Anecdote
Preface
This Blogger article was originally published December 16 2015, with significant additions and revisions for an entry on academia.edu on May 11 2024.
Pirie
Back to the Pirie text review:
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
The author explains an anecdote is a particular story. (41). In contrast, a general assertion explains what occurs in general. (41). An anecdote does not prove or demonstrate the general assertion wrong, but only that something happened in a particular case. (41). The counter-example does indeed prove or demonstrate the general assertion is not universal. (41). The anecdote does not disprove the general assertion. The anecdote does not disprove what generally happens. (41).
'To counter an argument of principle with a few contrary cases is to enter the fallacy of anecdotal reasoning'. (42)
Anecdotal fallacy has similarities to accident fallacy, also in Pirie's text and discussed on this site in two articles. Both involve general and specific cases and arguments.
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
The author explains an anecdote is a particular story. (41). In contrast, a general assertion explains what occurs in general. (41). An anecdote does not prove or demonstrate the general assertion wrong, but only that something happened in a particular case. (41). The counter-example does indeed prove or demonstrate the general assertion is not universal. (41). The anecdote does not disprove the general assertion. The anecdote does not disprove what generally happens. (41).
'To counter an argument of principle with a few contrary cases is to enter the fallacy of anecdotal reasoning'. (42)
Anecdotal fallacy has similarities to accident fallacy, also in Pirie's text and discussed on this site in two articles. Both involve general and specific cases and arguments.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cited
Cited
'Author Information
Bradley Dowden
Email: dowden@csus.edu
California State University, Sacramento
U. S. A.'
'Anecdotal Evidence
This is fallacious generalizing on the basis of a some story that provides an inadequate sample. If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand stories, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.
Example:
Yeah, I've read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he's never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can't really hurt you.'
End Citation
Anecdotal fallacy
Overruling general knowledge and argumentation via specific anecdotal argument.
Overruling general knowledge and argumentation via specific anecdotal argument.
Example
Yes, I know cigarettes supposedly according to medical science cause lung and other cancers, but both my Grandpa's smoked like fireplaces and each lived to 90 years old plus and so I smoke every day.
Yes, I know cigarettes supposedly according to medical science cause lung and other cancers, but both my Grandpa's smoked like fireplaces and each lived to 90 years old plus and so I smoke every day.
The philosophical red flag that comes to mind is the danger of making what is specific, general and what is general, specific.
Example
Fallaciously making what is specific, general:
Premise: God spoke to me in a dream once.
Conclusion: God speaks to me in every dream.
A problem with this argument is that is that it takes specific evidence from one dream, which does not apply to virtually every other dream (with allowance for a few exceptions) that has occurred. Dreams are typically in the natural realm and one anecdotal dream that may have an aspect to it that was supernatural, does not mean that all dreams have a supernatural aspect and supernatural content.
Composition Fallacy
In contrast
The Composition Fallacy
Pirie
Cited
'The fallacy of composition occurs when it is claimed that what is true for individual members of a class is also true for the class considered as a unit.' (62).
'It is fallacious to suppose that what is true of the parts must also be true of the new entity they collectively make up.' (62).
'This must be a good orchestra because each of its members is a talented musician.' (62).
Blackburn defines this fallacy similarly: '...arguing because something is true of members of a group or collection, it is true of the group as a whole. (71).
Example
Fallaciously making what is general, specific:
Premise: Human dream content is natural.
Conclusion: Human dream content is always entirely natural.
A problem with this argument is that although all human dreams have a natural aspect, taking place in the human brain, it is not logically impossible, or unreasonable, that a particular human dream could have a supernatural aspect and supernatural content.
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy).
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource
Cited
'References and Further Reading'
'Eemeren, Frans H. van, R. F. Grootendorst, F. S. Henkemans, J. A. Blair, R. H. Johnson, E. C. W. Krabbe, C. W. Plantin, D. N. Walton, C. A. Willard, J. A. Woods, and D. F. Zarefsky, 1996. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Fearnside, W. Ward and William B. Holther, 1959. Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Fischer, David Hackett., 1970. Historian’s Fallacies: Toward Logic of Historical Thought. New York, Harper & Row, New York, N.Y.
This book contains additional fallacies to those in this article, but they are much less common, and many have obscure names.
Groarke, Leo and C. Tindale, 2003. Good Reasoning Matters! 3rd edition, Toronto, Oxford University Press.
Hamblin, Charles L., 1970. Fallacies. London, Methuen.
Hansen, Has V. and R. C. Pinto., 1995. Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.
Huff, Darrell, 1954. How to Lie with Statistics. New York, W. W. Norton.
Levi, D. S., 1994. “Begging What is at Issue in the Argument,” Argumentation, 8, 265-282.
Schwartz, Thomas, 1981. “Logic as a Liberal Art,” Teaching Philosophy 4, 231-247.
Walton, Douglas N., 1989. Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Walton, Douglas N., 1995. A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy. Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press.
Walton, Douglas N., 1997. Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.
Whately, Richard, 1836. Elements of Logic. New York, Jackson.
Woods, John and D. N. Walton, 1989. Fallacies: Selected Papers 1972-1982. Dordrecht, Holland, Foris.
