Main Approaches to Argumentation Studies
Apart from formal deductive logic and inductive logic, the main approaches for the study of argumentation include these overlapping fields which are perspectives by which arguments can be viewed: (1) informal logic (including critical thinking), (2) dialectical logic (including pragma-dialectical discourse analysis and pragmatic argumentation theory), and (3) rhetoric (including debate and persuasion).
Informal Logic
is the normative study of natural language arguments (as opposed to the formal or abstract methods of deductive logic) which seeks to develop standards of use and methods of evaluation of ordinary language argumentation.[1]
Some informal arguments can be properly translated into formal logic. Formal logic uses symbolism and formal methods to evaluate arguments as valid or not; whereas, informal arguments not translatable into formal deductive or inductive arguments can be evaluated as evidentially relevant and sufficient if they are “good” arguments. Researchers disagree on the place of informal logic with respect to formal logic and argumentation theory. The Canadian school of informal logic, for example, holds that the study emphasizes arguments in everyday discourse not analyzable by formal logic. Informal logic is seen in these notes as the examination of the justification of arguments in context rather examination of the persuasiveness of arguments.[2]
Critical thinking differs from informal logic in that this educational reform movement emphasizes the study of various intellectual activities for problem solving in accordance with rational criteria, whereas informal logic is narrower in focus and emphasizes traditional argument interpretation and evaluation of argumentative everyday language, dialogue, and discourse.[3] As J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson point out, informal logic aspires to be a theory-based subject; whereas, critical thinking is an activity utilizing informal logic and other methods of problem solving.[4] These other methods include creative thinking, inquiry, information processing, and reasoning within different subject matters.[5]
Dialectical Logic
approaches argumentation as shared argumentative discourse between or among participants with opposing points of view. Pragma-dialectical discourse sets rules for rational critical discussion, and the speech acts which violate these rules are viewed as fallacies. In this manner, fallacies are viewed as statements that impair the progress of the dialogue.[6] Pragmatic logical argumentation evaluates defeasible normative reasoning within a dialectical context by means of argumentation schemes, mappings, and appropriate contextual standards of proof.[7] Often dialectical arguments are responses to oppositional counter-arguments. Dialectical logic is viewed here as a study of the persuasiveness of arguments rather that a study of the justification of arguments. Dialectical logic intends consensus as a surrogate for truth.
Rhetoric
emphasizes the effectiveness of emotive significance and argument used for the persuasion of changing attitudes toward a standpoint or point of view. Often the arguments are shaped to appeal to the attitudinal outlook of a specific audience such that truth per se is not specifically sought. Rhetoric can still be evaluated in terms of formal logic, but, for example, Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrecht-Tyteca, emphasize rhetoric’s purpose in terms of the effects of audience value preferences. Although rhetoric is eschewed by some formal logicians, the cornerstone of the rhetorical approach is that emotively neutral logical arguments, by themselves, rarely influence audience opinion. As a form of nonanalytic thinking, value-judgment hierarchies replace reason and empiricism.[8]
These lecture notes emphasize informal and formal logic. Ordinary language arguments will often be translated with the principle of charity into conventional deductive and inductive arguments. Currently, most researchers in the argumentation field seem to agree with F. H. van Eemeren’s appraisal:
“[T]he label informal logic covers a collection of normative approaches to the study of reasoning in ordinary language that remain closer to the practice of argumentation than formal logic.”[9]
Some researchers maintain accurate translation of many natural language arguments into formal logic is not possible given their vagueness, ambiguity, and incompleteness. Thus, it is thought, on this view, formal logic is not useful for these kinds of argumentation since a neutral observer’s objective point of view is not possible. However, if adequate clarification of what is stated is not possible, then it is doubtful that reliable understanding of what is stated in argumentation is possible outside of interpretation or translation either.
G.C. Goddu has argued that informal logic cannot meaningfully be defined in terms of the logic of real arguments, i.e. the logic of natural or ordinary everyday arguments, since there is no clear demarcation between real arguments and other kinds of arguments.[10]
In this regard, Gottlob Frege writes:
”Of course we have to be able to count on a meeting of minds, on others’ guessing what we have in mind. But all this precedes the construction of a system and does not belong within a system. In constructing a system it must be assumed that the words have precise meanings and that we know what they are.”[11]
For communication to be possible for all statements, a regulative principle is implicitly adopted that a sentence which states something can be translated into a different statement or statements which recognizably express the same thought.[12]
Moreover, in the case of petitio principii (circular reasoning), its fallacious aspect is not its deductive invalidity, but instead its deceptiveness. This is one reason many argumentation theorists argue that some informal fallacies are not necessarily viewed as arguments per se but instead viewed as deceptive techniques or rule violations. Additionally, the fallacy of complex question (the fallacy of many questions) is not prima facie an argument — it couches an unwarranted presupposition within a question.
Fallacy: an incorrect argument which reflects a mistake in reasoning describable as a rule violation of a logical system whereby either the conclusion of the argument does not logically follow from the premises or the conclusion is not provided evidential support due to a violation of some prior jointly-accepted conventional rule of inference.
So a fallacy is simply a mistake in reasoning which is often misleading or deceptive. A useful short definition is provided by J. Weldon:
“A Fallacy is a violation of logical principle disguised under a show of validity.”[39]
A fallacious argument either does not prove, or does not provide sufficient evidence for, its conclusion.
The definition of fallacy is assumed here as a working definition, even though the definition is inadequate insofar as it presupposes a set of known, agreed-upon rules for all forms of systematic reasoning.[40]
Some logicians maintain that informal fallacies must occur with some frequency to count as fallacy. [41] The view taken here is any error in reasoning is a fallacy no matter how seldom it occurs, but such fallacies are not usefully designated with a stipulative definition.
This definition is not consistent with the pragma-dialectical definition of “fallacy” as ”systematically connected with the rules for critical discussion.”[42] Pragma-dialectic stipulates rules of behavior rather than describes rules of what constitutes a logical mistake per se. [43]
In current practice, the notion of fallacy in argumentation is interpreted in several different ways:
In formal logic, language syntax is formulated into argument structures with logical validity defined in terms of rules for those structures. Validity is a necessary condition for normative logical correctness. In semantical, formal deductive logical theories, “fallacy” is defined in terms of a violation of formal logical rules; for instance, the fallacy of the undistributed middle term occurring in Aristotelian syllogistic logic can be interpreted as the fallacy of affirming the consequent in symbolic or mathematical logic.
However, it is essential to point out that not all violations of formal logical rules are fallacies, since an argument might be valid on other grounds — viz., its semantic content. An argument might not be formally valid but its validity might be due to an analytical relationship in the meanings of the statements in the argument (i.e., the what is said). Consider the following argument:
Some raptors are birds.
Some hawks are raptors.
∴ Some hawks are birds.
Formally, this argument commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle term (as described above). Nevertheless, the meaning of the word “hawk” includes the notion of being a bird, so if someone understands what the premises mean, then the conclusion of this argument necessarily follows from reasons other than its form. It’s to be wondered if such semantic interpretations are to be termed “arguments” at all.
Rolf George points out that understanding an argument involves more than just understanding its statements:
“[T]here is a further act of understanding, viz. ‘understanding the argument.’”[52]
And understanding the argument includes understanding its structure, formal or informal.
In pragmatic and dialogical argumentation theory, a fallacy is defined as the violation of a normative rule or conversational maxim occurring in a dialogue or critical conversation. For instance, evading the burden of proof in an argument or providing irrelevant arguments both count as incorrect moves in a critical discussion.
Presently, several significant accounts of pragmatic dialogical norms or rules have been proposed, and in general in those accounts a fallacy is defined as a violation of the variously determined norms, rules, or procedures.
Nevertheless, as these rules are not universalizable, the notion of fallacy comes to mean different dialogue rule infractions in different dialogue games: “[W]hat constitutes a fallacy in one game of dialogue does not need to constitute a fallacy in another (it could be just a blunder, or even be entirely all right).”[53]
In other critical reasoning contexts, an informal fallacy is been defined in terms of a false premise or dubious statement or presupposition in an argument (often as an intentional deception). Richard Whately, who revived Aristotelian logic in the nineteenth century explains his fallacy of unduly assumed premise as a material “nonlogical fallacy.”[54] For instance, consider the following “put-up” argument:
All U.S. persons should have the right to vote.
All U.S. criminals are U.S. persons.
So all U.S. criminals should have the right to vote.
The argument is valid — it has a correct logical structure. However, since the first premise is not true (as of year 2019), the argument is not sound.
Whately and some current informal logic academics consider this argument fallacious as well because the first premise is an unsupported statement. E.g., Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair explain their “problematic premise fallacy” as follows:
“[A] premise is problematic if it is introduced into the argument without defense and is unacceptable without this defense.” [emphasis original][55]
This approach has many advantages; however, in these logic notes, this usage of “fallacious” is not followed. First, there is no clear method for resolving all disputes as to what is unacceptable if there is no generally acceptable criterion of acceptability. Second the notion of fallacy acquires an additional meaning, and in contentious disputes there may well be no clear way to agree on generally acceptable premises. Finally, working with low probability problematic premises is sometimes essential in anticipating conclusions which reveal extraordinary risk exposure.
Paralogisms, Sophisms, and Paradoxes:
A formal fallacy is termed a paralogism when its conclusion does not follow from its premises, and the illogical reasoning is believed valid by the proponent of that argument. The argument is presented with no intention of deception. In addition, a paralogism can be advanced as a topic for disputation in the examination of the question why specific premises an an argument seem to warrant its conclusion but do not actually do so. Usually and etymologically, a paralogism is more or less synonymous with a definition of formal fallacy as the violation of a rule of inference.
When a proponent’s illogical reasoning is intentionally advanced in order to deceive other persons, the fallacy is called a sophism. In sum, as Immanuel Kant writes, a fallacious argument, “when one deceives himself with it, is a paralogism; and when he endeavours to deceive others with it, a sophism.” [Kant, Logic trans. Richardson ¶ 90.]
A paradox is an apparently good argument based on apparently true premises which reach a contradictory conclusion.
A paradox is resolved by discovery of the faulty assumptions or by an emendation or change of a rule of logic. Traditionally, faulty assumptions were termed fallacies of a false premise. In these notes paradoxes of this kind are viewed as unsound arguments.
The study of paradoxes is often useful for revealing mistaken ordinary presuppositions in our thinking.
Three Basic Types of Fallacies: Informal, Deductive, and Inductive:
Since most fallacies arise from either the lack of premises or a confusion of premises, their identification is dependent upon what must be supplied in order to support the conclusion. And as Whately points out:
”[I]t must be often a matter of doubt, or, rather of arbitrary choice, not only to which genus each kind of fallacy should be referred, but even to which kind to refer any one individual fallacy …” [emphasis original][57]
Fallacies cannot be as clearly classified as the types of arguments can be classified. Fallacy classifications overlap. Some informal fallacies can be formally explained; many inductive fallacies can be explained informally.
Thus, arguments can be assessed by different standards depending upon their semantic content and purpose. (Other schemes of classification of fallacies are also used in the literature but are not reviewed here.) In these notes, all fallacies will be classified as either deductive and inductive. Informal fallacies are considered one type of inductive argument rather that a separate category differing from deductive and inductive arguments.
Nevertheless, we will study informal fallacies as if it were a separate subject from that of inductive arguments.
Informal Fallacy: those dependent upon language — i.e., a fallacy that arises from the content or the subject of an argument (the what is said), not the logical form, the grammatical structure per se, or how it is said). These notes include informal fallacies as a type of nonformal inductive arguments.
Historically, from Aristotle, most informal fallacies are classified as material fallacies, “non-logical,” or extra dictionem fallacies since such fallacies are not due to the violation of formal (in dictione) rules for valid structure of arguments but rather due to the consistency of the semantic matter, meaning, or information expressed.[58]
Informal fallacies, in general, usually arise in ordinary language contexts from mistakes in written and oral argumentation, persuasion and debate.
In other words, traditional informal fallacies are not usually considered breaches of the rules of formal logic; instead, informal fallacies occur in disputes over specific questions at issue which are more clearly understood by other methods of analysis than those of formal logic.
When an argument is valid with at least one premise false, the truth of the conclusion does logically follow from the premises, but historically, such arguments were considered to be a type of material (informal) fallacy since the conclusion wasn’t proved to be true even though the argument was valid. (If you are not clear on the meaning of these terms, review the explanations offered on the truth, validity, and soundness webpage.)
Some logicians today want to restrict the term “fallacy” only to a mistake in reasoning. Thus, these logicians consider a valid argument with at least one false premise good reasoning even though the truth of the conclusion has not been proved. So rather than identifying such an argument as a fallacy, they state that the argument is valid but not sound, and the claim the conclusion has not been proved true. The phrase “follows logically” here can be described by means of the counterfactual statement:
“If the premises were true in the argument, then the conclusion would necessarily be true.”
Consider, for example, the following argument presented by Rousseau:
“Let us consider, therefore, the arts and sciences in themselves. Let us see what must result from their advancement … Their evil origin is, indeed, but too plainly reproduced in their objects. … [T]he labours of the most enlightened of our learned men and the best of our citizens are of so little utility … [their] waste of time is certainly a great evil; but still greater evils attend upon literature and the arts. One is luxury … can it be denied that rectitude of morals is essential to the duration of empires, and that luxury is diametrically opposed to such rectitude?”[59]
Rousseau argues here that since the evil origin and nature of the arts and science lead to luxury, and luxury is opposed to morality, the arts and sciences are immoral.
This valid argument rests on false premises and so is unsound. Some researchers simply see the argument as valid based on false assumptions and others classify it as also a case of the fallacy of false cause or even the genetic fallacy.
Formal Fallacy: those not dependent on the content of language. Formal fallacies arise from an error in the logical form or structural grammar of an argument; they are analyzed independently from their informational content.
Formal fallacies often arise from errors arising in poorly formed deductive systems of logic. In deductive arguments, the conclusion is claimed to logically follow from the premises with certainty.
The ideal of formal logic is based on (1) the belief that validity in arguments is independent of, yet abstracted from, the relationships of material or informational content of statements, and (2) the belief that the formal logical relations are independent of the psychology and context of intention and circumstances of the assertions.[68]
Currently, as noted above, fallacies can be studied from different viewpoints. An argument can be found fallacious by a formal standard of validity and yet be seen as valid from a semantic point of view. Or an argument can appear to be valid from a formal point of view and yet be seen as invalid from ambiguity.
Additionally, some invalid formal arguments are correct or strong inductive arguments. The usefulness of an argument depends upon its purpose and context.
Inductive Fallacies arise from mistakes in inductive arguments where the conclusion is claimed to follow from the premises with some degree of probability. Inductive arguments vary in strength. The assignment of probabilities to statements is often arbitrary and subjective.
It’s important to realize that the semantic content of many formal and informal fallacies provide evidence for the truth of their conclusions.
So, a correct or an acceptable inductive argument can also be analyzed as an invalid formal argument depending on the context of the analysis.
Inductive fallacies have no clear historical standard of classification. Many traditional inductive arguments depend upon semantic content rather than argument forms so many inductive fallacies are informal fallacies: e.g. converse accident (hasty generalization), accident, causal fallacies, false or faulty analogy, genetic fallacy, and ad ignorantiam.
J.S. Mill points out that induction proceeds from facts; when these facts are mistaken, fallacies based on poor observations or mistaken inferences result.[69] Examples of these types of fallacies include confirmation bias, preconceived opinion, faulty generalization, suppressed evidence, and so forth.[70]
These and other presumptive fallacies are common in inductive logic, especially in the use of formal scientific methods, including probability and statistics.
Inductive methods used in causal reasoning, probability, and statistics are based on formal rules, and consequent fallacies in these areas of inductive logic are violations of formal rules. Analyses of informal fallacies using these methods is promising. [71]
Notes
Title links go to cited page
1. This characterization more or less follows J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson, “The Current State of Informal Logic,” Informal Logic 9 no. 2 & 3 (Spring and Fall, 1987), 147-151. doi: 10.22329/il.v9i2.2671 ↩
2. Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair, “Informal Logic: An Overview,” Informal Logic 20 no. 2 (January, 2000), 94. doi: 10.22329/il.v20i2.2262 ↩
3. For a synopsis of this difference, see e.g., Emily R. Lai, “Critical Thinking: A Literature Review,” (June, 2011), 1-49, and Ralph W. Johnson, “The Relation Between Formal and Informal Logic,” Argumentation 13 no. 3 (August, 1979), 265-274. doi: 10.1023/A:1007789101256 ↩
4. Blair and Johnson, “Current State,” 151.↩
5. Christopher Winch, “Forward,” in Stephen Johnson and Harvey Siegel Teaching Thinking Skills, ed. Christopher Winch, 2nd ed. (London: Continuum, 2010), xv. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9604.2012.01520_2.x ↩
6. Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, “Relevance Reviewed: The Case of Argumentum ad Hominem,” Argumentation 6 no. 2 (May, 1992), 152-153. doi: 10.1007/bf00154322 ↩
7. Douglas Walton, “Introduction,” Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation, eds. Giorgio Bongiovanni, Gerald Postema, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, Chiara Valentini, and Douglas Walton (Dordrecht: Springer Nature, 2018), ix-x. doi: 10.1007/978-90-481-9452-0_3 ↩
8. Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 82.↩
9. Frans H. van Eemeren, “The Study of Argumentation,” in The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies, ed. Andrea A. Lunsford, Kirk H. Wilson, Rosa A. Eberly (Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, 2009), 117. doi: 10.4135/9781412982795 ↩
10. G.C. Goddu, “What Is a ‘Real’ Argument?” Informal Logic 29 no. 1 (January, 2009), 1-14. doi: 10.22329/il.v29i1.682 ↩
11. Gottlob Frege, “Logic in Mathematics,” Posthumous Writings, eds. Hans Hermes, Friedrich Kambartel, and Friedrich Kaulbach, trans. Peter Long and Roger White (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), 207. ↩
12. Following Gottlob Frege, the presupposition here is that arguments are directed toward truth, but Frege is inordinate in his distinguishing humanities (poetry) from science:
“[A]ll constituents of sentences not covered by the assertoric force do not belong to scientific exposition; but they are sometimes hard to avoid, even for one who sees the danger connected with them.”
Gottlob Frege, “Logical Investigations Part I Thoughts,” trans. Peter Geach and R. H. Stoothoff Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 357. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0149.1985.tb01105.x ↩
13. C.L. Hamlin, Fallacies (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1970), 9, 14. In addition to On Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle examines a few additional fallacies in his Prior Analytics, On Rhetoric, and Topics. Jaakko Hintikka also affirms Hamlin’s assessment: “Unfortunately, there exists by any reasonable standard no respectable general theory of informal argumentation.” [Jaakko Hintikka, “Logic as a Field of Knowledge,” Monist 72 no. 1 (January, 1989), 4. doi: 10.5840/monist19897211 However, unlike Hamlin, Hintikka, as well as a few other logicians, state that informal logic is inadequate to resolve disagreements in where changes in belief occur as new evidence is presented and where agreement rather than truth is sought.↩
14. Douglas N. Walton, “Question-Asking Fallacies,” in Questions and Questioning ed. Michel Meyer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 1988), 195. Preview: doi: 10.1515/9783110864205.195.↩
15. E.g., see Douglas N. Walton, Methods of Argumentation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 213ff. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139600187. Following C.L. Hamlin’s Fallacies informal fallacies are now mostly investigated as a subfield of pragmatics. See, for example, Jan Woleński, “Douglas N. Walton: Logical Dialogue-Games and Fallacies,” (Book Review) Grazer Philosophische Studien 32 (1988), 228. doi: 10.5840/gps19883221 ↩
16. For more on this topic, see Michael J. Wreen, “Absent Thee from Fallacy a While?,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 30, no. 4 (1997), 351-366.↩
17. F.H. van Eemeren and R. Grootendorse, “A Transition Stage in the Theory of Fallacies,” Journal of Pragmatics 13 no.1 (February 1989), 100. doi: 10.1016/0378-2166(89)90111-2 ↩
18. Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic Eds. H.L. Mansel and John Veitch (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1860), III:14. ↩
19. Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922 London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), ¶4.122. doi: 10.4324/9781315884950 ↩
20. J. Anthony Blair, “A Time for Argument Theory Integration,” in Critical Problems in Argumentation, ed. Charles Arthur Willard (Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 2005), 200. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-2363-4_15″ ↩
21. P. Ramus, The Logike of the Most Excellent Philosopher P. Ramus, trans. Rollo MacIlmaine (London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1581). Also located at Google Books. ↩
22. Francis Bacon does not attend to informal fallacies, but does single out specific “Idols” or illusions in attempting to understand nature, which in some cases correspond to traditional informal fallacies. These Idols or false notions include Idols of the Tribe (general prejudices of human nature such as hasty generalization), Idols of the Den (prejudice of individuals such as experiential bias), Idols of the Market (prejudice arising from verbal confusions), and Idols of the Theater (prejudice such as obeisance to authority). Francis Bacon, The New Organon, ed. Fulton H. Anderson (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), §39-44. ↩
23. Although John Locke describes ad verecundiam (argument from authority), ad ignorantiam (argument from ignorance) and ad hominem (argument against the person) as arguments people employ “in their reasoning with others,” he portrays them as persuasive techniques rather than as fallacies per se. It is only a fourth kind of argument, argumentum ad judicium, proof from foundations of knowledge or probability, which lead to knowledge. (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. A.C. Fraser (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), II:410-411. ↩
Eric Rose 