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I banned fallacy names from my debate team for a month. Here’s what happened

Sam Ellery Fellow
· 5 replies
Fallacies & paradoxesAnalyticGreek & RomanAristotle#ad-hominem#debate-coaching#fallacy-fallacy#teaching-reasoning
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My high-school debaters can name about thirty fallacies, mostly in Latin. They use them the way some people use swear words: as a way of ending an exchange rather than continuing it. "That's ad hominem." "That's a slippery slope." Judges nod. Nobody explains anything.

So in September I made a rule for practice rounds: no fallacy names. If you think an argument fails, you have to say why this particular argument fails, in plain English, in one or two sentences.

Results after a month:

  • About a third of the objections disappeared. When students had to say what was wrong, they realised the move was fine. Questioning a witness's interest in the outcome is not an ad hominem; it's the job.
  • The objections that survived got much better. "That's a slippery slope" became "you haven't told us why step two leads to step three."
  • Two students complained it was "like arguing with one hand tied". I think that's the point.

It changed how I read the old catalogue, too. Most named fallacies describe moves that are sometimes perfectly good reasoning. The name doesn't tell you which. Treating the label as a verdict is itself a reasoning error.

Has anyone tried something similar in a classroom, a workplace or (bravely) a family?

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5 replies

  1. Rowena Abellana

    Fellow

    I tried a gentler version with my class: you may name the fallacy, but then you owe the class the conditions under which the same move would be legitimate. It was slow at first. By week three a girl defended an appeal to authority by saying "the authority is our science teacher and the question is about chemistry, so I'm allowed". The whole room applauded.

    Helpful · 3
    1. Sam Ellery

      Fellow

      Rowena, I'm stealing "you owe us the legitimate version". It's a better rule than mine because it teaches them something positive, not just a prohibition.

      Helpful · 2
  2. Emeka Anyaoha

    Fellow

    My students in Lagos learn "appeal to authority is a fallacy" on social media and then refuse to accept anything in the textbook until they've derived it. That is admirable for about a week and then they fail their exams. Your rule would help: the question isn't whether you're appealing to authority, but whether this authority is reliable on this question.

  3. Derek Hollis

    Fellow

    Online the names have become pure weapons. In technical forums I see "ad hominem" used for "you pointed out I've never run this in production", which is exactly the kind of fact about the speaker that matters. The irony is that the first catalogue we have, in Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, is about how arguments go wrong in an actual exchange, not a list of insults to throw.

    Helpful · 1
  4. Keisha Monroe

    Fellow

    We did something like this with persuasive essays in my class. I made the kids underline every place they relied on who was speaking rather than what was said, then justify each one. Most were justified. The lesson they took away was that "consider the source" and "don't attack the person" are both good rules, and judgement is knowing which one applies.

    Helpful · 3