Fallacy Identification in a Dialectical Approach to Teaching Critical Thinking
Mark Battersby, Sharon Bailin · Inquiry Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines · 2015
The dialectical approach to teaching critical thinking is centred on a comparative evaluation of contending arguments, so that generally the strength of an argument for a position can only be assessed in the context of this dialectic. The identification of fallacies, though important, plays only a preliminary role in the evaluation to individual arguments. Our approach to fallacy identification and analysis sees fal-lacies as argument patterns whose persuasive power is disproportionate to their probative value.