While I do think that rhetoric is a skill worth developing, don’t forget that rhetorical tricks are Dark Arts.
Many so-called “Logical Fallacies” are unfortunately applied to arguments that are valid inferences. On priors, you are better off trusting experts in their field than laymen. But this is called the “argument from authority fallacy”. The correct counter is Argument Screens Off Authority. And so on. Learning Counterspells is no substitute for grokking Bayes, and may even be harmful if they just give you excuses not to listen or more ammunition to shoot your own foot with.
Also, someone should totally make a card game out of this.
I agree that rhetoric can be dangerous, but I’m actually not sure how it applies in this case. Don’t these Counterspells strictly dominate, “You used X logical fallacy against me”?
It’s true that many complaints about “logical fallacies” are mistaken, but I think that one of the nice features of Counterspells is that because their forms are so tight, they can actually help you realize when you’re misapplying them to something that is a valid inference (or something that is a different fallacy than you first thought). In the process of developing this idea, more than once I have gone to use a Counterspell against something, only to find in the process that my interlocutor was saying something very different than what I had initially imagined.
I think their formulaic, fill-in-the-blanks nature forces you to engage with the material more than you might otherwise; I think they’re the opposite of an excuse not to listen. And since they only make sense in response to certain invalid inferences, I don’t think there’s much opportunity to shoot your foot off. Many of them include a request for elaboration, and in a respectful discussion where no one engages in rhetorical tricks, they will never come up.
Dominate by what measure? In terms of scoring debate points with the audience, no. “Fallacy X” takes less time to say. People who don’t know what “X” means may still assign you higher status because you named something in Latin, and assume people who can reply quickly are smarter, and therefore right.
Counterspells seem more effective when arguing in writing than in person, when the slower response time isn’t as costly. You also wouldn’t have to memorize them.
If the goal is to get a single interlocutor to actually change their mind, something like Street Epistemology might be better. Politics is the mind-killer. When a position is tied to identity, direct confrontations are simply attacks to be resisted. You have to cut sideways and undermine their foundations. Don’t focus on the reasons why they believe (where Counterspells seem to be focused), but how they come to beliefs. If their epistemology is broken, don’t expect more evidence to sway them—because they’re just not listening.
But all of the above are still Dark Arts, because they’re rhetorical tricks that can be selectively applied to anything you don’t like. Yes, there has to be an opening. The interlocutor has to have at least appeared to have made a “mistake” in reasoning or at least the presentation of it, which may make it less Dark than more underhanded rhetorical tricks, but which openings you choose to attack shows your own bias.
If you care about the truth, don’t reach for any formulaic gotcha ammunition. Steelman. Take the most charitable interpretation of the opposing argument you can muster, and then cut it down. If you can.
I agree that they are most useful when actually trying to change someone’s mind.
I originally thought that they would be more effective in writing than in person, but after making the list some I’ve been surprised at how quickly and naturally they can be used in conversation. It took a few seconds the first few times, but I didn’t really need to practice. YMMV.
I actually have a pretty narrow range of uses in mind, and I think some of our disagreement comes from thinking I intend these for general use. You correctly point out that Counterspells don’t make any positive progress in the debate, they just swat things down (like a… counterspell?). And yeah, that’s all they are. They don’t do much heavy lifting and you need other tools to actually change someone’s mind (most of the time).
All I’m saying is whenever you would say, “That’s invalid because [Fallacy Name]”, instead say, “[Counterspell]”. It has to exist within the framework of better rhetorical skills, and yeah, if someone is the kind of asshole who pulls them out as underhanded tricks, these won’t save them.
Counter counterspells for argument from authority:
It’s not that I believe that anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is wrong, it’s just that the proper procedure for determining whether you are right should involve engaging with [Expert] instead of engaging with me
It’s not that I believe that anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is wrong, it’s just that from my perspective, anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is probably wrong, and I have to be careful about where I put my time
We can probably do counter-counter spells for all of these
Ad Hominen:
Based on my previous experience, the fact that this person is (x) provides evidence against their argument, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.
Response to tone:
People who speak with (tone) usually aren’t taking other arguments seriously or making good arguments, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way
Non-Central Fallacy:
This thing is of class (x), things of class (x) are usually bad, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.
All of your proposals miss my point, as does the idea of counter-counterspells. They may be epistemically virtuous, but they are what Alexander would call Meta-Debate, discussion of what can be debated, who is a trusted source, and how the discussion can be held. As Alexander points out, there’s nothing wrong with Meta-Debate, and it can be useful. It’s still not part of the actual debate.
I’ve placed it in a sphinx outside the pyramid to emphasize that it’s not a bad argument for the thing, it’s just an argument about something completely different.
Ultimately they have no bearing on whether or not the topic of discussion is true or false. Certainly I could tell someone, “Your belief in a flat earth makes me not interested in trusting your thoughts on homeopathy”, and I would be right to do so. But homeopathy is still true or false regardless of this person’s other unconventional beliefs.
Even beyond that, assuming the goal of a discussion is to change your partner’s mind (I know it’s not always, but let’s assume), then these do a terrible job of that. Counterspells are designed with the assumption that you want to convince someone discussion in good faith, and designed to engage with their (incorrect) arguments directly. What you propose are all dismissals.
Even so, I don’t think they’re great meta-arguments. Certainly you can see the problem with, “Martin Luther King was a criminal, criminals are usually bad, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.”
Ultimately they have no bearing on whether or not the topic of discussion is true or false. Certainly I could tell someone, “Your belief in a flat earth makes me not interested in trusting your thoughts on homeopathy”, and I would be right to do so. But homeopathy is still true or false regardless of this person’s other unconventional beliefs.
But the purpose of our discussion is to change my mind about homeopathy. There’s something of a frequentist epistemology behind saying that homeopathy is true or false regardless of your other beliefs—it’s certainly true, but that doesn’t help me make up my mind about:
1. Whether or not it’s true.
2. Whether or not it’s useful to discuss this specific aspect.
Counter-counter-spells are a way of pointing out when a bias is actually a heuristic. Your Martin Luther King example isn’t such a case, but there are certainly many cases where it is a good heuristic.
You seem to be thinking of a case where Counterspells would be used against honest epistemological heuristics. I agree that this is inappropriate. But in such a case you just need to tell them that you were making a call about the discussion rather than their position (this is still meta-debate), something like: “I didn’t suggest that your tone makes you wrong, but it does make me not want to engage with you.” Though frankly in such a case I can’t see why you would want to engage further, making me even more skeptical of the idea of these double counters.
The idea of a Counterspell assumes (by definition; I invented it) 1) That the original speaker made a true logical fallacy, 2) That the responder is choosing to engage and respond in good faith, and 3) That the Counterspell response is appropriate, i.e. that it really does point out why the original argument was incorrect in that it didn’t provide good evidence for some conclusion. If they fail at that, it’s not a Counterspell. Because of this, the very idea of counter-counterspells is wrongheaded. The suggestion is to make a dismissive response to an honest, correct, and good-faith attempt to engage with someone. That’s something I’m not interested in.
Another way to put it is that Counterspells are intended to move discussions away from meta-debate. Rather than calling someone out for violating norms and trying to rack up hits against their credibility, Counterspells help you to engage with the content of someone’s complaint even as you are disagreeing with it. I think that’s incredibly helpful.
(Also I can’t see why this is at all frequentist in perspective. Bayesians can believe in true states of the world as well.)
While this is true (most fallacies are actually legitimate heuristics), if I heard the same person say all of these things I would have to step back and get them to ask themselves if they’re really in the mood for discourse right now, heh.
It’s easy to get sucked into discourse when you don’t have a lot of time for it and half-ass everything.
While I do think that rhetoric is a skill worth developing, don’t forget that rhetorical tricks are Dark Arts.
Many so-called “Logical Fallacies” are unfortunately applied to arguments that are valid inferences. On priors, you are better off trusting experts in their field than laymen. But this is called the “argument from authority fallacy”. The correct counter is Argument Screens Off Authority. And so on. Learning Counterspells is no substitute for grokking Bayes, and may even be harmful if they just give you excuses not to listen or more ammunition to shoot your own foot with.
Also, someone should totally make a card game out of this.
I agree that rhetoric can be dangerous, but I’m actually not sure how it applies in this case. Don’t these Counterspells strictly dominate, “You used X logical fallacy against me”?
It’s true that many complaints about “logical fallacies” are mistaken, but I think that one of the nice features of Counterspells is that because their forms are so tight, they can actually help you realize when you’re misapplying them to something that is a valid inference (or something that is a different fallacy than you first thought). In the process of developing this idea, more than once I have gone to use a Counterspell against something, only to find in the process that my interlocutor was saying something very different than what I had initially imagined.
I think their formulaic, fill-in-the-blanks nature forces you to engage with the material more than you might otherwise; I think they’re the opposite of an excuse not to listen. And since they only make sense in response to certain invalid inferences, I don’t think there’s much opportunity to shoot your foot off. Many of them include a request for elaboration, and in a respectful discussion where no one engages in rhetorical tricks, they will never come up.
Dominate by what measure? In terms of scoring debate points with the audience, no. “Fallacy X” takes less time to say. People who don’t know what “X” means may still assign you higher status because you named something in Latin, and assume people who can reply quickly are smarter, and therefore right.
Counterspells seem more effective when arguing in writing than in person, when the slower response time isn’t as costly. You also wouldn’t have to memorize them.
If the goal is to get a single interlocutor to actually change their mind, something like Street Epistemology might be better. Politics is the mind-killer. When a position is tied to identity, direct confrontations are simply attacks to be resisted. You have to cut sideways and undermine their foundations. Don’t focus on the reasons why they believe (where Counterspells seem to be focused), but how they come to beliefs. If their epistemology is broken, don’t expect more evidence to sway them—because they’re just not listening.
But all of the above are still Dark Arts, because they’re rhetorical tricks that can be selectively applied to anything you don’t like. Yes, there has to be an opening. The interlocutor has to have at least appeared to have made a “mistake” in reasoning or at least the presentation of it, which may make it less Dark than more underhanded rhetorical tricks, but which openings you choose to attack shows your own bias.
If you care about the truth, don’t reach for any formulaic gotcha ammunition. Steelman. Take the most charitable interpretation of the opposing argument you can muster, and then cut it down. If you can.
I agree that they are most useful when actually trying to change someone’s mind.
I originally thought that they would be more effective in writing than in person, but after making the list some I’ve been surprised at how quickly and naturally they can be used in conversation. It took a few seconds the first few times, but I didn’t really need to practice. YMMV.
I actually have a pretty narrow range of uses in mind, and I think some of our disagreement comes from thinking I intend these for general use. You correctly point out that Counterspells don’t make any positive progress in the debate, they just swat things down (like a… counterspell?). And yeah, that’s all they are. They don’t do much heavy lifting and you need other tools to actually change someone’s mind (most of the time).
All I’m saying is whenever you would say, “That’s invalid because [Fallacy Name]”, instead say, “[Counterspell]”. It has to exist within the framework of better rhetorical skills, and yeah, if someone is the kind of asshole who pulls them out as underhanded tricks, these won’t save them.
Counter counterspells for argument from authority:
It’s not that I believe that anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is wrong, it’s just that the proper procedure for determining whether you are right should involve engaging with [Expert] instead of engaging with me
It’s not that I believe that anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is wrong, it’s just that from my perspective, anyone who disagrees with [Expert] is probably wrong, and I have to be careful about where I put my time
We can probably do counter-counter spells for all of these
Ad Hominen:
Based on my previous experience, the fact that this person is (x) provides evidence against their argument, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.
Response to tone:
People who speak with (tone) usually aren’t taking other arguments seriously or making good arguments, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way
Non-Central Fallacy:
This thing is of class (x), things of class (x) are usually bad, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.
All of your proposals miss my point, as does the idea of counter-counterspells. They may be epistemically virtuous, but they are what Alexander would call Meta-Debate, discussion of what can be debated, who is a trusted source, and how the discussion can be held. As Alexander points out, there’s nothing wrong with Meta-Debate, and it can be useful. It’s still not part of the actual debate.
Ultimately they have no bearing on whether or not the topic of discussion is true or false. Certainly I could tell someone, “Your belief in a flat earth makes me not interested in trusting your thoughts on homeopathy”, and I would be right to do so. But homeopathy is still true or false regardless of this person’s other unconventional beliefs.
Even beyond that, assuming the goal of a discussion is to change your partner’s mind (I know it’s not always, but let’s assume), then these do a terrible job of that. Counterspells are designed with the assumption that you want to convince someone discussion in good faith, and designed to engage with their (incorrect) arguments directly. What you propose are all dismissals.
Even so, I don’t think they’re great meta-arguments. Certainly you can see the problem with, “Martin Luther King was a criminal, criminals are usually bad, and I have a limited amount of time to analyze every argument that comes my way.”
But the purpose of our discussion is to change my mind about homeopathy. There’s something of a frequentist epistemology behind saying that homeopathy is true or false regardless of your other beliefs—it’s certainly true, but that doesn’t help me make up my mind about:
1. Whether or not it’s true.
2. Whether or not it’s useful to discuss this specific aspect.
Counter-counter-spells are a way of pointing out when a bias is actually a heuristic. Your Martin Luther King example isn’t such a case, but there are certainly many cases where it is a good heuristic.
You seem to be thinking of a case where Counterspells would be used against honest epistemological heuristics. I agree that this is inappropriate. But in such a case you just need to tell them that you were making a call about the discussion rather than their position (this is still meta-debate), something like: “I didn’t suggest that your tone makes you wrong, but it does make me not want to engage with you.” Though frankly in such a case I can’t see why you would want to engage further, making me even more skeptical of the idea of these double counters.
The idea of a Counterspell assumes (by definition; I invented it) 1) That the original speaker made a true logical fallacy, 2) That the responder is choosing to engage and respond in good faith, and 3) That the Counterspell response is appropriate, i.e. that it really does point out why the original argument was incorrect in that it didn’t provide good evidence for some conclusion. If they fail at that, it’s not a Counterspell. Because of this, the very idea of counter-counterspells is wrongheaded. The suggestion is to make a dismissive response to an honest, correct, and good-faith attempt to engage with someone. That’s something I’m not interested in.
Another way to put it is that Counterspells are intended to move discussions away from meta-debate. Rather than calling someone out for violating norms and trying to rack up hits against their credibility, Counterspells help you to engage with the content of someone’s complaint even as you are disagreeing with it. I think that’s incredibly helpful.
(Also I can’t see why this is at all frequentist in perspective. Bayesians can believe in true states of the world as well.)
While this is true (most fallacies are actually legitimate heuristics), if I heard the same person say all of these things I would have to step back and get them to ask themselves if they’re really in the mood for discourse right now, heh.
It’s easy to get sucked into discourse when you don’t have a lot of time for it and half-ass everything.