
3. Function of Why-Questions 297
4. Subject-Specific Nature of Arguments 302
5. Case Studies on Circular Reasoning 305
6. Conversational Pragmatics 314
7. Pedagogical Directions for Informal Logic 320
Notes: Chapter 11 322
BIBLIOGRAPHY 323
INDEX 331
CHAPTER 1: A NEW MODEL OF ARGUMENT
The basic question of this monograph is: how should we go about judg­
ing arguments to be reasonable or unreasonable? Our concern will be with
argument in a broad sense, with realistic arguments in natural language —
for example, persuasive arguments that might occur in advertising or in
political debates. Our concern will not extend to all aspects of such argu­
ments however. The basic object will be to engage in a normative study of
determining what factors, standards, or procedures should be adopted or
appealed to in evaluating an argument as "good," "not-so-good," "open to
criticism," "fallacious," and so forth. Hence our primary concern will be
with the problems of how to criticize an argument, and when a criticism is
reasonably justified.
To criticize an argument is, sometimes, to begin to take part in the
argument. In any such step of real engagement in the argument, there is a
danger of loss of the proper critical perspective, a danger of taking sides in
the argument itself. Can this step be avoided? Our problem is to show how
criticism can be reasonable. So we need to show how reasonable criticism
can itself contend with the criticism of having taken sides in the argument.
We need to pursue answers to two questions. First, what is an argu­
ment? And second, how is reasonable criticism of an argument possible?
Beyond these two questions, we will need to study and explore the kinds of
criticisms of arguments that have traditionally been thought to be reasona­
ble and to logically compel our consideration in judging arguments. Many
of these criticisms can be identified with the domain of the traditional infor­
mal fallacies, descended from Aristotle's sophistici elenchi, and long a part
of the logic curriculum. Much of our work will be in trying to make sense
out of these traditional fallacies as representing reasonable or unreasonable
types of criticisms that can be made of arguments. In that regard, our project
falls under the subject of applied logic, or informal logic as it often is called
these days.1 In another way, our project could be looked at as a kind of
theoretical linguistic investigation in the field now called the pragmatics of
discourse.