Attacks & Distractions
When arguments go after the person, not the point
Dodge the Person, Miss the Point
A fallacy is a flaw in reasoning that makes an argument weaker than it looks. Some of the most common ones don't engage your actual claim at all. They attack you, distort your view, or throw up a distraction. Learning to name them is the first step to not being fooled by them.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Where this sits in the course
“Attacks & Distractions” is lesson 1 of 3 in Spot the Fallacy, a course about name the moves that make arguments collapse.. The lessons are sequenced rather than a menu, so this one assumes what came before it.
Spot the Fallacy is itself one of 18 courses in thinkr. The set opens with what philosophy is, moves through the Stoics and the Eastern traditions, then into what can be known, what exists, how to act and how power works — closing on practical reasoning you can use in an argument this week.
More from Aristotle
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
In the app this lesson is followed by 5 exercises that check whether the idea actually landed — and every answer, right or wrong, is explained rather than scored. That is the part a written page cannot reproduce.