Page 60 - Žagar, Igor Ž. 2021. Four Critical Essays on Argumentation. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
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four critical essays on argumentation
achieving a certain goal. In our case (i.e. Wodak’s case), this goal seems
to be to deliberately create (later on, Wodak even uses a much stronger
term, i.e. ‘setting up’) a fallacy. Which raises an important epistemologi-
cal as well as methodological question: do we commit fallacies (with a tech-
nical meaning: producing/coming up with/perpetrating a fallacy without
knowing that it was a fallacy; I am not claiming here that the English verb
‘to commit’ is restricted to this meaning, I am just using it in order to point
to a dichotomy and construct an opposition), or do we employ them, even
set them up (i.e., we are conscious of the fact that we have used a fallacy)?
The answer is easy with witless examples like ‘Everything that runs
has feet; the river runs: therefore, the river has feet’: it is obvious that these
examples were set up with a certain goal or intention. But what about the
ever-present ‘fallacies’ like hasty generalizations? As Hamblin pointed out,
they are unavoidable, that is the way we reason all the time, because in
everyday life we have no alternative: when reporting somebody’s words or
actions, we simply can’t take into consideration all the instances of a par-
ticular case, it would be practically impossible. In everyday life, we usually
make our decisions on a limited number of analogies and examples, even
on examples or experiences we don’t have direct access to (we were just told
about them). Does that mean that we are talking and living (in) fallacies?
But let us proceed with Wodak’s book. What follows is the analysis of
excerpts of different interviews:
Just before this excerpt begins, MEP 3 and the interviewer have
been talking about the kind of contact MEPs have (or believe they
should have) with their constituencies. In this context, MEP 3
contrasts her own behaviour with that of what she considers to
be typical of (male) politician, thus providing a stereotypical gen-
eralization and setting up a straw-man fallacy. (Wodak ibid.: 105)
Again, there is no example (excerpt), and no analysis that would fol-
low. We are told that MEP 3 contrasts her own behaviour with that of what
she considers to be typical of (male) politician. We don’t get to know what
and how that is. But, if somebody is comparing her own behaviour with the
behaviour of some other group she is witnessing in her professional life,
this is her own personal experience, not (necessarily) a ‘stereotypical gen-
eralization’. It may sound stereotypical, if there are similar descriptions of a
certain professional group circulating in a certain public sphere (though we
would first have to answer the question, why do we find them stereotypical,
60
achieving a certain goal. In our case (i.e. Wodak’s case), this goal seems
to be to deliberately create (later on, Wodak even uses a much stronger
term, i.e. ‘setting up’) a fallacy. Which raises an important epistemologi-
cal as well as methodological question: do we commit fallacies (with a tech-
nical meaning: producing/coming up with/perpetrating a fallacy without
knowing that it was a fallacy; I am not claiming here that the English verb
‘to commit’ is restricted to this meaning, I am just using it in order to point
to a dichotomy and construct an opposition), or do we employ them, even
set them up (i.e., we are conscious of the fact that we have used a fallacy)?
The answer is easy with witless examples like ‘Everything that runs
has feet; the river runs: therefore, the river has feet’: it is obvious that these
examples were set up with a certain goal or intention. But what about the
ever-present ‘fallacies’ like hasty generalizations? As Hamblin pointed out,
they are unavoidable, that is the way we reason all the time, because in
everyday life we have no alternative: when reporting somebody’s words or
actions, we simply can’t take into consideration all the instances of a par-
ticular case, it would be practically impossible. In everyday life, we usually
make our decisions on a limited number of analogies and examples, even
on examples or experiences we don’t have direct access to (we were just told
about them). Does that mean that we are talking and living (in) fallacies?
But let us proceed with Wodak’s book. What follows is the analysis of
excerpts of different interviews:
Just before this excerpt begins, MEP 3 and the interviewer have
been talking about the kind of contact MEPs have (or believe they
should have) with their constituencies. In this context, MEP 3
contrasts her own behaviour with that of what she considers to
be typical of (male) politician, thus providing a stereotypical gen-
eralization and setting up a straw-man fallacy. (Wodak ibid.: 105)
Again, there is no example (excerpt), and no analysis that would fol-
low. We are told that MEP 3 contrasts her own behaviour with that of what
she considers to be typical of (male) politician. We don’t get to know what
and how that is. But, if somebody is comparing her own behaviour with the
behaviour of some other group she is witnessing in her professional life,
this is her own personal experience, not (necessarily) a ‘stereotypical gen-
eralization’. It may sound stereotypical, if there are similar descriptions of a
certain professional group circulating in a certain public sphere (though we
would first have to answer the question, why do we find them stereotypical,
60
