
Show HN: Aristotl – an intuitive logical fallacy lookup tool - andrewscwei
https://www.aristotl.io
======
YeGoblynQueenne
I'm afraid that a resource like this will make internet debates even less
pleasant and productive than they already are.

To my experience, calling out an internet interlocutor for committing a formal
logic fallacy only serves the purpose of shutting down conversation.

After all, formal logic fallacies apply to formal logic statements- but
internet conversations are not carried out in the language of formal logic.
They are carried out in natural language (natural English, most often).
Therefore, formal logic rules do not apply. One might as well accuse an
interlocutor that they have miscalculated the gradient of their comment.

We comment on the internet. We say what we think makes sense in the way we
think it makes most sense to say it. We are not infallible logical machines
that calculate the truth or falsity of logical statements by rigorous
application of a set of rules of inference. We are not little lay philosophers
trained in formal logic, engaged in rigorous debate. We sound clueless and
pretentious when we try to sound as if we were.

We should learn to not take the name of logic in vain.

~~~
kensai
I disagree. Critical thinking using logic and sound reasoning should be taught
and learned in an early age. Although it has been now discontinued, I had
really liked in the past the specifications of the British AS/A Levels in
Critical thinking.

[https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/73470-specification.pdf](https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/73470-specification.pdf)

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pragmatick
I don't understand what's supposed to be especially intuitive about this? It's
an alphabetic list of fallacies - how do I "lookup" one if not by just
scrolling down the list?

I have no idea what the symbols below the search bar mean and was surprised
that the "i" button doesn't give me more information about the site or showed
help but instead just apparently switched between descriptions and synonyms.

~~~
trevyn
Perhaps the title could be read as “a tool for looking up logical fallacies
that can arise from relying on your intuition”.

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dvt
I strongly suggest using better sources for this. You should avoid using
Wikipedia when things like the SEP[1] and IEP[2] are available. Also,
"probabilistic" fallacies are _not_ formal fallacies. E.g. something like the
"gambler's fallacy" is not a de facto formal logical fallacy.

Further, the "Naturalistic Fallacy" isn't what you think it is. There's a
difference between "argument from nature" or "the appeal to nature" (which is
what you think it is), and G.E. Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy[3]. This is a
pretty embarrassing mistake, especially if you'd like to be treated like an
authority on the subject.

[1] [https://plato.stanford.edu/](https://plato.stanford.edu/)

[2] [https://www.iep.utm.edu/](https://www.iep.utm.edu/)

[3] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-
naturalism/#Nat...](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-
naturalism/#NatFal)

~~~
andrewscwei
Noted. Thanks for taking the time to point this out. I totally agree that to
create a tool like this the content must be accurate. I tried to avoid taking
content from Wikipedia as much as possible as I'm also wary of its
authenticity, so I've limited Wikipedia content to fallacy summaries only—as
opposed to the detailed description (the panel that appears when you select a
fallacy), in which case I used IEP and The Fallacy Files[1] as the major
sources. Will certainly check out SEP.

I still need to do more homework regarding your claim regarding
"probabilistic" fallacies, but you are correct about "Naturalistic Fallacy" so
I have removed it as an alias of "Appeal to Nature". Thanks again for taking
the time to point it out.

[1] [https://www.fallacyfiles.org/](https://www.fallacyfiles.org/)

~~~
strainer
I've never found it well argued that appeals to nature are inherently
fallacious to any good philosophical or logical standard. The common advice
that they are fallacious has always struck me as ideological with explanations
relying on tainted examples and suggestion that a common persons idea of
nature is just too unique and incomprehensible to be useful.

In our time of increasing environmental tragedy, yet with some hope springing
that we shall be able to make changes en mass to redeem the future, some
appeals to nature seem very valid and perhaps essential to culturally
appreciating our technologically precarious situation. For instance that which
is more natural _is_ more sustainable to nature. Microplastics _are_ less
natural than sand. A possible caveat - electric cars _are_ somewhat more
sustainable than combustion. But the presence of caveats does not make the
appeal a fallacy - if by fallacy we mean something with no merit for
consideration.

Natural processes are studied - and _need_ to be studied to be of use and be
used sustainably. They are numerous, interconnected, complex, mature,
essential to human life and all the life which humans value. The concept of
biophilia itself appeals to nature.

Appeals to nature should simply not be listed as an inherently wrong pattern
of thought, fair to rule out of bounds. That message is a bad, hopefully
retreating ideological position.

~~~
bildung
The appeal to nature fallacy means: A is natural, and B is not, therefore A is
better.

You example is somewhat orthogonal, I think. You argue for sustainability as
an axiomatic value (and I agree) - but sustainability is not an automatic
consequence of something being natural!

Asbestos is natural, but using asbestos is not sustainable (for humans).
Arsene is naturally occuring in ground water, yet we don't want to have it
there and meticulous measure its presence. Mercury is natural, yet
unsustainable when in contact with living beings. Predators overhunting prey
in year 1, then starving to death in year 2 is natural. Disabled humans dying
as children is natural and so on.

~~~
strainer
> A is natural, and B is not, therefore A is better

I'll just add since my reply was a bit short - that if not for the danger of
losing sight of the point here, I could continue your deductive argument with
a list of examples which seem to support the rule and could criticize your
chosen examples, but the important point is that statements of these kinds are
not philosophically known to be false in most given contexts. The naturalistic
fallacy is actually a strong case that they are false in philosophy of ethics,
and this has been ideologically amplified to teach that they are false in all
contexts. Its terrible education, not fallacious at all to say: "my cats
natural diet is small mammals, so its probably better if I dont feed it too
much bread and mayo." etc.

~~~
bildung
I think we mostly agree - the deduction is not the problem of the naturalistic
argument, the axiom that natural equals good is. We can neither infer
deontological conclusions ("it is natural that some offspring dies before
sexural maturity, therefore we don't have to change the system"), nor
consequentialist ones ("this material is natural, therefore not harmful to
me").

Because of this I think the naturalistic fallacy is indeed a fallacy. Instead
of the appeal to nature, I propose sustainability as an ethical core value.
One can infer arguments for both human and environmental wellbeing from
sustainability, achieving what I think your (and my) goal is. (Sorry if I
misunderstood - philosophy is a topic where me not being a native speaker can
severly hamper mutual understanding..)

~~~
strainer
> the deduction is not the problem of the naturalistic argument, the axiom
> that natural equals good is

In philosophy deduction is a problem, but there are innumerable well reasoned
positions which people take that are totally reliant on deduction so it cannot
be claimed to identify generally false reasoning (fallacy).

It is incorrect to interchange the concepts of "appeal to nature",
"naturalistic argument" and "naturalistic fallacy" and presuppose the strength
of an axiom of "natural equals good" in different contexts (except perhaps
theories of ethics).

Notice that you have accepted yourself a universal axiom of "natural has no
valid appeal in any context". That is an incredible position to have accepted.
If it is argued "natural building materials are better for ecological
concerns",or "natural foods are better for health concerns" regard what is
intelligibly meant by the statement. Regard what "better" and "natural" and
"concerns" mean in each statements context.

An appeal to nature in a discussion is an invitation to examine _in good
faith_ what is natural to articles under discussion. A reply "arsenic is
natural and bad food" is surely not in good faith, surely it can be understood
that arsenic is not natural to mammals diet? (except in accidental and rare
amounts). Such pontifications should go without saying in good faith
discussion, or at least not be offered to claim a perspective is fallacious
(invalid).

------
gitgud
Looks great. I think everyone should have an understanding of how arguments
can be fallacious.

But one thing I noticed - going down the fallacy rabbit hole - is that you can
find fallacies in almost any written opinion...

I think this is because fallacies are somewhat subjective and some fallacies
can even oppose each other, so there's no way to avoid them...

But that's just my (fallacy-riddled) opinion

~~~
thisBrian
Exactly why the fallacy fallacy[0] exists. Just because an argument has a
fallacy does not make its conclusion false.

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy)

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cryptozeus
I appreciate the effort you put in for designing the site but as a user it’s
confusing for me. Before using the content i have to learn how to use your
site ? Why not keep the basic layout with labels. For example i which is on
top of the page toggles the description of each fallacy, that was hard to
detect on my phone screen.

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Smaug123
It's not obvious to me that this is a good thing to have. I predict that its
primary usage will be as a generator of fully-general counterarguments: people
will use it to look up how best to defeat their opponents without having to
exercise any thought at all. There's a reason that the "fallacy fallacy" is on
the list.

~~~
jakeogh
Ya, a reply with a pure "that's F(4)" makes the same mistake (sidestepping the
subject) it's pointing out.

Some rely on hijacking common sense. The slippery slope for example, I'm 95%
sure it's the most common "pretend it's fallacious" reply, even though it's
actually "by no means invariably fallacious" because it is a physics problem,
and the grey area between it and political incrementalism (for example) starts
with true, not the opposite.

------
andrewscwei
Motivation: We live in a digital world full of (m/d)isinformation. On one end
we should fight to eradicate the source, but on the other end we should
exercise strong critical thinking skills so we don’t fall victim to false
narratives. I created this tool to help people easily look up 100 common
logical fallacies.

~~~
kuzimoto
Cool idea, and nice looking site as well! Really neat on mobile.

------
ben509
I wonder if anyone has ever said, sincerely, "sir, I believe you are
committing an Argumentum ad Baculum," let alone had this produce a useful
result.

Discussion is subject to an information problem when we're trying to strike a
balance between underexplaining and overexplaining.

I have a mental catalog of things A, B, C, D, E. You have a mental catalog of
things C, D, E, F, G. Neither of us is aware of the other's catalog.

So we have to guess. Say I argue X -> B -> Y, but I assumed you already knew B
and glossed over it. That's going to look like X -> ?? -> Y, and you'll likely
percieve that as a non sequitur because you can't follow how I got from X to
Y.

Your best recourse is to say, "hold on, I don't follow how you get from X to
Y," whereupon I can guess you don't know B and explain it.

Even if you're sure someone is committing a fallacy, it's not reliable to cite
the name of the fallacy. As fallacies have entered general usage, they've
taken on a much broader meaning than what references cite.

A useful (intuitive even!) reference would include plain English explanations.
Instead of saying something is a strawman, "I think you're exaggerating my
position here because I don't believe X, Y or Z," makes clear what the problem
is.

~~~
WorldMaker
> I wonder if anyone has ever said, sincerely, "sir, I believe you are
> committing an Argumentum ad Baculum," let alone had this produce a useful
> result.

Formal debate structures go all the way back to the time of Aristotle and
there certainly have existed places where bringing up a fallacy directly was
meant to encourage an interlocutor to explain how the fallacy doesn't apply or
take the time to restructure their argument to not rely on a fallacy.

Most formal debate has fallen out of fashion. About the last place you may see
it is "Debate Clubs" and (sometimes) Law practice.

Certainly the internet has pushed things almost extremely informal with
respect to debate. Indeed a reference to a formal fallacy can derail an
internet discussion because few internet interlocutors understand or care if
they make a fallacy in their arguments, and sometimes things like cognitive
dissonance seems to implore them to hold fast and tight to their fallacies
rather engage in eliminating them. But that's not necessarily an argument
_against_ bringing up fallacies when you see them. Illiteracy of formal debate
logic [1] might be a problem on the modern internet.

(Arguably it's a large part of why the modern US "Presidential Candidate
Debates" are similarly so terrible, because they aren't formal debates,
fallacies are never challenged, nor allowed to be challenged, and the average
amount of debate literacy has just been tossed out the window for extremely
informal dog and pony shows that fail to be useful debates in terms of what
debates were intended to do: debate.)

> A useful (intuitive even!) reference would include plain English
> explanations.

The [I] button in the corner of this particular reference site shows the
English explanations in the "periodic table" directly. (The site also shows
the English explanations for them in details popups.) That this is not the
default or that most of buttons are not well explained (and there's no
differentiation between buttons, text, and links in the stylesheet) certainly
does leave the reference site a long ways from intuitive (or accessible for
that matter), but it does have the useful tools even if they are hard to find
at least.

[1] Which is not far from Logic/Programming, as indeed a lot of Boolean Logic
isn't far removed. It's almost a wonder there aren't more Programmers
extremely passionate about Debate Fallacies.

------
somishere
In a similar vein
[https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com) was put
together back in early 2012. Not quite exhaustive, but meant to cover off the
big hitters. Main benefit was that it allowed for linking to specific
fallacies through comments, etc. "Your logical fallacy is Strawman" kind of
thing. The site's dated for sure (hasn't been touched in many years), but it
still pops up every now and then! [edit / disclaimer - I helped out on the
first few versions of ylfi, really enjoy seeing how people re-envision these
kind of things]

------
adim86
I really loved the site, great work. My only feedback is to make the
pagination more apparent...I at first thought it was a work in progress and
you only had the first 20 until I searched around and noticed the pagination
boxes... I think clearer pagination or pagination that beckons you to click
will reduce your bounce rate

~~~
andrewscwei
Noted, thanks for the feedback.

------
ltbarcly3
I think understanding logical fallacies is wonderful, especially if you seek
to understand why they are fallacies and improve your own thinking and arguing
to avoid them.

However, people that pull logical fallacies out in an argument are probably
not arguing in a convincing way! Either the person they are arguing against is
actually succumbing to the fallacy, and in that case they would rarely even
know what is going on when you name it, or they totally understand it and were
using shorthand or just phrasing it in a way that opened them up to that
attack, but a less intentionally close reading would reveal a deeper argument.

Of course, I'm setting up a false choice here!

------
mohamedhayibor
I think this is an awesome project. Any effort facilitating the
understanding/recognition of common fallacies leads to a better world.

After "name", "description" and "example" should be right next. "Alias",
"Type", "Inheritance", "SUBYPE" should be much lower, as they make the user
scroll to read those 2 which imo, are the most important.

In terms of design, I wonder why you didn't go for a full-screen modal, I'm
using a laptop and only 40% of the screen to the right is used. Maybe use a
modal that utilize 90%, or 80% when a fallacy is clicked upon.

Keep up the great work :)

------
brigandish
I liked the style of the site and the clear presentation (I've bookmarked it,
you have repeat business:) but I'd appreciate it if there was a fallback for
those without javascript enabled.

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dandare
If I could recommend something: the ability to share a specific fallacy to
social media in response to a comment or tweet will bring you a lot of
traffic.

I would sometimes link to a subpage from
[https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/) when
the person I discuss with commits a fallacy.

Also, you need more examples - examples are crucial for people without formal
education, like me, to understand the fallacy.

------
kodablah
Would appreciate a similar one for "laws" and "adages", I can never find a
decent resource that makes them easy to find the name when you already know
the concept (recorded as an idea here[0]).

0 - [https://github.com/cretz/software-
ideas/issues/17](https://github.com/cretz/software-ideas/issues/17)

------
fbrncci
A random button would be a nice addition.

~~~
andrewscwei
That's a cool idea!

------
no_identd
I prefer
[http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonnew.htm](http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonnew.htm),
albeit that page could really do with some DRAKON-derived layouting rules.

------
trevyn
See also Wikipedia’s “List of fallacies”:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies)

------
johnisgood
Hmm, will it include cognitive biases, too?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

~~~
ptah
it should. in the real world and online, logic is useless at convincing
people. probably because empiricism is more effective at discovering useful
knowledge epistemologically speaking

------
aerodynamika
Seems like a good collection of various logical constructs. I wonder if the
authors have any plans to program it into something that could identify or use
these same patterns in text.

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maximente
this looks to largely be a "cool" UI on top of this page (the few examples etc
that i checked are copied verbatim from here):

[https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#RedHerring](https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#RedHerring)

i prefer the original site because i can use ctrl + F to search, vs their
weird async flashy search. since the content seems largely the same, there's
no value added in this site.

------
RichardHeart
You might appreciate this site:
[https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/)

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iamuser
Finally, a A-Z list of logical fallacies!

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foobar_
Is anyone working on a fallacy, lie detecter using NLP ?

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GrifMD
It's really pretty and responsive. Great work!

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z5h
Nice work. Added to Favourites.

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rambojazz
Should rename to Aristool

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prashanth1k
Thank you for doing this!

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Khanhanhan
are there any successful attempts to programatically detect fallacies in text?

