A catalogue of faults is half an instrument

The situation

Education argues with itself constantly, and badly in a particular way. A researcher’s finding is answered with “she has never taught”. A teacher’s account of the room is answered with “that is anecdote”. A proposal is met with “slippery slope”, and a debating club scores points for naming the move the other side just made. In each case a label has been thrown and the thrower believes something has been settled.

I have done it. I have said “straw man” across a table and watched the conversation end without improving.

The question

What if the list is the wrong half of the instrument to hand out first? Define a fallacy strictly and real arguments almost never commit one. Define it loosely and the same form is used well every day. Appeal to authority is how you know nearly everything you know. A slippery slope is sometimes a correct forecast. So a label is a claim, and it needs the same support as any other: which premise, which unanswered question. Strip the label from the sentence and see whether an argument is left.

The other half is what a good argument owes the people in the room, and the few moves that supply it. Those are the ones that change what the meeting decides.

The move

Settle the burden before the evidence. Who is making the positive claim, to what standard, and what would count as meeting it. Ten minutes on that at the start saves the argument that otherwise happens at the end.

Ask the question, and say which one. “This is an argument from correlation to cause, and my question is whether a common cause has been ruled out.” Naming the scheme tells the other party what a good answer would look like, which is the difference between a question and an obstacle.

State their strongest case and get it agreed before answering it. In a paper, the proposer writes the case against, in a form the objectors would sign. Then ask for the warrant: what general principle takes you from that evidence to that claim?

Concede in words, and keep what survives. “You are right about that and I withdraw it. What I still think is this, and it does not depend on the part I have given up.” Make conceding cheap, by minuting it as a refinement, or nobody will do it.

And a rule for labels: a fallacy may be named only with a sentence saying which feature of the argument has the property. The name, then “because”, then the thing.

What it produced

The first was a third field guide, on the exchange itself: 153 moves in nineteen families. Each entry gives the legitimate version of the move before the fault, the point at which it breaks, and the words to say back. Only eighteen are wrong by shape alone, so every entry carries a tag saying what kind of wrong it is, and the last part is a repair kit rather than a summary.

The second was a better way to test the skill. Instead of asking a pupil to name the fallacy in an argument, ask three things: what kind of argument is this, which question does it have to answer, and what answer would be good enough. That tests judgement rather than recognition, and it is the same skill they will need in every meeting they ever sit in.

The third was a habit for reviews. Before any evidence is discussed, the terms of reference now state four things: what is being claimed, who has to support it, what evidence would be enough, and what happens if that evidence does not arrive. Most reviews that end in a shouting match were missing that paragraph at the start.

The fourth was a caution about the guide itself. A book of fallacies gives readers a set of labels, and labels get thrown at people. So the guide says up front why the whole genre is suspect, gives a full family to the ways a fallacy charge is misused, and ends with what to do rather than what to catch.