Content Fallacies

In the text, Epstein discusses fallacies in arguments, which are arguments that are bad and can not be fixed. An argument can typically be made a fallacy by how the argument is phrased, or more importantly, by what the context of the argument is. This type of fallacy is called a content fallacy. Content fallacies have premises that are either doubtful or unrelated to the conclusion, or both. In short, a content fallacy is an argument that makes no sense based on the logic portrayed by the speaker.

For example, I could say that "Online classes require too much from students, therefore this class will require us to post at least 12 hours apart." This is an example of confusing subjective and objective claims. Usually in a strong argument, one will pose an objective claim before a subjective claim, because we have learned that for an argument to be good, the premises have to be more plausible than the conclusion. In my example, I pose a subjective claim first, which is dependent on one's beliefs, making it less plausible than the conclusion, which is an objective claim, something that is not dependent on one's beliefs. This makes my statement a contextual fallacy. If I wanted a strong argument, I would have switched the two claims around and re-structured them to avoid creating a fallacy.