Page 49 - Žagar, Igor Ž. 2021. Four Critical Essays on Argumentation. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 49
fallacies: do we ‘use’ them or ‘commit’ them? ...
If we sum up: when a macrohistorian ‘takes a long view of history,
looking at multiple societies and nations over the course of centuries to
reach broad-ranging conclusions about the march of history’, making ‘con-
jectures based on averages’, for a microhistorian he may be committing a
Straw-man fallacy, namely taking facts and data from a particular context
and projecting them on a much larger screen. Such a generalization neces-
sary implies ‘conjectures based on averages’, while conjectures based on av-
erages usually qualify as yet another (very general) fallacy, namely ‘hasty
generalization’ or Secundum Quid.
On the other hand, when microhistorian ‘concentrates upon a single
individual or community’, ‘very tightly limited both spatially and tempo-
rally’, he may be—again, but from the opposite direction—taking facts and
data out of the context and restricting them to a much narrower screen.
Thus microhistorian may be committing a Straw-man fallacy for a macro-
historian, as well as a hasty generalization or Secundum Quid, because he is
not taking into account all the elements of a larger picture. We could, once
more, represent this relationship as follows:
From a historical perspective, macrohistory, no doubt, embraces mi-
crohistory. But from a perspective of historiography, what counts as the ba-
sic operating principle (even basic epistemological and methodological pre-
cept) of macrohistory could easily be seen as a fallacy by microhistory, and
vice versa.
49
If we sum up: when a macrohistorian ‘takes a long view of history,
looking at multiple societies and nations over the course of centuries to
reach broad-ranging conclusions about the march of history’, making ‘con-
jectures based on averages’, for a microhistorian he may be committing a
Straw-man fallacy, namely taking facts and data from a particular context
and projecting them on a much larger screen. Such a generalization neces-
sary implies ‘conjectures based on averages’, while conjectures based on av-
erages usually qualify as yet another (very general) fallacy, namely ‘hasty
generalization’ or Secundum Quid.
On the other hand, when microhistorian ‘concentrates upon a single
individual or community’, ‘very tightly limited both spatially and tempo-
rally’, he may be—again, but from the opposite direction—taking facts and
data out of the context and restricting them to a much narrower screen.
Thus microhistorian may be committing a Straw-man fallacy for a macro-
historian, as well as a hasty generalization or Secundum Quid, because he is
not taking into account all the elements of a larger picture. We could, once
more, represent this relationship as follows:
From a historical perspective, macrohistory, no doubt, embraces mi-
crohistory. But from a perspective of historiography, what counts as the ba-
sic operating principle (even basic epistemological and methodological pre-
cept) of macrohistory could easily be seen as a fallacy by microhistory, and
vice versa.
49
