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)
- it's Art.
- not having to justify any decision or opinion because the final product or the process leading to it would rely on a nearly mystical view of creativity, e.g. muses
- 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
- being "good at argumentation"
- aka "You could be a politician." or meta-sophism
- one could just politely ask to point out what part of the argumentation was illogical or incomplete
Official sophism
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
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
- http://www.YourLogicalFallacyIs.com
Fabien Benetou's PIM
