Fallacies and Logical Errors

Consider the following:

"Instructions on How to Write Good"

Avoid alliteration. Always.

Avoid clichés like the plague.

When dangling, watch your participle.

Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

Employ the vernacular.

Prepositions should not be used to end a sentence with.

One word sentences? Eliminate.

And also these:

Honk if you love peace and quiet.

You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside package.

75% of Americans consider themselves above average in intelligence.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

What makes sentences such as these mildly amusing is that they fail to take the implications of self-reference into account. But when this failure occurs in sentences such as the following--sentences that are not only self-vitiating but also thought-stultifying, popular on academic campuses, and even uttered in earnest ten minutes after Logic or Critical Thinking class--, then the result is anything but funny:

There is no truth.

Nothing is certain.

There are no absolutes.

Everything is relative.

Everything changes.

Objectivity is impossible.

There are no ultimate answers.

In other work I demonstrate the self-refuting implications of these assertions (Stark, forthcoming), but for the present essay I assume as much and instead focus on these "slogans" as initial illustrations of the leading theme, which is the distinction between fallacies and logical errors.

ARGUMENTATIVE ERRORS AND ASSERTIVE ERRORS

The popular occurrences of the slogans exhibit two patterns. One pattern concerns the use to which the slogans are put. They are quite often invoked at moments calling for careful thought as premises for the conclusion that there is nothing to be gained, discovered, or learned by thinking about the matter in question. Another pattern is that of self-vitiation. To assert a slogan is to refute the slogan. Both patterns are of logical significance, i.e., both are errors of a logical sort, but only one is of the kind that could be classified as a fallacy.

To begin with the self-vitiation feature running through the slogans, it can be seen by the technique of assuming the proposition to be true and tracing out the implications to the negation of the assumption itself. It turns out, in other words, that if one is a bit thoughtful about what is being asserted, e.g., if one is cognizant of the logical ground on which one stands when making the assertions, then one would see that one is in effect asserting that there must be a truth, a certainty, an absolute, something nonrelative, something immutable, something objective, and something ultimate. As a quick example, consider "Everything is a matter of opinion." Is it a matter of opinion that everything is a matter of opinion? If no, then not everything is a matter of opinion. If yes, then what is being asserted is that it is not a matter of opinion that something may not be a matter of opinion. Either way, we end up with something that is not a matter of opinion.[1]

Next, the slogans are widely invoked as attempted support for thought-stultifying conclusions. One finds students, faculty, administrators, and theorists of education, to say nothing of journalists, movie stars, athletes, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, offering the slogans as proof of the absolute, nonrelative, immutable, objective, and ultimate truth concerning the feckless nature and impoverished limits of human thought.[2] Such argumentation fails, of course, to qualify as thoughtful, though there is something oddly consistent about using thoughtless premises for thought-stultifying conclusions. And thoughtlessness would be present even if one takes a more charitable reading of the slogans that treats them as overstatements of plausible relativist positions, for thoughtless formulations concerning fundamental matters are grossly thoughtless (to adapt Socrates' remonstration of Thrasymachus at 344e of the Republic). But the main point is that the use to which these slogans are widely put involves an error, and this argumentative error--call it a fallacy--is peculiar because it is not explicable in terms of a mistake in reasoning (see petitio principii) but rather in terms of another kind of error, viz., the assertive error of advancing self-vitiating premises.[3]

Finally, the failure to appreciate either the logical error found in asserting the slogans or the logical error in the argumentative use to which the slogans are put marks a failure to keep up with the logical viruses that have lately invaded both popular and academic culture. This omission is more egregious in the latter case, for within academia one finds structures, e.g., Critical Thinking courses and movements ("infusing critical thinking into the curriculum"), that would seem designed to foster, among other things, the ideal of a community of thoughtful humans.

MORE LOGICALLY-ODD ASSERTIONS

In this section I will add to the slogans a new batch of "thought-stopper" examples, and these will be prefaced by some embarrassing examples from professional philosophy (in memoriam of "Everything is in flux") so as to forestall or dispel any notion that such logical errors are widely made only by those of sophomoric intellect (though it should be kept in mind, of course, that not all philosophers who utter the below sentences are oblivious of the self-vitiation problem). But the main point will be to expose some popular logically-odd claims that are even further removed from the straightforward p&~p than the self-vitiating slogans above, and that thereby push the notion of logical error further away from the notion of fallacy and closer to its (plausible) extremes.[4]

1. "All meaningful (declarative) sentences are either analytically or empirically verifiable."

This criterion is asserted as meaningful and yet is neither analytically nor empirically verifiable.

2. "Only that produced directly from common sense, uninfluenced by philosophy, is true."

This highly reflective remark is asserted as the true response to an epistemological challenge.

3. "There is no legitimate philosophy apart from the sciences."

This is asserted as a legitimate philosophical claim and yet exceeds the limits of the sciences.

4. "Philosophy of science is philosophy enough."

The philosophy of science is not enough to account for this bit of philosophy.

5. "The falsity of our past ideas indicates that our current ideas are false."

The argument from historical induction works against the argument from historical induction.

6. "No terms in the language of another culture can be understood in terms of the terms in our language."

This undermines the possibility of there being "a language of another culture."

7. "We should not accept a claim for which there is no decisive proof."

As is noted in personal finance books (perhaps with too much zeal), not taking investment risks can itself be a risk. More directly, though, is that this claim has itself not been decisively proven, and hence it should be not be accepted.[5]

8. "All generalizations are really ceteris paribus generalizations."

This is almost as bad as claiming that all generalizations are false.

9. "Give me good enough reasons and I'll accept determinism."

Free choice would seem necessary for changing beliefs to match evidence for believing that human belief and behavior are fully determined. And consider this scenario: a clever student announces a recent conversion to determinism based on Professor Jones' lectures, and thus that you lack justification for penalizing the student for having missed the term paper deadline for your class. Your reply, of course, is to the effect that evidence or not, you cannot but help assessing the penalty.

10. "The more evidence we gather for determinism, the more conclusive it becomes that we ought to drop the notion of punishment."

What this stripe of determinist ought to drop, it would seem, is the notion of ought.[6]

11. "One and the same language cannot be used as both meta-language and object language."

The rough idea is that it is illegitimate for a language to be used to describe itself. But while there are indeed some self-reference problems that can arise because of the failure to recognize levels, there is nothing amiss with using English to describe English grammar--or to describe the very meta-language / object language distinction.

12. "Humans of type XYZ are ipso facto the best qualified to engage in the study of XYZ humans."

In recent years academic philosophy has witnessed the emergence, proliferation, and even breaking away of numerous journals, disciplines, and even members (of type XYZ) that are devoted to the study of "the XYZ experience." What is relevant here about these phenomena, i.e., what is noteworthy for the study of self-vitiation and logical errors, is an elitist strain sometimes found in them. If we leave aside the matter of why the XYZ experience and not the PQR or even non-XYZ experience, we can more easily isolate one side of an often slurred distinction. There is a difference between a proposed justification that turns on "XYZ has been marginalized" and "XYZ is understandable only to humans of type XYZ." The latter is the sometimes "common sense" explanation for the sometimes minimal role that non-XYZers get to play in the study. Maybe there are experiences that are understandable only to humans of type XYZ; maybe not. A clean example would be helpful here. Students often suggest females and childbirth, but there are such vivid analogical descriptions of the pains and emotions involved therein that not only mothers-to-be and never-mothers-to-be but even stuffy Professor Higgins can understand. Furthermore, whoever Shakespeare was he was not a fourteen-year-old Italian girl of the dignified Capulet household, and Iris Murdoch's novels reveal truths about "the male psyche" that had utterly escaped me (and the last time I looked south I was distinctly, if not distinctively, male).[7] But the main logical point is as follows. The "you have to be XYZ to understand" idea is sometimes mixed in with further talk, e.g., "if you were only XYZ you would understand," such that discipline XYZ is unwittingly (or perhaps intentionally) construed as resting on the idea that being a human of type XYZ is necessary and sufficient for understanding the XYZ experience. But this in turn renders discipline XYZ pointless since the XYZers have already got it (i.e., any possible research result about the XYZ experience) whereas even the intelligent, sensitive, and empathetic non-XYZers will never get it.

To put matters differently, many a text will note that "You are male / female / rich / poor / European / Afghan / Protestant / Shinto, therefore you cannot understand X / me" is to commit ad hominem circumstantial, but few if any go a step further and note this reply: "You are not male / female / rich / poor / European / Afghan / Protestant / Shinto, therefore you cannot understand what I can and cannot understand about X / you."

More "Thought-stoppers"

13. "That's just your perspective."

It is distressing how many people are stopped cold by this claim, especially given that a right-back-at-you response is available, viz., "No, it's just your perspective that it's just my perspective." But a further point of logical interest should be noted. The slogan is often taken to mean that all we have available to us is our own perspective, but then we would lack grounds not only for claiming that we have different perspectives from each other on X (were there no intersubjective X available then there would only be different perspectives and not different perspectives on X) but also for asserting the slogan at all (it would seem that a perspective-transcending viewpoint is necessary in order to have grounds for asserting the slogan).[8]

14. "One should get other opinions."

And then what? Furthermore, does one really need to do any actual seeking to discover that different people have different opinions on just about any matter?[9] It would be an irrational waste to seek out every or even any knee-jerk opinion on most matters, though seeking out expert judgment is in many cases the only rational option available. But on to the matter of showing that this assertion commits an error of a logical sort. Should one get other opinions about the merits of the slogan itself? If no, then one should not always get other opinions. If yes, then what about the possibility of encountering this opinion: "One should not get other opinions"?

15. "One should respect the opinions of others."

Then the opinion that the opinion that the opinions of others should be respected should not be respected should be respected.[10] And so should the opinion that no opinion, not even one's own, should be respected. The underlying point is that if the meaning of 'respect' has indeed slid from something like "not shooting others because of their opinions" to "holding as intellectually respectable," then what was once a sane statement concerning conditions for civil society has been transformed into a thought-stopper. What is worthy of the respect of a developed intellect, one may well argue (as opposed to merely opining), is knowledge, proof, evidence, and reasoning, for these are products of intellect that are not a dime a dozen like opinions but achievements that often result from honest and hard intellectual toil.

16. "One should learn from other cultures."

My main concern with this idea is not with its truth or falsity but rather with thoughtless appropriations of it. To begin, there is a disturbing predictable sameness about the kind of report given by many of those who have returned from other cultures; despite claims of "having learned so much," they are often hard-pressed to give specific and worthwhile examples. Have these "innocents abroad" learned from other cultures? Or have they merely learned to report their experiences of other cultures in terms of how their own culture tells them to, i.e., are they being led by an ideology in their own culture to approach and conceptualize their experiences of all cultures in a manner that satisfies the demands of the ideology? Why, for example, is the automatic facon de parler for such experiences "I learned from"? Why not rather "I enjoyed"? Or even "I found that they have wicked people too"? Furthermore, consider that many rarely if ever come back from other cultures with the question of what should be concluded from having learned that in some cultures there seems to be a comparative lack of interest or effort in learning about other cultures. Should they learn that learning from other cultures is a bad idea? But then what about the irony of having learned this by having learned from other cultures?[11]

17. "It's possible that...."

Many tend to believe that noting a bare logical possibility is sufficient for taking the possibility seriously. Metaphysicians are not exempt from this error. The quickest response to "Madame Blanche might have paranormal powers" is "Mrs. White might not have paranormal powers", i.e., a bare logical possibility is all the counter that a bare logical possibility deserves. Might doesn't make right.

18. "You can't form a generalization from just one instance."

This reckless caution hinders the drawing of conclusions that often should be drawn. People who are anxious to show that they do not stereotype are eager to assert it, but while the avoidance of stereotyping is virtuous, the thwarting of truth and the propagation of falsehood are (most often) not. If one leaves aside matters of early cognitive development and is attuned to the "real-world" contexts in which this remark is often made, then it seems quite clear that one does not need to witness multiple instances of people jumping off the Sears Tower to know that any budding career as a logician will abruptly end on the sidewalk below.

19. "Book smarts don't make you street smart."

As a member of a blue-collar immigrant family I know first-hand this sentiment. Since I've become a bit book smart, however, the college boy has learned to reply at family dinners with "Street smarts don't make you book smart". (Why concede, for example, that even if book smarts do not help in the "real world" they are therefore worthless? Or even less worth having than street smarts? Moreover, even if book smarts don't make for wisdom, street smarts don't either, as my admittedly slick and tough uncle of "Max's Used Kars" often proves, unwittingly, during such dinners).

20. "Don't think, just live."

What conception of life is at work here? For that matter, what misconception of thinking is at work?

21. "Nothing really matters."

Also sprach a world-weary student in my office one day. But even she had to smile when I replied, "Then why be so depressed about it?"

22. "Nothing is simple."

I take this from the last sentence of a ponderous novel that traced the main character's soulful journey from a religious childhood to enlightenment. My reaction to this culmination of wisdom, of course, is "That's simple."[12]

23. "Actions speak louder than words."

Neither I nor anyone else knows of an action that one William Shakespeare did that speaks louder than "To be or not to be...." (I know that no one knows of any because there isn't any). More generally, it is difficult indeed to find an action comparable to the historical din caused by the millions that have voiced this very idea. (Possible example and counter: What speaks louder, Brutus stabbing Caesar or "Et tu, Brute?").

24. "You can't prove / disprove the existence of God."

Prove that claim. Do you have, in other words, a proof of unprovability? And, before you embark on the predictable path, be aware that our best and most proofs do not deal with "the concrete" but rather with the abstract, e.g., arithmetic, geometry, and logic. Furthermore, before you assert that the infinite is beyond the finite mind (thereby refuting your point), prove what the limits of reason are or say something specific about attempts to reason about God's existence, e.g., Kant's proof that you can't prove / disprove the existence of God since the proper question is to consider what human reason can say concerning the reality of God.

25. "Nobody really knows anything."

Do you really know that this is so? Or even know it? Although this thought-stopper is really a variant of the above "Everything is a matter of opinion" slogan, I include it here because it contains an element that pushes the notion of logical error (in the context of critical thinking or informal logic) to an extreme. Would it not be a fitting aside to point out to students that the gratuitous abuse of Parmenides and his ilk with the really overused use of "really" is really an indication of a really impoverished vocabulary? Perhaps this is a grammatical or stylistic matter, but then again this way of expressing intensity really commits one to the very objectivity and so forth that one is trying to deny.

26. "Everybody is unique."

Then nobody is. And by maintaining that everybody is unique one is hardly being unique. People's thoughts, as Oscar Wilde dryly noted, are not really their own (McCann 1991, p. 66). Not even those ardently on the "think for yourself" bandwagon escape this indictment; Martin Heidegger's concept of the "they-self" can be applied to academic circles to reveal localized and highfalutin expressions of the "thoughtlessness of thoughts" (Macquarrie and Roberts 1962, pp. 163-168). But perhaps the most direct way to show the logical oddity of this assertion is to consider a person whose uniqueness lies in maintaining that not everybody is unique.

TRANSITION

The first of two main reasons for listing these "thought-stoppers" is to amplify and extend--i.e., amplify and extend beyond what is supported by the opening, self-vitiating slogans--the notion of logical error, especially the notion of logical errors that are not fallacies. The examples pump intuitive fuel to drive home the thesis that the class of logical error--including popular and thought-impeding errors--extends significantly beyond those usurpatory informal fallacies. The examples work by presenting us with problematic assertions that are less like empirical errors (e.g., asserting that "Memphis is north of Chicago"), for example, than they are like asserting "Ich spreche ja gar kein Deutsch" or "Nothing sticks to teflon" (when trying to sell teflon-coated pans). I will return below to this intuitive starting point when I consider the formal analysis of logical errors.

The second reason for listing the thought-stoppers is to provide evidence that something is amiss in the fairly standard practice and theory of informal logic and in at least some practices and theories of critical thinking. The identification of actual logical errors in academic life that are just as, if not more, conjunctively-significant, harmful, and basic as the fallacies are purported to be, and that have too rarely been sufficiently addressed by the disciplines, is the evidence. The disciplines may well be successful in alerting us to fallacies, argument structures, critical skills, and other matters, but this has not always made us aware of other kinds of logical error that are stultifying thought right beneath our noses.

INFORMAL LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING

The Practice of Informal Logic

The mere fact that students (to limit the focus) will walk out of Logic class--having mastered the elite canon of fallacies found in the standard texts--only to utter the self-refuting slogans and further thought-stoppers shows (yet again) that there is something distressingly weird in the fairly common way of teaching informal logic. Even well-trained students are oblivious to the fact that many of the assertions self-vitiate; such myopia is jarring when from students who are adept at spotting informal fallacies. One cannot, of course, cover everything in a section or class on informal logic, and there may well be good reason for continuing to expose students to the traditional fallacies, but these stand in need of a supplementary look at non-fallacious logical errors. Too many of those who make the assertions, and of those who hear them, believe them. Given this, it should be noted that merely using more current illustrations for fallacies is not sufficient for achieving an "updated" treatment of pernicious logical errors; the trendy slogans and thought-stoppers, on the other hand, are pedagogically singular in illustrating that logically-interesting bad thinking is not restricted to the examples of fallacious arguments emphasized in the textbook (examples which are often artificially-circumscribed anyway) but also to their underlying, half-consciously picked-up conclusions on intellectual life.[13]

The Practice of Critical Thinking

The general academic community is not being alerted to a significant group of the logical errors that warrant attention. This is a problem according to at least some conceptions of what the practice of critical thinking is supposed to accomplish, i.e., according to some accounts one aim of critical thinking is the communal development of cognitive skills for avoiding such shoddy thinking (see theory discussion below for references). Furthermore, the fact that many students think that tossing out the slogans and thought-stoppers in conversation insures their status as urbane members of the modern, enlightened intellectual community goes to show that the critical thinking attitude is not being properly fostered. What are we doing in the Critical Thinking classroom if not publicly checking assaults against the Bedingung der Möglichkeit?

To put matters in a way that extends Walton's call for "Revising the Textbooks" (1991, p. 249), it would seem that the practice of critical thinking should cast a wider net than the practice of informal logic, and so it is more telling when the slogans and thought-stoppers are not systematically presented or even found in the various Critical Thinking texts that pass over a professor's desk. This fact counts against the texts qua resources for practice (unless, for example, a text provides fairly clear subsuming examples or categories, or disavows the above as a proper aim). Despite the endless new editions of certain such texts, too many texts are not managing to keep up with those popular mistakes of a logical sort that are impairing clear thinking.

The Theory of Informal Logic

Insofar as the theories of informal logic and critical thinking attempt to provide the analyses of the concepts that capture the practices of informal logic and critical thinking (or what these practices should be), then they should provide the concepts and analyses needed to capture the errors found in the popular assertions listed above. Too many theoretical accounts do not sufficiently furnish these, however, and this shows that there is something amiss in the theories. A telling illustration of this theoretical neglect is that one's fear of the "What is a logical error?" question ought to be greater than one's embarrassment at "What is a fallacy?"[14]

To begin with the theory of informal logic, Hamblin confesses in 1970 that

[t]he truth is that nobody, these days, is particularly satisfied with this corner of logic....What is needed, above all, is discussion of some unresolved theoretical questions (p. 11).

The winter of discontent continues into Capaldi 1971. Capaldi bemoans the lack of uniformity in informal logic, and seeks to remedy "the currently disorganized state" (p. 11) by producing an order to the "telephone book" (p. 12) list of fallacies. Capaldi's clever stratagem is to approach matters from the viewpoint of the deceiver, and along the way he raises some noteworthy questions, e.g., the relation between soundness and informal logic (pp. 183-184). But my point is to underline the move from the theory of informal logic to fallacies; such a move, as the story continues, is typical.

Walton (1984, pp. 2-3) continues to work this link from the theory of informal logic to the fallacies by noting that formal logic does not accommodate the fallacies, and then he cements the path with his 1989 Informal Logic, a lengthy work that deals primarily with the fallacies.

This understanding of the theory of informal logic in terms of the fallacies receives an official sanction of sorts by some recent reference works on philosophy. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, for example, states the following:

Informal Logic is the subfield of logic inquiry that deals with these fallacies (Walton, in Audi, ed., 1999, p. 431).

The point, then, is that it is no wonder that neither the practice nor theory of informal logic cover the slogans or thought-stoppers, since the discipline restricts its attention to arguments, and indeed the fallacies. But perhaps it should not be so restricted. First, insofar as the arguments of concern are those found in "everyday conversations" (Walton, in Audi, ed., 1999, p. 435), then the argumentative use to which the slogans and thought-stoppers are put (i.e., for the "no point in thinking" conclusion) should have been red flags to informal logicians. Second, insofar as fallacies are taken to be a sort of logical error, then again the nature and range of the genus deserves some attention.

To sum up, the concept of fallacy is one that tends to dominate the theory of informal logic. One will not find such detailed accounts of logical error. It may even be that the theoretical focus on the former has occluded awareness of the need to provide theoretical clarification for the latter. And it may well also be that the lack of theory for non-fallacious logical errors has spilled over to the practical level; it is hard to look for something if perception is not guided by concepts. In any event, the notion of logical error in the context of informal logic remains relatively unexamined, and unexamined concepts are often not worth having. This overall assessment is in keeping with Terence Parsons' remarks when he warns against duplicating the "...well-known inadequacies of informal logic" (1996, p. 165):

I think that the field of informal logic has been hampered by a lack of theory or perhaps by possession of wrong theory. This can be made right by the development of a better theory (p. 165).

The Theory of Critical Thinking

The above-mentioned Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy contains no entry for 'Critical Thinking.' But there is indeed a body of philosophical literature on the theory of critical thinking, and I will briefly visit it to document that the discipline involves aims, concepts, techniques, and subject matter that are not only broader than those of Informal Logic (as above construed) but also friendly to what I have been doing in this paper thus far.

To begin with Ennis 1962, he seeks to remedy the lack of a "comprehensive, thorough, up-to-date treatment" of the concept of critical thinking (pp. 81, 83; emphasis mine). He proceeds not by discussing fallacies but by listing twelve aspects and three dimensions of critical thinking (pp. 83-86). Of these twelve the "Grasping the meaning of a statement," "Judging whether certain statements contradict each other," and "Judging whether a conclusion follows necessarily" aspects would seem most easily to subsume my up-to-date slogans and thought-stoppers. But perhaps the "logical dimension" (p. 84) most cleanly accommodates them within the theory of critical thinking:

A person who is competent in this dimension knows what follows from a statement or group of statements, by virtue of their meaning. He particularly knows how to use the logical operators, 'all,' 'some,' 'none,' 'not,'...(p. 84).

In more recent work one continues to find discussion moving beyond the fallacies; topics include critical thinking skills, dispositions, and attitudes. Indeed, things have progressed so far that one topic is whether to keep fallacies from being pushed out the door altogether, e.g., Blair's "The Place of Teaching Informal Fallacies in Teaching Reasoning Skills or Critical Thinking" (Hansen and Pinto, eds., 1995, pp. 328-338). And in Siegel 1997 they are no longer on the menu; Siegel's main topics, to name a few, include critical thinking as an educational ideal, the generalizability of critical thinking skills, the character of the critical thinker, the critical spirit, the role of epistemology in critical thinking, and The Brothers Karamazov as it relates to critical thinking (for a sample, see pp. 2, 13-25, 27-37, and 39-54).

The main point from the foregoing is that even if fallacy theory is too restricted to accommodate my slogans and thought-stoppers, critical thinking theory is not. Both Ennis and especially Siegel have laid a conceptual framework of aims, concepts, techniques, examples, and subject matter that not only sanctions but indeed demands that the practice of critical thinking do what I have done above. What is missing, however, is a formal analysis that is specific to my slogans and thought-stoppers. More precisely, I have found nothing in the literature that does adequate justice to the peculiar combination of logical properties that many of these logical errors exhibit, and so my next step is to try to provide the such myself.

WHAT IS A LOGICAL ERROR?

The section title asks not for examples but for theoretical clarification. What can be said about logical errors--in the context of informal logic and especially critical thinking--so that theory better captures the proper practice of these disciplines?

From Fallacies to Logical Error

A safe way to begin is with a tautology. Errors are either logical or non-logical. Contingently false assertions furnish us with paradigmatic examples of non-logical errors. Basing conclusions--validly--on empirically false premises is another. As for the former disjunct, informal fallacies are favorite examples. Indeed, the transition is so quick that the danger is that of identifying the two when in fact fallacies should be understood as a subset of logical error. But the main point is that the concept of fallacy points to the notion of logical error, and thus a look at the former concept furnishes another beginning point--in addition to the above slogans and thought-stoppers--that can guide and constrain theoretical analyses of logical error, at least for the purposes of informal logic and critical thinking.

What, then, is a fallacy? More precisely, what is the logical property, or set of properties, that make fallacies logical errors? One often gets the distinct impression that authors of general-purpose texts are squirming with embarrassment when speaking in general theoretical terms about fallacies. But a quick sample of leading texts, past and present, will reveal that fallacies tend to be understood in terms of the soundness / validity distinction and that the logical error part of fallacies tends to be understood in terms of "reasoning" or "argument." Moore and Parker, for example, claim that

A fallacy is any bad argument, one in which the reasons for a claim fail to warrant its acceptance (1989, p. 146).

Barker offers a narrower comment:

In logic the term 'fallacy' is restricted to mistakes in reasoning (1965, p. 174).

Hurley tells us that a fallacy is "a certain kind of defect in an argument" (1991, p. 108), but cleverly avoids telling the reader about this kind of defect in positive terms. He instead notes a contrasting kind of defect:

One way that an argument can be defective is by having one or more false premises. Another way is by containing a fallacy (p. 108).

Cohen and Copi also accept these two kinds of defect, but go on to note that the false premise defect is not the "special province" of the logician (1994, p. 114). The fallacy defect, on the other hand, is the special province of the logician, because "[a] fallacy is an error in reasoning" (p. 114).

As for the fallacy theorists, Massey 1991 bites the bullet and argues that a theory of fallacies is an impossibility. Contra Massey, however, is Walton's suggestion that a broader model of argument is needed (1984, p. 3), Walton and Woods' introduction of novel concepts such as "challenge-buster" and "a circle game" (1978, p. 79), Walton's identification of the pragmatic and dialectical aspects of informal fallacies (see Audi, ed., 1999, p. 431), and Johnson's sifting through alleged aspects to see what should remain at the nucleus of the idea of fallacy (Hansen and Pinto, eds., 1995, pp. 114-116). But it is in Hamblin 1970 that one finds what is germane here, i.e., a fairly direct discussion of a logical error per se in the context of informal logic (as noted in a footnote above, Walton's remarks on non-fallacious [logical] errors are limited to mentioning contrasts to begging the question; 1991, p. 215, 217-231).

On one hand, Hamblin's analysis is predictable enough:

A fallacy is a fallacious argument. Someone who merely makes false statements, however absurd, is innocent of fallacy unless the statements constitute or express an argument (p. 224).

Hamblin herewith misses, like the authors above, the slogans and thought-stoppers. But his remarks on "a dialectical paradox...generated by self-reference" (p. 301) come much closer. The paradox begins the man who says of his own, current utterance that it is false; the problem, Hamblin claims, is that what is openly stated to be false is not a falsehood (p. 301). Applied to arguments, the problem is that there is no real equivocation when one argues from premises P to conclusion Q, and then adds that the argument is equivocal, for one thereby negates the seriousness of purpose in supporting Q (pp. 301-302). Hamblin diagnoses the error in these to be that of attempting to say what cannot be said (but can be shown; p. 301), and thus he comes close to describing the logical error found in at least some of the slogans and thought-stoppers. A difference, though, is that packed into Hamblin's examples is a degree of self-awareness not to be found in mine; I would consider the day spiffing indeed when my students and colleagues "try to say what can't be said."

To sum up, it is not nonstandard to think of fallacies as logical errors in the sense of either mistakes in reasoning or defects in argument. But what is a mistake in reasoning? And what is a defect in argument? These issues are suitable for a book. But an issue suitable here is to underscore that these modes of logical error are not identical. A mistake in reasoning is a bad inference, and bad inferences--especially bad deductive inferences--are well enough understood to help clarify what it is about fallacies that make them instances of logical error.[15] A defect in argument, however, is less clear, but it can be noted that this way of understanding fallacies (i.e., what makes them logical errors) arises in the attempt to explain what is wrong with something like the valid petitio principii or the above-described valid argumentative use of the slogans. As Walton concludes, one and the same argument can be both valid and fallacious (1984, p. 13).[16] Such arguments involve logical errors not because they contain bad inferences but rather because they are failures as attempts to provide support for a conclusion wherein the failure is not reducible to something like reliance on an empirically false premise. Put alternatively, such arguments involve logical errors in that they fail as attempts to justify belief modification, and fail in way not explicable in terms of either bad inferences or non-logical properties. The idea in these last sentences is hardly pellucid but it is sufficient to help push the point that understanding fallacies as logical errors qua bad inferences is different than understanding them as logical errors qua failed attempts at providing support (when the failure is not due to a non-logical error). This look at fallacies has thus served to underscore that the concept of logical error is to be understood as an umbrella concept for at least two distinct kinds of error, and that bad inferences constitute but one of these kinds, and thus that one can think badly even though one has not reasoned badly nor relied on contingently false premises.

From the Slogans and Thought-Stoppers to Logical Error

I noted above that I would return to the slogans and thought-stoppers when I consider the theoretical account of logical error. That highly anticipated moment has arrived. The initial point is that the slogans and thought-stoppers provide intuitive support for the idea that there are logical errors of interest to critical thinking that extend beyond the fallacies. Logical errors in assertion, to borrow from an above section title, can be just as pervasive and deleterious to the achievement and preservation of a thoughtful community as are argumentative errors. The general-purpose text actually provides partial coverage of this kind of logical error, e.g., it mentions the problems with asserting contradictions, contraries, "All S are not P", and even those paradoxes of self-reference. These failures in thinking are not explicable in terms of fallacies because they are not arguments. Yet these failures--like the assertions of the slogans and thought-stoppers--seem to be failures of a logical rather than non-logical sort.[17]

The next point is the one of cardinal importance, and it can be carried out by means of the following questions and responses. First, what is it about contradictions that makes them logical errors? It seems to be this: contradictions are assertions that are necessarily false. Second, what is it about paradoxes of self-reference that makes them logical errors? It seems to be this: they are assertions that, if applied to themselves, are false if true and true if false (e.g., "This sentence is false"). Last, what is it about (some of) the slogans and thought-stoppers that makes them logical errors? The answer here is startling and breaks open the range of logical errors in assertions: the slogans and thought-stoppers are assertions that, if applied to themselves, are necessarily false. Self-vitiating assertions combine, in other words, the logically significant features of contradictions and self-reference paradoxes. But they cannot be reduced to contradictions, for they require a self-reference move that is not necessary for contradictions. And they cannot be reduced to self-reference paradoxes, because they are necessary falsehoods, i.e, they are false if true and--unlike paradoxes--false if false. For example, if "Everything changes" is true, then it is false (since it is asserted as an immutable truth), and if it is false, then it is again false (i.e., for it to be false means that there is at least one thing unchanging).[18] The point, then, is that the slogans and thought-stoppers serve not only to provide intuitive support for the idea that there are logical errors of interest to critical thinking (if not also informal logic) that extend beyond the fallacies but also to lend guidance to the discovery of a class of non-fallacious logical error that is a third alternative between contradictions and paradoxes.

The Taxonomy of Errors in Thinking

If we put together the straightforward and not-so-straightforward logical errors of assertion, and join them with the above remarks on what makes fallacies logical errors, we find ourselves with a framework by which to think about both how thinking can go bad and indeed the notion of logical error in critical thinking:

1) Argumentative errors:

A) Non-logical errors in argumentation

E.g., Reliance on empirically false assertions

B) Logical errors in argumentation

E.g., Mistakes in reasoning

E.g., Mistakes in providing support (due neither to bad inference nor non-logical properties).

2) Assertion errors:

A) Non-logical errors in assertion

E.g., Empirically false assertions

B) Logical errors in assertion

E.g., Contradictions (necessarily false)

E.g., Paradoxes of self-reference (false if true and true if false when applied to themselves)

E.g., Self-vitiating assertions (necessarily false when applied to themselves)

One could of course suggest additions to the chart. Is not Descartes' conceptual analysis of why God cannot be a deceiver the exposure of a logical error? What about Kant's finding contradictions in conceptions, e.g., a universe in which everyone lies? Or the discussions in 20th century analytic philosophy of variations on Gosse's hypothesis (that the world--and its seemingly prehistoric fossils--were recently created by God)? Indeed, I confess that my inclination is to add the category "Logical errors in questions" (e.g., Is the square root of 3 green? and Augustine's What was God doing before the creation of the world?). Many things have been called logical errors, and many things probably are logical errors. The danger is opening Pandora's box. But that danger is avoided in this essay because the topic is not logical errors per se punkt but rather logical errors per se within the purview of critical thinking. And since critical thinking is here understood to be on the lookout for popular logical errors that impede the achievement of a thoughtful community, the notion of logical error need not be so extended so as to capture high-level philosophy. But it does need to be extended to cover the slogans and thought-stoppers, and this much has been attended to--at least to some degree.

To conclude this section, I have given a theoretical accounting of at least some of the kinds of logical error that should be covered by critical thinking if not also informal logic, and I have isolated and provided formal description of the neglected kind of logical error instantiated by the slogans and thought-stoppers. This work can perhaps serve as the basis for a more general account of logical error, for whatever else a logical error is, it would seem to be that which is in common--at least in a family resemblance sort of way--to the various kinds of logical error identified on the above chart. And what is this common element (or these overlapping elements)? One route to take here is "internalist", i.e., find a common something inherent in the structure of each of the kinds, e.g., the concept of necessity, contradiction, or maybe even Hamblin's "trying to say what cannot be said." Another route is "externalist," i.e., find a common something that is not structural. This route is more problematic and less satisfying, but I present an example here because the example is based on how I stumbled onto the above slogans and thought-stoppers (and not necessarily because I favor this route).

The kinds of logical error identified on the chart have at least this much in common: they are errors of the sort that the logician, in virtue of training, is best equipped to spot, discuss, and analyze. Let the biologist handle false premises involving sea otters and cells, and let the astronomer handle claims asserting that Jupiter has but two moons. But the logician's overall training makes the logician well equipped--sometimes uniquely so--to handle certain errors. One may well recall here Smart's comments about philosophers being fitted to eliminate nonsense, the desirability of some technique for recognizing non-obvious nonsense, and the application of such a technique as being at least a part of philosophy (Smart 1963, pp. 1-12). A rough externalist proposal, then, is that a logical error in critical thinking is a popular, thought-impeding error of the sort that the logician is best equipped to handle.[19]

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Notes