Page 44 - Žagar, Igor Ž. 2021. Four Critical Essays on Argumentation. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 44
four critical essays on argumentation
(5) Conviction, of course, may be secured by threat, water torture
or hypnotism instead of by argument, and it is possible that Logic
should have nothing to say about these means; but we can hard-
ly claim that an argument is not an argument because it proceeds
ex concesso, or that such arguments have no rational criteria of
worth. (Hamblin ibid.: 241)
Threat, water torture or hypnotism (we could add more) would be,
no doubt, judged as fallacious means of securing conviction by standard,
mainstream theories of argumentation (if there is any such thing). But
Hamblin’s point is worth some consideration: these means of ‘conviction’
are nevertheless arguments, they may not be rational arguments, but there
may be rational criteria for using them (in particular circumstances).
Troubles with fallacies
In this light, Hamblin’s claim from the beginning of his book that there has
never yet been a book on fallacies becomes more understandable: Arthur
Schopenhauer’s Art of Controversy is, in his opinion, too short, Jeremy
Bentham’s Book of Fallacies is too specialized, the medieval treatises are
mostly commentaries on Aristotle, and Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations
are, in Hamblin’s view, ‘just the ninth book of his Topics’ (Hamblin ibid.:
11).
So the state of the art would be that nobody is particularly satisfied
with this corner of logic, concludes Hamblin.
Impossibility to classify fallacies
And, there may be a reason for that. Even if in almost every account from
Aristotle onwards we can read that a fallacious argument is one that seems
to be valid, but it is not, it is rather often argued that it is impossible to clas-
sify fallacies at all (and I have just presented Hamblin’s own contribution(s)
to this impossibility). Hamblin himself quotes De Morgan (1847/1926: 276,
in Hamblin ibid.: 13): ‘There is no such thing as a classification of the ways
in which men may arrive at an error: it is much to be doubted whether there
ever can be.’ And Joseph (1906/1916: 569, in Hamblin ibid.: 13): ‘Truth may
have its norms, but error is infinite in its aberrations, and cannot be digest-
ed in any classification.’ And Cohen and Nagel (1934: 382, in Hamblin ibid.:
13): ‘It would be impossible to enumerate all the abuses of logical principles
occurring in the diverse matters in which men are interested.’
44
(5) Conviction, of course, may be secured by threat, water torture
or hypnotism instead of by argument, and it is possible that Logic
should have nothing to say about these means; but we can hard-
ly claim that an argument is not an argument because it proceeds
ex concesso, or that such arguments have no rational criteria of
worth. (Hamblin ibid.: 241)
Threat, water torture or hypnotism (we could add more) would be,
no doubt, judged as fallacious means of securing conviction by standard,
mainstream theories of argumentation (if there is any such thing). But
Hamblin’s point is worth some consideration: these means of ‘conviction’
are nevertheless arguments, they may not be rational arguments, but there
may be rational criteria for using them (in particular circumstances).
Troubles with fallacies
In this light, Hamblin’s claim from the beginning of his book that there has
never yet been a book on fallacies becomes more understandable: Arthur
Schopenhauer’s Art of Controversy is, in his opinion, too short, Jeremy
Bentham’s Book of Fallacies is too specialized, the medieval treatises are
mostly commentaries on Aristotle, and Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations
are, in Hamblin’s view, ‘just the ninth book of his Topics’ (Hamblin ibid.:
11).
So the state of the art would be that nobody is particularly satisfied
with this corner of logic, concludes Hamblin.
Impossibility to classify fallacies
And, there may be a reason for that. Even if in almost every account from
Aristotle onwards we can read that a fallacious argument is one that seems
to be valid, but it is not, it is rather often argued that it is impossible to clas-
sify fallacies at all (and I have just presented Hamblin’s own contribution(s)
to this impossibility). Hamblin himself quotes De Morgan (1847/1926: 276,
in Hamblin ibid.: 13): ‘There is no such thing as a classification of the ways
in which men may arrive at an error: it is much to be doubted whether there
ever can be.’ And Joseph (1906/1916: 569, in Hamblin ibid.: 13): ‘Truth may
have its norms, but error is infinite in its aberrations, and cannot be digest-
ed in any classification.’ And Cohen and Nagel (1934: 382, in Hamblin ibid.:
13): ‘It would be impossible to enumerate all the abuses of logical principles
occurring in the diverse matters in which men are interested.’
44
