Understanding Logical Fallacies and Persuasion Techniques in Debate

This essay delves into the personal experience of encountering logical fallacies during a college debate on the topic of "science and philosophy: complementary or contradictory." It identifies instances where fellow participants employed fallacies such as 'ad hominem,' 'hasty generalization,' and 'stack the deck' to persuade the author and weaken their arguments. The author reflects on how these tactics, particularly the 'stack the deck' method, influenced their participation in the debate and acknowledges the importance of recognizing and countering such fallacies in argumentation. The essay concludes by highlighting the learning experience gained from this encounter and the enhanced understanding of logical fallacies and their practical applications.

Running head: LOGICAL FALLACIES AND PERSUASION
Logical fallacies and persuasion
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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LOGICAL FALLACIES AND PERSUASION
The logical fallacy is kind of a false statement which is used in an argument to achieve
multiple outcomes (Elqayam). It is used to deviate the argument by using wrong evidences,
personal attacks, misuse of language and diverting from the central argument of the discussion
(Christoforides et al.). There are multiple fallacies that are used out of which some are
experienced at the individual level. The aim of the paper is elaborate one such personal
experience when I was being persuaded by one of these fallacies.
The debate that was organized by the college debating society and the topic was the
debate was “science and philosophy: complementary or contradictory:” When the discussion was
gaining strong ground, I realized that my fellow participants were trying to persuade my
understanding by using the logical fallacy of “ad hominem” (Hitchcock). This is defined as the
use of abusive language, personal attack to the debater and name calling. They tried to persuade
me by making personal statement and questioning my academic background for failing to
understand the scientific knowledge’s. Even though there was persuasion for changing
statements due to my philosophical background, I remained firm in my logic and proceeded with
the debate.
However, there was fewer other attempts by other debaters to use logical fallacy like
hasty generalization. This is defined as the faulty generalization supported by lack of data and
statistics (Pirie). I realized this was a way to weaken the opponent’s argument by bringing hasty
generalization and deviating the speaker from the central argument. Statements were raised that
students of the humanities background do not have any knowledge about science which is not
true in real situations. People from all backgrounds do have basic knowledge about other fields
even if not technical and factual knowledge. This attempt to persuade failed as well. By claiming
to have more knowledge do not necessarily prove that they have practical knowledge. It is a

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LOGICAL FALLACIES AND PERSUASION
general fallacy that is used in multiple scenarios to win an argument. However, it is important for
the speaker to have detailed understanding of the fallacies that can be used in a discussion.
The final situation was that the fellow debaters tried to persuade me by the “stack the
deck” method (Elqayam). This is one of the logical fallacies that are used by most of the good
debaters. It is the process of stacking up of data to counter the opponent’s argument by proving
that they have better factual and theoretical knowledge of the matter. This is one of the fallacies
that persuaded me and I failed to put my argument on the table. This fallacy was used tactfully
which gave me a feeling that I lack proper factual knowledge about the subject hence it is wise to
keep quite. This is the most common logical fallacy used by the experienced debaters as it offers
them the opportunity to stage their claim and make them look very knowledgeable.
From my personal experience, I realized that I failed to restrict myself from being
persuaded by the usage of these logical fallacies. It did work in my case as I was not aware of the
ways to counter the argument. However, this is indeed a learning experience for me and it also
gave me an overall understanding of the issue of logical fallacies and their use in the practical
argument.

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LOGICAL FALLACIES AND PERSUASION
References
Christoforides, Michael, George Spanoudis, and Andreas Demetriou. "Coping with logical
fallacies: A developmental training program for learning to reason." Child
development87.6 2016: 1856-1876.
Elqayam, Shira. "The new paradigm in psychology of reasoning." International Handbook of
Thinking and Reasoning. Routledge, 2017. 152-172.
Hitchcock, David. "Is There an Argumentum ad Hominem Fallacy?." On Reasoning and
Argument. Springer, Cham, 2017. 409-419.
Pirie, Madsen. How to win every argument: the use and abuse of logic. Bloomsbury Publishing,
2015.