Spotting Bad Arguments
The classic fallacies
When Arguments Break
An argument can feel convincing and still be broken. Logical fallacies are the classic ways reasoning goes wrong. In an ad hominem, you attack the person instead of their point. In a straw man, you distort their claim to knock it down easily. Appeals to authority or popularity dodge the real question. Naming these traps is the first step to avoiding them.
“Arguments from authority carry little weight.”
Where this sits in the course
“Spotting Bad Arguments” is lesson 1 of 2 in Reason & Its Traps, a course about before arguing, learn the shape of good and bad reasoning.. The lessons are sequenced rather than a menu, so this one assumes what came before it.
Reason & Its Traps 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.
In the app this lesson is followed by 4 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.