The Fallacy of Logical Fallacies

If you watch, listen or read anything you are exposed to an abundance of logical fallacies.

You might not know all of the types of logical fallacies. I certainly don't, though I recently stumbled across a Web site called fallacyfiles.com that explains many exceptionally well. Like many people I'm sure, I learned about some logical fallacies in college, and can recognize a few common types, but that's about the extent of it.

Here's what I find interesting though - I've come to the conclusion that, even if you knew and could spot every type of currently known logical fallacy, unless you are able to defend against the fallaciousness of your opponent's argument without drawing attention to the fallacy directly it won't do you much, if any, good. This "knowledge" has been gleaned from years of reading and participating in online forum discussions (and I'm fully aware that my conclusion might be the result of fallacious reasoning :p).

Read most any online forum argument in which one member directly accuses another of committing a logical fallacy and that confrontation and accusal will almost invariably be met with one of two types of responses:

1. Denial - Person A: "That's an ad-hominem attack." Person B: "No it isn't." Person A (probably thinks to themselves): "Well, WTF?"
2. Yet another fallacy - if the accused doesn't deny, they will almost always move the goal posts in an attempt to reframe their argument.

Being able to recognize a fallacy isn't enough to gain you points in an actual argument. What you need to be able to do is recognize the fallacy and present a nuanced defense against it, without drawing obvious attention to your knowledge of the fallacy. Or, at least, this is what it seems like one would need to do if one isn't an academic arguing with another academic.

With this thought in my head today, I'm off to search for resources that offer insights into useful ways to utilize fallacy recognition in real world argument scenarios. If any of this blog's readers are familiar with good sites or books that address this subject, please leave a comment and let me (and the other five or so people who come here) in on your secrets.