Fabio Paglieri: On the unproblematic gappiness of fallacies

Colloquium lecture by Fabio Paglieri (ISTC-CNR Roma, Italy), organized by the Dept. of Theoretical Philosophy

Fallacies still figure prominently in argumentation theory, as well as in critical thinking education, in spite of the increased criticism targeted at this notion. While lists of fallacies have flourished since antiquity (ad hominem, ad ignorantiam, ad populum, secundum quid, post hoc ergo propter hoc, to mention just a few of the usual suspects), the relevance of the notion has been questioned: in contemporary argumentation theory, both scheme-based approaches and rule-based models allow for the very same scheme or rule application to be either fallacious or non-fallacious, depending on contextual factors. This in turn puts fallacy theory into a quandary, since...(continue reading...)