Formal logic makes for elegant research. It can help us in understanding what a fallacy is.
Formal And Informal Logic
With formal logic there is a right answer and so researchers can be confident that some choices are simply wrong. Unfortunately, formal logic has relatively limited application in the real world. Gerd Gigerenzer has argued that some flaws in decision making identified in Kahneman and Tverksy’s experiments may occur because experimental subjects assumed the questions were in everyday, rather than formal, language.
Informal logic is more widespread but it is not possible to be as certain about informal logic. Things may appear not to make sense to you but unless they violate a formal rule of logic we can’t say that they are undeniably wrong. Robert Gula’s book on Nonsense makes lots of points that seem to be intelligible in the sense that you know what he means. That said, his ideas are often not well defined. Given that he criticizes human beings for their imprecise language it only seems fair to do this back in return.
Giving In To An Appeal To Fear
For instance, he defines: “A fallacy is an error in thinking or reasoning. Strictly speaking, it is not an error in fact or belief, it pertains to thought processes.” (Gula, 2007, page 45-6).
The problem is that much of what he discusses doesn’t fulfill this criterion. For example, the Appeal to Fear is in the list of Fallacies and Nonsense (Gula, 2007, page 223). He uses an illustration of an unscrupulous mechanic who tells you what will happen if your transmission goes (page 10). If this persuades you to change your transmission it isn’t clear whose thought process is wrong. As such, the Appeal to Fear doesn’t seem like a fallacy.
Consider that the mechanic made some extra money. (The mechanic is deceitful but clearly not confused). You took the advice of someone you trusted. This is often a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Imagine you don’t understand cars (easy for me). There are asymmetric consequences, not fixing a safety flaw is much worse than doing some unnecessary repairs. It is typically better to accept the risk of being cheated by an unscrupulous mechanic than of having a horrible accident. Appeals to fear often work because of sensible, not erroneous, decision-making on the part of those targeted with the appeal. Basically, the right decision depends upon the precise circumstances.
Understanding What A Fallacy Is
Overall understanding nonsense arguments is a useful skill and Gula’s book is worth reading but I wouldn’t say that every argument he identifies is always nonsense.
For more on logic see here.
Read: Robert J. Gula (2007) Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic In Our Everyday Language, Axios.
