Going Deeper Into Language - 3

Part III:
Watching Out Against the Fallacies of Relevance

We have already taken up the nine most common kinds of material fallacies, so we will now proceed to the second broad category of logical fallacies—the fallacies of relevance, which are arguments that seek to persuade people to accept evidently nonlogical propositions.

In this form of fallacy, the premises and evidence offered are actually irrelevant to the conclusion, but they are couched in language that makes them somehow psychologically or emotionally persuasive. People often have very strong opinions about the issues in fallacies of this kind, so they seldom notice when their attention has been diverted from the real issue.

Indeed, on the strength of one person’s persuasive powers alone, fallacies of relevance are often demonstrably false and can hook in only the unwary, the predisposed, and the gullible. But with the growing sophistication of their purveyors in using the modern mass media, particularly television and radio and the Internet, this form of illogic often acquires enough power to break the rational defenses of even the intellectually sophisticated and astute.

The 13 most common kinds of fallacies of relevance, identified and catalogued as early as 2,600 years ago during Aristotle’s time, are the following: fallacies of irrelevance (ignoratio elenchi), personal ridicule (ad hominem), appeal to the people (ad populum), appeal to authority (ad verecundiam), appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam), appeal to pity (ad misericordiam), appeal to force (ad baculum), appeal to money (ad crumenam), emotive language, tu quoque, genetic error, anthropomorphism, and non sequitur.

We will now dissect a few specimens and show why their kind of reasoning can’t stand rigorous logical scrutiny.

Fallacies of irrelevance. Better known as ignoratio elenchi (which means “irrelevant conclusion”), this broad category covers practically all of the fallacies of relevance. They try to establish the truth of a proposition with arguments that support an entirely different conclusion. Example: “I’ve been accused of fathering my secretary’s child, but she actually signed an affidavit that the child is actually the fruit of artificial insemination. Therefore, I couldn’t have possibly fathered that child.”

That the woman had declared under oath that her child was conceived through artificial insemination would seem to clear the man of wrongdoing. However, it really isn’t conclusive proof that he didn’t father that child. What if the woman, out of love or terror or poverty or charity, is simply trying to protect the man’s reputation? The affidavit—that all-purpose device of law to support truth and falsehood alike—doesn’t really settle the biological and parental aspect of the premises. The only thing it proves is that the woman signed it. (Thankfully, modern science has developed the DNA test to scientifically debunk fallacies of this type.)

Personal ridicule (ad hominem). When someone ridicules another rather than directly addresses the premises of his or her argument, one commits the fallacy of personal ridicule. Two examples: “You wouldn’t believe someone of such low social stature, would you?” “She may be right about the country’s economic situation, but don’t you remember that she was outrageously wrong twice during the past 10 years?”

Easily the most popular variety of this fallacy is the so-called “straw man,” the tactic of misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to refute. The trick is to distort an aspect of someone’s premises to make it less credible, attack the now distorted position, and then claim that the whole argument has been refuted.

Take the following conversation as an example: Niece to uncle: “Uncle, I’d like to take up mass communications instead of nursing. I think I’m not really cut out for nursing.” Uncle to niece: “You unthinking moron! Mass communications graduates today are dime a dozen. Nursing is the most in-demand job abroad these days!”)

We are now done with the first two the 13 most common kinds of fallacies of relevance, namely the fallacies of irrelevance (ignoratio elenchi) and personal ridicule (ad hominem). Now we’ll take up the next five: appeal to the people (ad populum), appeal to authority (ad verecundiam), appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam), appeal to pity (ad misericordiam), and appeal to force (ad baculum).

Appeal to the people (ad populum). This is the fallacy of using the presumed feelings, actions, and prejudices of the general population to support an invalid argument, as in this assertion: “67.8% of our TV texters say that that high official couldn’t be guilty of corruption. He really must be innocent!” Two insidious varieties of this fallacy are mainstays in product advertising and religious belief: the bandwagon, as in “Nine out of every 10 doctors use X toothpaste. High time you did!”, and appeal to belief: “All of us in this town are true believers. You must be the son of the Devil if you aren’t.”

                                    

Appeal to authority (ad verecundiam). This is the fallacy of supporting dubious or patently false premises with the opinion of a leader, authority, or expert in a field outside the field being discussed: “Our beloved Brother Y got a message from Heaven that M should be our next president. We’ve got no choice but to vote for M.” It may sound ridiculous, but the danger to modern society is that fanaticism of all stripes almost always makes this kind of fallacy work with people of certain persuasions—especially clueless believers.

Appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam). This is the fallacy of assuming that a premise is correct because it can’t be disproved. Here’s its basic form: “There’s no proof that what you say is true; therefore, what you say isn’t true.” The same illogic runs in this assertion: “We have no evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, so no intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the universe.”

The same faulty reasoning props up the “guilty until proven innocent” fallacy, in which police authorities make suspects wear the orange garb of prisoners and then parade them before the broadcast and print media. They score media and political points in doing this, of course, but they are actually engaging in a blatant appeal to ignorance, running roughshod over the legal presumption that someone is “innocent until proven guilty.”

Appeal to pity (ad misericordiam). This is the fallacy of trying to get support for one’s premises not on logical grounds but on compassion. In Philippine parlance this is the “paawa” (“have mercy on me”) effect; elsewhere it is known as the “victim mentality.” This form of illogic marks many court pleadings, as when a defense lawyer asks for leniency towards his self-confessed client: “Your Honor, he may have killed the winning candidate but he is a highly intelligent law graduate whose conviction will forever ruin what could be a most illustrious legal and political career.”

Appeal to force (ad baculum). When the usual means of persuasion fail, some people use threat and intimidation to compel others to accept their argument. This is the most insidious fallacy of all because it marks the end of civility and the beginning of belligerence: “Park here at your own risk.” “If I hear that line from you again, you better start looking for another job.” “If they convict me of treason, the government will have a bigger rebellion in their hands.” “Mr. Senator, you’ve just called me a crook. Say that again without parliamentary immunity and I’ll slap you with a twenty-million-peso libel suit!”

We’ve already discussed seven of the 13 most common kinds of the fallacies of relevance, which are arguments that attempt to persuade people to accept evidently nonlogical propositions. This time we’ll take up the next three: appeal to money (ad crumenam), emotive language (argumentum ad populum), and the “You also” or “You, too” fallacy (tu quoque).

Appeal to money (ad crumenam). This is the fallacy of thinking that money is a reliable standard of correctness, and that the more moneyed one is, is more likely one will be right. Consider the bias in this all-too-common passing motorist’s remark about a car collision along the way: “That Toyota Fortuner is obviously not the aggressor because it’s brand-new and much more expensive than that old Beetle, and it was being driven for that respectable-looking executive. Look, that Beetle’s careless driver isn’t even shaven and is only in a dirty undershirt!”

In the so-called appeal to poverty (argumentum ad lazarum), this fallacy works in reverse: “That Toyota Fortuner is obviously at fault because it’s much sturdier and bigger than that old Beetle. The Fortuner’s driver must have bullied the poor Beetle’s driver and raced him  to the intersection.” Of course, the appeal to money and the appeal to poverty, which together are counted as one type of fallacy, are both illogical ways of looking at the situation, for we know that neither greater wealth nor poverty indicates greater good or truth.

Emotive language (argumentum ad populum). This is the fallacy of using emotionally loaded words to establish a claim without proof; the appeal is neither to reason nor logic but to the beliefs or feeling of the majority of the people towards a particular issue.

One remarkable example of emotive language in history is the response of Spain’s Queen Isabella when Christopher Columbus broached to her in the year 1493 the idea that based on his trans-Atlantic voyage, the Earth must be a sphere. She was recorded to have said: “The Earth must be flat. Millions of people know that it is. Are you trying to tell them that they are all mistaken fools?” (Based on modern scientific knowledge, of course, they were and so was she!)

As we all know, emotive language is likewise the bread-and-butter stuff of political advertising. By using strong emotional rather than rational appeals, political slogans attempt to short-circuit the logical evaluation of the candidate’s fitness for the position by making the candidate’s name resonate positively in the voter’s mind.

Consider these slogans of the presidential candidates in the 2016 Philippine national elections: Rodrigo Duterte: “Tapang at Malasakit” (“Fearlessness and Compassion”); Manuel “Mar” Araneta Roxas II: “Ituloy ang Daang Matuwid” (“Continue the Straight Path”); Grace Poe Llamanzares: “Gobyernong May Puso” (“Government with a Heart”); Jejomar Binay: “Competence and Experience: Only Binay”) and the late Miriam Defensor Santiago: “Si Miriam and Sagot!” (“Miriam is the Answer!”). Regardless of their truthfulness or validity, only in retrospect would we know if these slogans actually work in getting a candidate elected.  

“You also” or “You, too” fallacy (tu quoque). This is the fallacy of demolishing someone’s position by presenting evidence that his or her past actions or beliefs are inconsistent with the position or view he or she is presenting now. A very common example in Philippine elections is this argument: “Your party cheated heavily to win in the last elections, so why is your party advocating honesty now and condemning my party for preparing to do what you did in the coming elections?” It’s the obnoxious tit-for-tat mentality that bedevils supposedly free and democratic elections.

We’ve already taken up 10 of the 13 most common kinds of the fallacies of relevance, which are arguments that attempt to persuade people to accept nonlogical propositions. Now we’ll now discuss the last three: genetic error fallacy, anthropomorphism (pathetic fallacy); and non sequitur (Latin for “it doesn’t follow”).

Genetic error. A variation of the ad hominem (personal ridicule), this fallacy doesn’t necessarily attack the person directly; instead, it attacks the origins of the position that person is proposing. This fallacy is termed “genetic” because it’s based on the notion that the original source of an idea is a reliable basis for evaluating its truth or reasonableness.

One example of the this fallacy is this argument: “You believe that that there are measurable differences in IQ among the different human races? You must be a despicable racist then!” This highly emotional diatribe is often raised against scientists who, based on their objective and dispassionate researches, as much as privately and quietly raise such a possibility.

Understandably, people of any race will find that view horrid and patently unacceptable, but this belief has no bearing on whether such IQ differences do, in fact, exist. Indeed, in an honest-to-goodness effort to establish logical proof, where an argument comes from is irrelevant.

Anthropomorphism (pathetic fallacy). This type of fallacy treats animals or inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thoughts, or sensations. Although using the pathetic fallacy can be a good way to make complex concepts or difficult ideas more easily understood, it can be carried to unreasonable, illogical extremes.

One useful pathetic fallacy is this personification of the behavior of gases: “Air hates to be crowded, and when compressed it will try to escape to an area of lower pressure.” Being inanimate, air is obviously incapable of hating and of trying to escape; it just behaves according to natural law. Still, attributing human traits to air makes its behavior more comprehensible.  

But anthropomorphism can take this much less useful and more odious form: superstition. For example, growing a fortune plant right outside the door of the house is supposed to bring good luck to the homeowner. However, when the fortune plant doesn’t grow well despite adequate care, it is anthropomorphism to conclude that the fortune plant detests the homeowner and won’t bring good luck. Conversely, it is also anthropomorphism to believe that the fortune plant’s robust growth will bring great fortune to the homeowner. In reality, regardless of whether its owner has good or bad luck, the fortune plant will grow largely on its own accord, depending only on the care it gets.

Non sequitur (Latin for “it doesn’t follow”). In formal logic, a non sequitur is any argument whose conclusion doesn’t follow from its premises. The conclusion may either be true or false, but the fallacy in the argument arises from a disconnect between the premise and the conclusion. Indeed, all of the formal fallacies we’ve taken up are special cases of non sequitur.

The campaign trail for national elections is invariably littered with non sequiturs, as in these very instructive election slogans in 2010: “Kung Walang Corrupt, Walang Mahirap” (If No One’s Corrupt, No One will Be Poor); “Para sa Mabilis na Pag-aahon” (For Quick Recovery); “Pagbabago Sigurado” (Change for Sure); “Ipagpatuloy ang Magandang Simula” (Let’s Continue Our Beautiful Beginning).

Scrutiny of each of these slogans will quickly show that the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise; in short, the statement is a fallacy, often unrealistic and logically indefensible. They are simply attention-getters and rallying cries.

This ends our discussion of the 13 most common kinds of fallacies of relevance. We’ll take up next and for last the verbal fallacies, or the false statements or conclusions that result from the improper or ambiguous use of words.

Next: Watching out against the verbal fallacies       September 7, 2023