Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
I share the same ideas regarding material fallacies that you do. But do I have the same logical ideas, that is, philosophy of logic? I think logic is supposed to be a very formalistic and systematic presentation of inferences; a blueprint for thinking. I think that the ideal of logic is symbolic logic and predicate calculus.
But this is why I was wondering how logicians could define something like “clear thinking” except only in the most abstract quasi-mathematical sense; for this definition must ultimately be a material conclusion reached from formal premises.
However, I earlier wanted to explore if my conception of the division between material and formal was really true. To me the formal fallacies were only fallacies since they were improperly connected propositions much like if one were to improperly piece together a puzzle. But the material fallacies were like psychological statements and statements of fact which could not be violated no matter the form in which they were expressed. But are these two really different? The formal fallacies are just as much statements of fact as the material ones are, and are in some sense, psychological phenomenon (insofar as someone reasoning badly would be called weak-minded). While the material fallacies are wrong because they lack purely formal connections with their conclusions (as when I might say, derek is bad so derek is wrong; there’s no middle step that helps you to go from premise to conlcusion).
So are they really that different or what comes to the same, am I getting their differences truthfully? What else might Aristotle say about this?
Logic investigates and formalizes noetic acts (acts of the intellect, especially judgment and inference), not psychological processes (like emotions, feelings, qualia, moods, will power, etc.) in the modern sense of psychology.
I tend to investigate issues historically like Aristotle; so I start with formal logic since began the study. Symbolic logic and predicate calculus came later and are great avenues of inquiry too.
To some extent I think you’re onto something re your analysis of the difference (such as it may be) between material and formal fallacies. I agree that material fallacies could be formally correct, but contain a proposition or propositions held either explicitly or implicitly that are false. Hence the distinction between fallacies in the form of the argument versus the matter of the argument.
It seems to work. Take
post hoc, propter hoc. Take an oversimplified case: I clap my hands and it thunders. So I conclude that my clapping caused it to thunder.
All successive events move from cause to effect.
But thunder followed my clapping.
Therefore my clapping stands to thunder as cause to effect.
The problem is the major premise, not the form.
Or consider
ad hominem arguments.
No dirty, rotten, low-down, bankety blanks make true assertions.
Joe asserts smoking is bad for your health.
Joe is a dirty, rotten, low-down, bankety blank.
So Joe’s assertion is false.
One could spell that out into a series of correct syllogisms, but the major is false.
It seems in the case of material fallacies many can be grouped together and named perhaps all containing the same false premise. Some however are just diversionary: straw man, irrelevant conclusion. Others are circular (begging the question) or verbal sleight of hand (many questions, false dilemma). Still if one rooted around enough they could probably find an implicitly held false premise at the bottom of many of them. Either way the fallacy would not be in the form, but in the matter of the argument.
To put it together:
I actually heard a legal expert say the following on a talk show. “All men who murder their wives have had affairs and we know Scott Peterson had an affair, so it’s pretty easy to figure out who’s guilty here.”
Put in logical form the syllogism (committing the fallacy of an undistributed middle) goes:
All men who murder their wives have had affairs.
Scott Peterson had an affair.
So Scott Peterson is guilty of murdering his wife.
It fits perfectly with the following:
All cows are animals.
Lassie is an animal.
So Lassie is a cow.
BUT the argument could also be attacked materially. How well-conducted were the studies that yielded the major premise? Has it really been established that Peterson had an affair?
