Sound reasoning

Aristotle with the Dutch translation of 
De Sophisticis Elenchis, in English Sophistical Refutations

When Aristotle wrote his book on fallacies (De Sophisticis Elenchis, in English Sophistical Refutations) he will not have realized that it would last 1500 years before it would become a standard work of argumentation. This book, which belongs to his Organon (a collection of six methodological works), is the first systematical treatise on reasoning ever written. It analyzes a range of fallacies often used by people in their argumentations and it describes also how to perform a discussion. The book was especially directed against the Sophists. These were, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells me, “lecturers, writers, and teachers in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, most of whom traveled about the Greek-speaking world giving instruction in a wide range of subjects in return for fees.” Basically what the Sophists did was okay, but some – or too many – applied intentionally false arguments in order to win their debates and so to earn money. It made that the Sophists got a bad reputation. For Aristotle it was a reason to write his book.

After some time the Sophistical Refutations and most other works written by Aristotle became forgotten. At least this was so in Europe for in the Arab world they remained influential. Only from the 12th century on they became known again in Europe, especially thanks to the Arab philosopher Averroes and Jewish scholars in Andalusia. Also the Sophistical Refutations was rediscovered and it became even the standard work for argumentation till far in the twentieth century, although it didn’t remain without criticism. We saw already in my blog two weeks ago that Descartes was not satisfied with Aristotle’s argumentation theory, because it was only useful for arranging knowledge but not for acquiring new knowledge. The authoritative status of the Sophistical Refutations was only undermined when Charles Hamblin published in 1970 his book Fallacies. Since then it is still seen as an important book on sound reasoning, but it is recognized that there is more to say about argumentation and that Aristotle’s theory must be adapted and supplemented in view of later developments.

I just started reading Aristotle’s book, so I don’t know whether he treats the fallacy under another name, but one that Aristotle certainly doesn’t discuss is the Reductio ad Hitlerum, the “Reduction to Hitler”, a term coined by professor Leo Strauss in 1951. Sometimes the fallacy is also called the Argumentum ad Hitlerum (Argument to Hitler) or “Playing the Nazi-card”. It’s a version of the association fallacy, which says: A has property p and B has also has property p, so A and B are the same (at least in some relevant aspects). In the case of the Reductio ad Hitlerum the reasoning is that someone has a certain view and, since this view was also held by Hitler, this person is wrong. For instance, it’s not good to be a vegetarian, because Hitler was also a vegetarian.

Forty years later the American attorney and author Mike Godwin developed the Argumentum ad Hitlerum into what became known as Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”. So, if an Internet discussion lasts long enough, sooner or later a statement by one of the participants will get the reply “Hitler (or the Nazis) said the same”. But, as my example just given made clear, a view hold by Hitler is not automatically wrong. Even so, such an argument can pollute a debate, which makes that some moderators of Internet discussions have decided to finish a thread, as soon as the Argumentum ad Hitlerum is put forward. Of course, someone can use the Hitler-argument with the intention to end a discussion, but often people use incorrect arguments like this one without knowing that they are fallacies. They sincerely belief that their factual fallacies are sound arguments. In view of the latter, although it is true that the time has come to improve and supplement Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, even after more than 2300 years it still keeps its value.

You can find an Internet version of Sophistical Refutations on https://web.archive.org/web/20061004164921/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/sophistical/