A Pragmatic Analysis of Fallacies in English Religious Argumentative Discourse
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v3i141.3730Keywords:
Fallacies, Straw man, Argument from ignorance, red herring, The argument against the personAbstract
Fallacies are common errors in an argument and they undermine the logic of that argument. They obstruct the process of argumentation since they do not contribute to the resolution in difference in opinion. The current study investigates fallacies in four religious argumentative debates between Muslims and atheists. It adopts Toulmin et al (1984) as a model for analysis. Results show that both debating parties, Muslims and atheists commit fallacies but the latter exceeds the former quantitatively and qualitatively. The most common fallacies in Muslims’ arguments are straw man argument, poisoning the well and attacking the person whereas the straw man argument, argument from ignorance, hasty generalization and appeal to compassion are the most committed ones by atheists.
Downloads
References
Damer, T. (2009). Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Freeley, A. and Steinberg, D. (2008). Argumentation and Debate Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
Gula, R. (2007). Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language. Mount Jackson: Axios Institute.
Larson-Hall, J. (2010). A Guide to Doing Statistics in Second Language Research Using SPSS. New York: Routledge.
van Eemeren, F. and Grootendorst, R. (1983). Speech Acts in Argumentation. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Walton, D. (1987). Informal Fallacies: Towards a Theory of Argument Criticisms. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Walton, D. (1998). Ad Hominem Arguments. Alabama: Alabama University Press.
Walton, D. (2006). Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tindale, C. (2007). Fallacies and Argument Appraisal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toulmin, S., Reike, R., Janik, A. (1984). An Introduction to Reasoning. New York: Macmillan publishing co.
Online References:
https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-ad-hominem-fallacy-different-from-poisoning-the-well
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright and Licensing:
For all articles published in Al-Adab journal, copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work.
Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers: It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyrightholder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyrightholder).
Permission is required for: Your own works published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.
Substantial extracts from anyones' works or a series of works.
Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.
Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.
Permission is not required for: Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".
Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.
Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.
Obtaining Permission
In order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. If in any doubt about the copyright, apply for permission. Al-Adab Journal cannot publish material from other publications without permission.
The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgement to be followed; otherwise follow the style: "Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].' at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.