There are two dangers to avoid as you begin to identify fallacies in daily life. The first consists in an unconscious bias toward identifying fallacies only in the thinking of others (those with whom you disagree) and none in yourself. In this case, you use fallacy labels as a way to attack anyone with whom you disagree, while you avoid a critical scrutiny of your own use of such fallacies. Your “opponent” uses an analogy, you immediately call it a false analogy. Your opponent makes a generalization, you immediately call it a hasty or unrepresentative generalization. Your mind is set against him and therefore you find fallacies in all his thinking. Your mind is so prejudiced in favor of your own thinking, that, as a result, you find no fallacies in it.
Warning
Most students who study fallacies begin to find them plentiful in the arguments of those with whom THEY DISAGREE. Realize that fallacies are being used with equal frequency by you, as well as your friends. Test your integrity by diligently seeking fallacies in your own thinking. Remember, “we have met the enemy, and he is us!”
The second danger consists in coming to believe that everyone commits an equal number of fallacies, and therefore that there is no reason to concern yourself with fallacies. “The situation is hopeless,” you say to yourself.
The fact is that fallacies are “foul” ways to try to win an argument (or justify a belief) unfairly. Their use is wide spread, especially among those who make it their business to manipulate people. All of us sometimes commit them. But there is often a significant difference in quantity. Compare the problem of fallacy use to the problem of air pollution. All air carries some pollutants, but all air is not highly polluted. It is impossible to think in so careful a way that one never uses a fallacy. But it is possible to minimize that usage.
To protect ourselves we need to be able to recognize when people are trying to manipulate us with fallacious appeals. To maintain our integrity, we must try to avoid using fallacious appeals ourselves. We do this by learning to monitor our own thinking and the thinking of others, using the tools of critical thinking. We must recognize what is encompassed in our own point of view and the limitations of that point of view. We must enter sympathetically into the point of view of others. We must learn how to strip our thinking, and the thinking of others, down to essentials: essential concepts, essential facts, essential inferences, essential assumptions. We must be willing to scrutinize our thinking with the same care and concern we use in scrutinizing the thinking of our opponents and nay-sayers. Our thinking should be in a state of permanent evolution, systematically building on our strengths and removing our weaknesses — hence, rooting out in the process as many fallacies as we have come to use.