Scott F. Aikin & John Casey on “Fallacies of Meta-Argumentation”

We argue that the theoretical concept of meta-argumentative fallacy is useful. We argue for this along two lines. The first is that with the concept, we may clarify the concept of meta-argumentation. That is, by theorizing where it goes wrong, we may capture the norms of this level of argumentation. The second is that the concept of meta-argumentative fallacies provides an explanatory model for a variety of errors in argument otherwise difficult to theorize. We take as exemplary: the straw man, bothsiderism, and free speech fallacies.

Scott F. Aikin, Vanderbilt University (United States)
John Casey, Northeastern Illinois University (United States)