Books: Practical Argumentation
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George K. Pattee >> Practical Argumentation
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To overthrow or weaken argument from authority, one may either
discredit its source or bring to light some inconsistency in the
statement itself. Usually the former method alone is possible. To
accomplish this result, one may show that the witness spoke from
insufficient knowledge of the matter, or was prejudiced, or had some
personal interest in the case. Counter authority will also be of
assistance. The following quotation taken from a college debate
furnishes the student a good example of how to handle this sort of
refutation.
"The argument has been advanced that the South does not need the
foreign laborer, and this argument has been supported by the words of
Mr. Prescott F. Hall. We would call the attention of the audience and
the judges to the fact that since Prescott F. Hall is Secretary of the
Immigration Restriction League, it would be to his interest to make
this assertion. Why do not our opponents refer to impartial and
unprejudiced men, men like Dr. Allen McLaughlin, a United States
immigration official, who makes just the opposite statement?"
REASONING.
I. Induction.
A. Have enough instances of the class under consideration been
investigated to establish the existence of a general law?
B. Have enough instances been investigated to establish the
probable existence of a general law?
II. Deduction.
A. Are both premises true?
B. Is the fact stated in the minor premise an instance of the
general law expressed in the major premise?
III. Antecedent probability.
A. Is the assigned cause of sufficient strength to produce the
alleged effect?
B. May some other cause intervene and prevent the action of the
assigned cause?
IV. Sign.
A. Argument from effect to cause.
1. Is the assigned cause adequate to produce the observed
effect?
2. Could the observed effect have resulted from any other
cause than the one assigned?
B. Argument from effect to effect.
1. Do the combined tests of argument from effect to cause and
from cause to effect hold?
V. Example.
A. Is there any fundamental difference between the case in hand
and the case cited as an example?
FALLACIES.
A fallacy is an error in reasoning. The preceding part of this chapter
has already suggested tests that will expose many such faults, but
there are a few errors which, because of their frequency or their
inadaptability to other classification, demand separate treatment.
This book follows the plan of most other texts on argumentation, and
treats these errors under a separate head marked fallacies. To detect
a fallacy in another's argument is to weaken, if not to destroy, his
case; to avoid making a fallacy in one's own argument means escape
from humiliation and defeat. Hence, a knowledge of fallacies is one of
the most essential parts of a debater's equipment.
The classification given here does not pretend to be exhaustive; it
does, however, consider the most common and insidious breaches of
reasoning that are likely to occur, and the following pages should be
studied with great care.
I. BEGGING THE QUESTION. (PETITIO PRINCIPII.)
1. MERE ASSUMPTION. Begging the question means assuming the truth of
that which needs proof. This fallacy is found in its simplest form in
epithets and appellations. The lawyer who speaks of "the criminal on
trial for his life," begs the question in that he assumes the prisoner
to be a criminal before the court has rendered a verdict. Those
writers who have recently discussed "the brutal game of football"
without having first adduced a particle of proof to show that the game
is brutal, fall into the same error. An unpardonable instance of
question-begging lies in the following introduction, once given by a
debater who was attacking the proposition, "_Resolved_, That the
federal government should own and operate the railroads in the United
States":--
"We of the negative will show that the efficient and highly beneficial
system of private ownership should be maintained, and that the
impracticable system of government ownership can never succeed in the
United States or in any similarly governed country."
Private ownership and government ownership may possess these qualities
attributed to them, but the debater has no right to make such an
assumption; he must _prove_ that they have these qualities.
2. ASSUMPTION USED AS PROOF. Such barefaced assumptions as the
preceding usually do little damage except to the one who makes them.
They are not likely to lead astray an audience of average
intelligence; on the other hand, they do stamp the arguer as
prejudiced and illogical. But when assumptions are used as proof,
hidden in the midst of quantities of other material, they may produce
an unwarranted effect upon one who is not a clear thinker, or who is
off his guard. If, without showing that football is brutal, one calls
it an extremely brutal game, and then urges its abolishment on the
ground of its brutality, he has used an assumption as proof, and has,
therefore, begged the question. The debater who stated, without
proving, that vast numbers of unskilled laborers were needed in the
United States, and then urged this as a reason why no educational test
should be applied to immigrants coming to this country, furnished an
example of the same fallacy.
3. UNWARRANTED ASSUMPTION OF THE TRUTH OF A SUPPRESSED PREMISE. The
student is already familiar with the enthymeme. The enthymeme
constitutes a valid form of reasoning only when the suppressed premise
is recognized as true. Therefore, whenever an arguer makes use of the
enthymeme without attempting to establish a suppressed premise whose
truth is not admitted, he has argued fallaciously. This is a third
method of begging the question. To illustrate: In advocating the
abolishment of football from the list of college athletic sports, one
might reason, "Football should be abolished because it obviously
exposes a player to possible injury." The suppressed premise in this
case would be: All sports which expose a player to possible injury
should be abolished. Failure to prove the truth of this unadmitted
statement constitutes the fallacy.
4. ASSUMPTION EQUIVALENT TO THE PROPOSITION TO BE PROVED. It is not
surprising that a man carried away with excitement or prejudice should
make assumptions that he does not even try to substantiate, but that
anyone should assume the truth of the very conclusion that he has set
out to establish seems incredible. Such a form of begging the
question, however, does frequently occur. Sometimes the fallacy is so
hidden in a mass of illustration and rhetorical embellishment that at
first it is not apparent; but stripped of its verbal finery, it stands
out very plainly. The following passage written on the affirmative
side of the proposition, "_Resolved_, That the college course
should be shortened to three years," will serve as a particularly
flagrant illustration:--
It is a well-known fact that in the world of to-day time is an
essential factor in the race for success. No young man can afford to
dawdle for four long years in acquiring a so-called "higher"
education. Three-fourths of that time is, if anything, more than
sufficient in which to attain all the graces and culture that the
progressive man needs.
It is evident that the "argument" in this case consists of nothing
more than a repetition of the proposition.
5. ARGUING IN A CIRCLE. Another phase of begging the question consists
of using an assumption as proof of a proposition and of then quoting
the proposition as proof of the assumption. Two assertions are made,
neither of which is substantiated by any real proof, but each of which
is used to prove the other. This fallacy probably occurs most
frequently in conversation. Consider the following :--
A. "The proposed system of taxation is an excellent one."
B. "What makes you think so?"
A. "Because it will be adopted by the legislature."
B. "How do you know it will?"
A. "Because it is a good system and our legislators are men of sense."
This fallacy occurs when one proves the authority of the church from
the testimony of the scriptures, and then establishes the authenticity
of the scriptures by the testimony of the church. A similar fallacy
has been pointed out in the works of Plato. In _Phaedo_, he
demonstrates the immortality of the soul from its simplicity, and in
the _Republic_, he demonstrates the simplicity of the soul from
its immortality. The following fragment of a brief argues in a
circle:--
I. This principle is in accordance with the principles of the
Democratic party, since
A. The leader of the Democratic party believes in it, for
1. As the leader of the party, he naturally believes in
Democratic principles.
II. AMBIGOUS TERMS. (EQUIVOCATION; CONFUSION OF TERMS.)
The fallacy of ambiguous terms consists of using the same term in two
distinct senses in the same argument. Thus if one were to argue that
"no designing person ought to be trusted; engravers are by profession
designers; therefore they ought not to be trusted," it is quite
apparent that the term "design" means totally different things in the
two premises. The same fallacy occurs in the argument, "Since the
American people believe in a republican form of government, they
should vote the Republican ticket." Again:--
"Interference with another man's business is illegal;
"Underselling interferes with another man's business;
"Therefore underselling is illegal."
J. S. Mill in his _System of Logic_ discusses the fallacy of
ambiguous terms with great care. In part he says:--
The mercantile public are frequently led into this fallacy by the
phrase "scarcity of money." In the language of commerce, "money" has
two meanings: _currency,_ or the circulating medium; and
_capital seeking investment,_ especially investment on loan. In
this last sense, the word is used when the "money market" is spoken
of, and when the "value of money" is said to be high or low, the rate
of interest being meant. The consequence of this ambiguity is, that as
soon as scarcity of money in the latter of these senses begins to be
felt,--as soon as there is difficulty of obtaining loans, and the rate
of interest is high,--it is concluded that this must arise from causes
acting upon the quantity of money in the other and more popular sense;
that the circulating medium must have diminished in quantity, or ought
to be increased. I am aware that, independently of the double meaning
of the term, there are in the facts themselves some peculiarities,
giving an apparent support to this error; but the ambiguity of the
language stands on the very threshold of the subject, and intercepts
all attempts to throw light upon it.
As countless words and expressions have several meanings, there is
almost no limit to the confusion which this fallacy can cause. Some of
the most common terms that are used ambiguously are _right_,
_liberty_, _law_, _representative_, _theory_, _church_, _state_,
_student_.
By carefully defining all terms that have more than one meaning and by
insisting on a rigid adherence to the one meaning wherever the term is
used, a debater can easily avoid fallacies of this sort in his own
argument and expose those of his opponent.
III. FALSE CAUSE.
The fallacy of false cause occurs whenever that which could in no way
bring about the effect that is being established is urged as its
cause. This fallacy in its most obvious form is found only in the
arguments of careless and illogical thinkers. Some college students
occasionally draw briefs that contain such reasoning as the
following:--
I. The Panama canal should be of the sea-level rather than of the
lock type, because
A. The Panama canal will do away with the long voyage around the
Horn.
I. Southerners are justified in keeping the franchise away from the
negro, for
A. Negroes should never have been brought to America.
B. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution ought not to have
been passed.
The error of such plainly absurd reasoning as occurs in the preceding
illustrations needs no explanation. There is one form of the fallacy
of false cause, however, that is much more common and insidious and
therefore deserves special treatment.
POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC. (After this, therefore, on account of
this.) This phase of the fallacy consists of the assumption that since
cause precedes effect what has preceded an event has caused it. The
most frequent occurrence of the error is to be found in superstitions.
If some one meets with an accident while taking a journey that began
on Friday, many people will argue that the accident is the effect of
the unlucky day. Some farmers believe their crops will not prosper
unless the planting is done when the moon is in a certain quarter;
sailors often refuse to embark in a renamed vessel. Because in the
past, one event has been known to follow another, it is argued that
the first event was the cause of the second, and that the second event
will invariably follow the first.
But this fallacy does not find its only expression in superstitions.
To _post hoc_ reasoning is due much of the popularity of patent
medicines. Political beliefs, even, are often generated in the same
way; prosperity follows the passing of a certain law, and people jump
to the conclusion that this one law has caused the "good times." Some
demagogues go so far as to say that education among the Indians is
responsible for the increased death rate of many of the tribes.
A slightly different phase of the _post hoc_ fallacy consists in
attributing the existence of a certain condition to a single preceding
event, when at the most this event could have been only a partial
cause of what followed, and may not have been a cause at all. A
medicine that could not have effected a cure may have been of some
slight benefit. A law that could not possibly have been the sole cause
of "good times" may have had a beneficial effect. To avoid this
fallacy, one must be sure not only that the assigned cause is
operative, but that it is also adequate.
In the following passage, _Harpers Weekly_, for March 5, 1894,
points out the error in the reasoning made by several college
presidents who, after compiling statistics, stated that a college
education increased a man's chance of success from one in ten thousand
to one in forty:--
Not many persons doubt any longer that an American college education
is an advantage to most youths who can get it, but in these attempts
to estimate statistically what college education does for men there is
a good deal of confusing of _post hoc_ and _propter hoc_.
Define success as you will, a much larger proportion of American
college men win it than of men who don't go to college, but how much
college training does for those successful men is still debatable.
Remember that they are a picked lot, the likeliest children of parents
whose ability or desire to send their children to college is evidence
of better fortune, or at least of higher aspirations than the average.
And because their parents are, as a rule, more or less prosperous and
well educated, they get and would get, whether they went to college or
not, a better than average start in life....
If one boy out of a family of four goes to college, it is the clever
one. The boys who might go to college and don't are commonly the lazy
ones who won't study. The colleges get nowadays a large proportion of
the best boys of the strongest families. The best boys of the
strongest families would win far more than their proportionate share
of success even if there were no colleges.
An exposure of similarly fallacious reasoning is made by Edward M.
Shepard in _The Atlantic Monthly_ for October, 1904.
The Republican argument is that the whole edifice of our prosperity
depends upon high protective or prohibitive duties, and that to them
is due our industrial progress. Is it not, indeed, a disparagement of
the self-depending faculties of the American people thus to affirm
that, in spite of their marvelous advantages, they would have failed
in industrial life unless by force of law they could have prevented
the competition with them of other peoples? It is only by the
sophistry to which I have referred that this disparagement is
justified. It is that old argument of veritable folly that, because
event Z follows event W, as it follows events A and B and many besides
A, therefore W is the sole cause of Z. Theory or no theory, the
Republican says that we have in fact grown rich by protection, because
in our country prosperity and protective duties have existed together.
They ignore every inconvenient fact. They would have us forget that
each of the industrial depressions of 1873-78 and 1893-96 followed
long operation of a high protective tariff. They ignore the
contribution of soil and climate to our prosperity, the vast increase
which modern inventions and improved carrying facilities have, the
world over, brought to the productivity of labor, and here in the
United States have brought more than anywhere else. They ignore the
superior skill and alertness of the American workman and the wonderful
extent to which he has been stimulated by the conditions and ideals of
our democracy. They ignore the freedom of trade, which, since 1789,
the Federal Constitution has made operative over our entire country,--
by far the most important area of free trade ever known,--and which
everyone to-day knows to be a prime condition of the prosperity of our
forty-five commonwealths.
From what has been said it is obvious that it is never safe to account
for an occurrence or a condition by merely referring to something that
accompanies it or precedes it. There must be a connection between the
alleged cause and the effect, and this connection must be causal;
otherwise, both may be the result of the same cause. The cause must
also be adequate; and it must, moreover, be evident that the result
has not been produced, wholly or partially, by some other cause or
causes.
IV. COMPOSITION AND DIVISION.
COMPOSITION. The fallacy of composition consists of attributing to a
whole that which has been proved only of a part. To condemn or to
approve of a fraternity because of the conduct of only a few of its
members, to say that what is advantageous for certain states in the
Union would therefore be beneficial for the United States as a whole,
to reason from the existence of a few millionaires that the English
nation is wealthy, would be to fall into this fallacy. Furthermore, it
is fallacious to think that because something is true of each member
of a class taken _distributively_, the same thing holds true of
the class taken _collectively_. It is not logical to argue that
because each member of a jury is very likely to judge erroneously, the
jury as a whole is also very likely to judge erroneously. Because each
witness to an event is liable to give false or incorrect evidence, it
is unreasonable to think that no confidence can be placed in the
concurrent testimony of a number of witnesses.
DIVISION. The fallacy of division is the converse of the fallacy of
composition. It consists of attributing to a part that which has been
proved of the whole. For instance, Lancaster county is the most
fertile county in Pennsylvania, but that fact by itself does not
warrant the statement that any one particular farm is exceptionally
fertile. Because the people of a country are suffering from famine, it
does not follow that one particular person is thus afflicted. Again,
it would be fallacious to say: It is admitted that the judges of the
court of appeal cannot misinterpret the law; Richard Rowe is a judge
of the court of appeal; therefore he cannot misinterpret the law.
V. IGNORING THE QUESTION. (IGNORATIO ELENCHI.)
An arguer is said to ignore the question, or to argue beside the
point, whenever he attempts to prove or disprove anything except the
proposition under discussion. This fallacy may arise through
carelessness or trickery. An unskilled debater will often
unconsciously wander away from his subject; and an unscrupulous
debater, when unable to defend his position, will sometimes cunningly
shift his ground and argue upon a totally new proposition, which is,
however, so similar to the original one that in the heat of
controversy the change is hardly noticeable. A discussion on the
subject, "The boycott is a legitimate means of securing concessions
from employers," which attempted to show the effectiveness of the
boycott, would ignore the question. Likewise, in a discussion on the
proposition, "The average college student could do in three years the
work now done in four," any proof showing the desirability of such a
crowding together of college work would be _beside the point_.
In the following passage Macaulay holds up to scorn certain arguments
which contain this fallacy:--
The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors
against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all
controversy about facts, and content themselves with calling testimony
to character.
We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told
that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his
people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-
hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son
on his knees and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the
articles of the Petition of Rights, after having, for good and
valuable consideration, promised to obey them; and we are informed
that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning!
Whenever an arguer avoids the question at issue and makes an attack
upon the character, principles, or former beliefs or personal
peculiarities of his opponent, he commits the special form of this
fallacy known as _argumentum ad hominem_. It is obviously
fallacious to reason that a principle is unsound because it is upheld
by an untrustworthy advocate, or because it is inconsistent with the
advocate's former beliefs and practices. Honesty is a worthy
principle, even though advocated by a thief. The duty of industry is
no less binding because it is advocated by an idler. Lawyers often
commit this error by seeking to discredit the opposing attorney.
Campaign speakers frequently attempt to overthrow the opposing party's
platform by showing that it is inconsistent with the party's previous
measures and declarations. To bring in such irrelevant matter is to
ignore the question.
Closely allied to _argumentum ad hominem_ is another phase of
ignoring the question called _argumentum ad populum_. This
fallacy consists of using before a certain audience statements which
will strongly appeal to their prejudices and partisan views, but which
are not generally accepted facts and which would undoubtedly meet with
strong opposition elsewhere. A speaker who brings in this kind of
argument makes use neither of reasoning nor of legitimate persuasion.
He neglects his proposition and attempts to excite the feelings of his
audience to such an extent as to render them incapable of forming a
dispassionate judgment upon the matter in hand.
In general, it is necessary only to point out a fallacy to weaken an
argument. Sometimes, however, the error is so involved and so hidden
that, though it is apparent to one who is arguing, yet it is not
easily made apparent to the audience. In overcoming this difficulty,
arguers often resort to certain peculiar devices of arranging and
presenting the material for refutation. Long experience has shown that
the two methods given here are of inestimable value.
VI. REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. (REDUCING TO AN ABSURDITY.)
The method of refuting an argument by _reductio ad absurdum_
consists of showing that the argument to be refuted, if true, proves
not only the conclusion given, but also other conclusions which are
manifestly absurd. For example, a debater once contended that colleges
should not seek to root out professionalism in athletic sports,
because, by coming in contact with college life, professional players
receive considerable benefit. His opponent answered him by showing
that the same argument carried out to its logical conclusion would
prove that a college should encourage the attendance of criminals and
degenerates on the ground that they will be benefited thereby. Thus he
reduced the argument to a manifest absurdity.
At one time the officers of a national bank permitted their
institution to be wrecked by certifying, and thereby practically
guaranteeing, the checks of a firm of stock-holders when the brokers
did not have the money represented by the checks deposited in the
bank. This was distinctly a criminal offense. The brokers failed, and,
the bank having closed its doors in consequence, the president of the
bank was brought to trial. _The Atlantic Monthly_ reduces to an
absurdity the chief argument used for the defense.
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