Content

Sophisms

Exercises

trying to help someone to use sophisms on purpose in order to trick him or her
detect sophisms during IRC conversations
know your own "sophisms arsenal"

Sophisms (non-official ones)

fairness before realism
- analyzing a situation based on what it should morally and ethically be then on the coherence of that model
  - vs. first being realistic then and only then checking if it is morally and ethically acceptable or not
- what is the point of being right about something that is wrong?
reverted causality
- especially common with long-term processes demanding efforts
  - "Why do you do sport X, you are already fit!" while the person stays fit precisely because he or she is regularly practicing physical activities.
  - "Why do you eat so healthy, you are so thin!" while the person masters his or her weight precisely because he or she eats properly.
  - "Why do you read so much, you are already so smart!" while the person is knowledgeable precisely because he or she is investing a lot of time studying.
ad Galileo (original "creation" ;)
- When someone is being ridiculed for a lack of solid argumentation (including peer review or references) they describe themselves as the new Galileo, original and thus persecuted.
- see rule 35 of John Baez's Crackpot index, 1998
- started the http://www.agi-wiki.org/Main/AGICrackpots equivalent as an homage
the unknown unknown against "intellectual bully"
- understanding understanding is still an active topic of research
  - hermeneutics
  - epistemology
    - Popper's demarcation problem
  - meta-skeptic
recurrent blackhole of meta-conversation
- discussing the method of conversation rather than the initial problematic
- common after pointing out sophisms used

Official sophism

Wikipedia:False dilemma

Views

Arguments to defend (cognitive) territory

More often than not arguing is about territory, even if it is about cognitive territory (i.e. a theory or an idea). Consequently what is being debated is not necesseraly the point but the ability to demonstrate to other that on can defend his own territory.

Inspiration : Garlic argument during Big Brother (UK) 10x28

Going further

Do text analysis tools (based on lexicometry, logometry, ML, ...) provide detection feature?
lab Logométrie et corpus politiques, médiatiques et littéraires by the UMR 6039 : Bases, Corpus, Langage, Nice
How to win every argument: the use and Abuse of Logic by Madsen Pirie, Continuum 2006
Compendium software tool for mapping information, ideas and arguments by The Open University

References

Le Petit cours d’autodéfense intellectuelle by Normand Baillargeon, Lux 2005
Rhetoric according to Wikipedia
my notes on Petit traité de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens, PUG 2002
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy
There you go again: Orwell Comes to America, LIVE from the NYPL, 2007
- especially Part I : Propaganda, Then and Now: What Orwell did and didn't know
Propaganda by Edward Bernays, 1928
Argument Clinic from Monty Python's Flying Circus
A Theory of Epistemic Justification by Jarrett Leplin, Springer 2009
Critical Thinking videos by Jacques Ranciere, Continental Philosophy, 2008
Colloque Figures de l’imposture, entre philosophie, littérature et sciences at l’École normale supérieure (ENS), June 2009
Project Implicit to "experience the manner in which human minds display the effects of stereotypic and prejudicial associations acquired from their socio-cultural environment."
my notes on The Politics of Misinformation - Eldelman
Wikipedia:Informal fallacy
Fallacy Files first published on 2001
Karaté mental / Le culbuto, l’effet bof et autres ni-ni, Outils d’autodéfense intellectuelle, chapitre 1, La Traverse #1 July 2010