Argumentative Fallacies in Conversation

Miscellaneous General
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I talk about politics a lot with my social network, from friends to co-workers to family. I oftentimes find that supporters of taxation often resort to strawman arguments and ad hominem attacks filled with appeals to emotion.

For instance, they say: “How can you condemn welfare? The mark of a good society is how it treats its poor and homeless” or “You’re clinging to the past, and therefore you’re wrong. You need to conform to today’s standards and see the big picture.”

What are some of the most argumentative fallacies that you run into in political, economics or philosophical discussions?

Debates and the Globetrotters (aka arguing with idiots)
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A big one is the ad hominem of saving that your argument is typical of conservative arguments, therefore, your argument is [something bad].

Another is that since the state already does X, therefore, it has the right to do X.

Another is simply claiming that your argument is an opinion, therefore, [whatever].

Btw, all of these have been thrown at me in class by English professors.

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  1. Ad hominem

“Who are you to argue against the state when so many people who are smarter than you like the state”

Which brings us to

2, Appeal to Authority

“All the intellectuals support the state”

  1. Straw man

“You want chaos in the streets”

I literally spent about half an hour explaining that when I said I was was an anarchist it didn’t mean I DID NOT MEAN I WANTED CHAOS

  1. Post Hoc

Because the state provides a social safety net the poor are able to live well

Because of government regulations and labor unions standards of living have risen since the poverty of the 1800’s

  1. Appeal to popularity

“Practically everyone believes and supports the state”

  1. Middle ground fallacy

“Government needs to be limited but it still needs to exist because totally free markets and total social freedoms are too radicle”

  1. Guilt by association

“Anarchists are crazy teenage protestors, why do you side with them?”

  1. Special pleading

“It’s not okay for people who are not the state to steal but it is okay for the state to be able to steal because its the government”

  1. Appeal to common Action

“Everyone pays their taxes and most voluntarily. Every populated area on earth has a government”

  1. Inaccurate information

“Laissez-Faire Hoover caused the great depression”

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English professors don’t teach english anymore. They’re more like an ‘Intro to general propaganda that we’d like you to believe’ class.

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The professor in my graduate level epistemology class argued with my views contrary to the PC culture.

I informed him that many people supported Obama because of the appeal to novelty fallacy. I actually pulled it up on the main screen for the whole class to see, and he threw a straw man at me, pretending to agree with my while actually proving another fallacy existed in political discussions going against Obama.

I got the A, but it still left me in dismay. I realize that contradiction is part of the human experience. In fact, according to logic itself, existence is contradictory, which is my proof that logic is an unrealistic system by which to base or judge reality in most circumstances.

The same professor also argued against prejudice, saying it wasn’t how we treated others but how we felt and what we thought about them that mattered. We learned of hueristics, and I told him that no matter who said what, if I was in the wild and a lion attacked my friend but I got away, I would avoid all lions when I’m in the wild. I told him that if my friend was mugged by a man in a ski mask down a certain dark alley, I would avoid that alley and men in ski masks while considering the alley and the men in ski masks dangerous.

To say heuristics are “unevolved thinking” as so many liberals would have you think is ludicrous. Idealists oftentimes try to sway the intuitive judgment of the individual by convincing them that something is “less dangerous than they think” or “necessary for progress.” To hell with them. They know nothing of what I’ve experienced anymore than I can inform them of truths or fallacies they’ve learned from their experience.

Despite what many think, philosophy and logic are limited ways to think. They both have limits in reality. For instance, have you ever actually been able to quantify anything in the wild as being equal to the number two in and of itself? Absolutely not. Logic is a tool, not the answer to the equation. Same with philosophy. Philosophers go insane trying to find or determine truth. That’s because they are trying to find the borders to an endless puzzle. Philosophy is a tool that can lead someone to the truth, it isn’t the truth itself.

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Conversations are quite different from internet forums. On the internet, you can really disect your opponent’s argument and cut it into little pieces. In real life, you have to say one thing at one time, so you can’t run arguments in parallel.

So your job is to find their biggest flaw and exploit it.

Do not let them change the subject once you have them cornered. People love to rattle off a bunch of buzz-word objections: “protect freedom” “anarchy is chaos” “what about the poor” “what about monopolies” “what about the environment” etc etc. Deny them this technique. It is the crux of mainstream philosophy.

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I’d say Neodoxy pretty much got all of em.

“I literally spent about half an hour explaining that when I was an anarchist I DID NOT MEAN I WANTED CHAOS”

You were once an anarchist, but no longer?

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Please elaborate. I’m very interested.

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I too have my popcorn out. Can’t wait to finally see the proof that logic is futile.

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I hate that one. How do you respond to it?

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A list of fallacious arguments

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

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Walk away. Life is short. Spend it with dumb people who like you.

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Either it’s opinion (value-laden) or fact. (value free) If it’s opinion, you might have to resort to persuation.

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I’ve found that a most political arguments of libertarianism vs statism boil down to false dilemmas, as in: it’s either the state does it, or it doesn’t happen or it gets worse. There’s no concept of an entity other than the state doing what the state does, minus the coercion.

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“You were once an anarchist, but no longer?”

Oh, no I meant to say “when I said I was an anarchist it didn’t mean…”

I’m techincally an anarchist I guess but I prefer the term anti-statist or voluntaryist.

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@OP: Belief in the necessity of government is a superstition like any other. It doesn’t need to have any logical basis, it doesn’t need to conform to reality in any way. It’s just a spooky belief in a set of magically associated causes and effects.

Clayton -

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Voluntaryist is better than anti-statist. Defining our positions positively is the way to go in my opinion.

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I’m not suggesting logic is futile. Speaking of argumentative fallacies…

What I mean is that logic is merely a tool; not the end-all. In saying that logically, existence is contradictory, I mean to say logic in relation to causation mandates an eventual cause of all reality, and this is something logic cannot offer because it is confined to things that already exist. Thus it is limited.

Logically speaking, I know I exist. What came before me? My parents. And before them? Their parents. Before humanity? Dinosaurs. Before dinosaurs? Nothing but planets, stars and nebulae in the universe. Before the nebula that formed the earth?

Causation is logical; in fact, it’s bound to logic, for one cannot have an action without a prior cause. In this case, existence is contradictory. How can we exist when we are paradoxical? Are we to logically conclude that we came from nothing?

How about Creatio Ex Nihilo? Then one can ponder, as Aquinas did, who created God? Aquinas attempted to fuse logic with existence via causation and God being the uncaused cause, and I don’t consider that to be logically sound.

So using logic and counting back from C to B to A, what caused A? Therein lies a limit to logic. It is a useful tool to obtain knowledge, but it isn’t knowledge itself. Tools can be machines, but tools do not equal machines. Get it now? One can deduce on paper the following: 2 + X = 2 with X = 0. That’s a function of logic. But in relation to causation, it is severely limited.

Also, if you would like to take a crack at what caused A, be my guest. Speaking of popcorn, I’m popping some myself right now lol. I’m curious to see what the Mises community can come up with. What was the first cause of existence, and what caused it? Is there a first, uncaused cause?

This should be interesting.

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The answer is simple: what you’re describing is metaphysics–not logic. Everything you have described belongs in the domain of metaphysics; besides that fact, there are a couple alternatives.

If we reject the idea of an infinite regress because of absurdities, then we are left with (a) an uncaused first cause(s) or (b) an eternal universe. There simply are no other alternatives. The universe cannot pull itself into existence by its bootstraps.

Everyone here already knows I’d love to get in to the rest of your post, but I’ll have to wait a few days to do so, as I’m incredibly busy. I can do one-liners like above, but someone else is going to have to take over the responsibility of substantiveness.

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Brutus, why is infinity illogical/paradoxical?