The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #111448   Message #2347269
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
22-May-08 - 07:45 PM
Thread Name: BS: effective arguments
Subject: RE: BS: effective arguments
It's good fun seeing this kind of thing laid out in a structured way. Whether it actually helps keep us on the straight and narrow I'm less certain. It probably does for some people.

I find that the way I'm built is that as soon as I see a list of fallacies I start constructing circumstances in which they aren't necessarily fallacious.

The crucial distinction, I think, is between arguing where the goal is to arrive at the truth, and arguing where the goal is to win the argument.