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View submission: The NewToReddit Encyclopaedia Redditica v2
Reddit, more than any other social media outlet, is about discussion. With millions of worldwide users of all ages from all walks of life daily, the quality of each argument in any thread varies from comment to comment with respect to logical strength, credibility, relevance, the balance of evidence, or demographic bias and perspective. There is nothing wrong with trying to persuade someone else to look at a topic from your point of view, particularly if you present credible evidence in your favour. Quite often, however, users won’t be able to do that and will use other devices of argumentation to sway thinking instead, such as Logical Fallacies.
A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning common enough to warrant a fancy name. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are frequently deployed on Reddit during any debate where it looks like you might be winning.
There are two major categories of logical fallacy, which in turn break down into a wide range of types of fallacies[1], each a persuasion technique with their own unique ways of trying to trick you or your readers into agreement or disagreement.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Most formal fallacies are errors of logic: the conclusion doesn’t really “follow from” or is not supported by the premise. Either the premises are untrue or the argument is invalid. They are all types of *non sequitur* - a conclusion or reply that doesn't follow logically from the previous statement.
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy
An informal fallacy denotes an error in the content of your argument. These take many forms and are widespread in everyday discourse. Very often they involve bringing irrelevant information into an argument, or are based on assumptions that, when examined, prove to be incorrect. The ideas might be arranged correctly, but something you said isn’t quite right.
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy
Formal fallacies are created when the relationship between premises and conclusion does not hold up or when premises are unsound; informal fallacies are more dependent on misuse of language and of evidence. Knowing which one you are being accused of is possibly more knowledge than the user making the accusation has, in which case you can go to town on wrapping their argument up in fancy-schmancy words. Unless you’re in one of the subs devoted to serious academic discourse in which case you’ll already have dismissed a lot of what I’ve said as puerile oversimplification.
A very useful list of Reddit’s favourite logical fallacies can be found here[4], and the comments section details even more.
By far the best guides to any kind of critical thinking are found at https://www.schoolofthought.org[5] where their section on logical fallacies[6] comes complete with easy to read illustrated and downloadable resources.
5: https://www.schoolofthought.org
6: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com
Another useful resource is this searchable database called “The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies”[7], or this fairly academic alphabetical one here[8].
7: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com
8: https://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/ENGL1311/fallacies.htm
r/philosophy is Reddit’s portal for public philosophy if you’re serious about discussing fallacious thinking, and r/askphilosophy aims to provide serious, well-researched answers to philosophical questions. r/Stoicism is a community committed to learning about and applying Stoic principles and techniques, and had an interesting discussion on protecting yourself from being persuaded by logical fallacies or bad arguments here[9].
10: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hhi8q57/
11: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/qbb173/comment/hh8tvk1/
There's nothing here!