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Little-Known Fallacious Arguments

I thought that it'd be worth it to outline a couple of "little-known fallacious arguments" that are only little-known because I'm coining them here today. There is a cornucopia of fuzzy thinking that up until now lacks the pretentious Latin terminology to describe and deride, so here I've listed a few pernicious examples of intellectual oversight with explanations.

Argumentum contra auctoritatem

The appeal against authority is an argument consisting in (1) legitimizing the purity of the arguer and his argument by professing a professional ignorance of the topic at hand and (2) delegitimizing all other arguers as corrupt insiders or blind-sighted intellectuals. It might also be referred to as the what-they-don't-want-you-to-know fallacy.

The appeal against authority usually consists in characterizing the arguer as a Joe-the-Plumber everyman with working class common sense that apparently sees incisively through the silly-headed logic of academia or Washington or whatever more educated and informed group of people one can think up.

Argumentum contra imperitos

The argument against the inexperienced is a fallacy consisting in rejecting a statement based on the alleged inexperience of the arguer. An illustrative example:

Mandy: I think in generally the Great Society programs were failures, and they conspicuously coincided with the halting of the previous decreases in the American poverty rate.

Billy: Easy for you to say, you've never been poor, or on welfare, or been a single mother! You don't know what it's like!

Instead of addressing Mandy's claims and concern, Billy responds by questioning her intellectual street cred. This is fallacious as it is perfectly possible for Mandy to have a clear understanding of an issue without being directly involved. This fallacy is nearly the opposite of the appeal against authority, in one, lack of involvement is something laudable, in the other it's something damnable.

Argumentum contra populum

The appeal against the people is the opposite of the appeal to the people. While someone arguing an appeal to the people might use public consensus as something desirable, people who use this argument view it as something unwanted or kitsch.

People who make this kind of argument take the old adage "If your friends told you to jump off a bridge, would your do it?" far too seriously. In a way, an appeal against the people asks: "If your friends told you NOT to jump off a bridge, would you do it just to spite them?"

The argument is simply: X is popular, therefore X is bad. Now arguments against the people might not make sense at one level:

1. Americans like football.

2. Therefore you should not like football.

But in reality, there is an assumed extra premise that makes the argumentum contra populum make sense:

1. Americans like football.

(2. Americans (or people in general) are generally stupid.)

3. Therefore, you should not like football.

This argument is comparatively rare in most situations, but in several areas (most notably music) for some ludicrous reason many people employ this fallacy ad nauseam.

1. Not many people listen to Indie Band X (in fact you've probably never heard of them).

(2. Unpopular things, for whatever reason, are cool.)

3. So yeah they're pretty good then.

Argumentum ex argumento

The argument from this argumet, or the teach-the-controversy fallacy is a meta-argument that props up one's general point by the fact that the argument is being made. It's a clever way of bracing a ludicrous statement by saying "well, we wouldn't be having this conversation if we/people/scientists were really so sure of X!"

Here's a meta-example:

1. The argumentum ex argumento isn't fallacious, man.

2. No, really dude, if it were obviously so fallacious, we would even be having this discussion!

3. Therefore the argumentum ex argumento is not fallacious.

This argument is more common than you might think and is often key for conspiracy theorists, junk-science-pushers and otherwise misinformed people to garner some intellectual wiggle room. It's a cute way of picking at consensus to say that obviously the consensus is only so strong if it can't categorically eliminate all potential objections; strangely enough falsifiability is a liability for these arguers.

Argumentum ex conjuratione

The argument from conspiracy is a way of dismissing a statement on the grounds that "vested interests" support it. Do the results of a scientific study deny your preconceived notions? Scour the lists of donations of the study or its entire host university until you find some corporation you dislike, then, according to this argument, you can fully dismiss any result found without any criticism needed of the actual science that went into it.

Sometimes scientists/governments/corporations/Illuminati want you to believe statement X, but saying that does not mean that statement X is false. The government wants to make sure we think that it did not fly planes into the World Trade Center, the pharmaceutical industry wants us to think that any given drug will help us and scientists want us to not believe the Earth is a stationary disk made 6,000 years ago. Appealing against vested interest does not constitute a counter argument against any of these points.

Argumentum ex constitutione

The argument from the constitution is a fallacy nearly exclusively found in American political discussions. In essence it's an argument that say: (1) X is not permitted by the constitution, therefore (2) X is bad. A common example:

1. Income taxes were not allowed by the original constitution.

2. Therefore, we should repeal all income taxation.

In a way, this fallacy is a kind of appeal to the authority of the Founding Fathers, but fallacious nonetheless.

Granted this fallacy is not the same as arguing:

1. Law X is unconstitutional.

2. If an unconstitutional law is passed, the court will strike it down.

3. A struck down law will do no good.

4.. Therefore, law X should not be passed.

This argument is not an argument from the constitution and should be evaluated on its merits.

Argumentum ex forma argumenti

The argument from the argument form is an argument that dismisses a statement on the basis that it was argued fallaciously or supporting an argument on the basis that it was argued validly. True statements can easily be argued fallaciously, and if they are, this is never grounds for dismissing the claims outright. That said, all fallacious examples on this page may as well be true statements, but because these were argued fallaciously, there is no way to discern whether or not they are, but it certainly does not mean they are not.

Argumentum ex forma præsentationis

The argument from the form of presentation fallacy assumes that an argument must be fallacious or a statement false if presented in a poor manner. It is similar to the previous fallacy, but instead of arguing on the fallaciousness of the supporting argument, a person who invokes an argument from the form of presentation seeks to reject an argument on the basis of more trivial things: poor spelling, bad presentation, bad writing etc. It's hard to miss this argument on the comments section of any given YouTube video.