> armed with a new toolbox of Latin names for fallacies, eager students all too often delight in spotting fallacies in the wild, shouting out their Latin names (ad hominem!; secundum quid!) as if they were magic spells. This is what Scott Aikin and John Casey, in their delightful book Straw Man Arguments, call the Harry Potter fallacy: the “troublesome practice of invoking fallacy names in place of substantive discussion”.
I've long wondered about doing online debates (which usually end up in shit throwing) where an independent moderator or bot detects and mentions fallacies.
But I think in practice it would mean no arguments would hold weight anymore.
Anyway, the main problem I think is not logical fallacies, but people not debating in good faith, and / or having a fixed opinion already. I did read about a trick, starting a debate by asking "What will it take to convince you?"; depending on the answer, you won't even have to bother.
I mean there's no debating with the anti-science movement(s) because they put facts into question, for example. I mean being skeptic is not a bad thing, but what will it take to get past the skepticism?
Or to put yourself in their shoes, what will it take to convince you that, for example, the earth is flat? (I mean it's OBVIOUSLY more like a dinosaur, but let's not go into that).
Isn’t a debate by definition two sides trying to convince a 3rd party which side is correct. The sides involved in the debate will never back down.
A discussion on the other hand is when both sides just try to reach the “best” conclusion. Unfortunately all too many things are debates and not discussions…
A bot that detects logical fallacies would be amazing for journaling. Would be really interesting to stream of consciousness into a text document and have the computer put red underlines under questionable premises or conclusions.
