Being able to correctly identify logical fallacies is an important skill in and of itself. Persuading someone that they are wrong is a totally separate exercise.
> Being able to correctly identify logical fallacies is an important skill in and of itself.
It's not, really. A person who understands the notions of necessity and sufficiency, knows what a counterexample is, and knows their truth tables (with or without really knowing the textbook definitions of these things) should be able to function just fine without knowing the names of all the various fallacies.
(consider how many people who are inclined to complain about logical fallacies do not understand these things, and therefore misapply the labels)
> A person who understands the notions of necessity and sufficiency, knows what a counterexample is, and knows their truth tables (with or without really knowing the textbook definitions of these things) should be able to function just fine without knowing the names of all the various fallacies.
Not really. They help for the same reason memorizing formulas in math help - they save the work and time needed to derive the formula again and again. That matters an awful lot in real time discussion. Also, if you know what fallacies exist it is much easier to recognize and encounter them compared to when you have to process the fallacy for the first time. You can even think them through in advance and prepare the argumets.
> They help for the same reason memorizing formulas in math help - they save the work and time needed to derive the formula again and again.
The rules surrounding syllogisms are so simple that I cannot believe anyone would use the word "derive" to describe the process of recognizing a problem with the logic with something like that (the syllogistic fallacies). I'm not sure most people even need to think consciously about the logic, let alone the taxonomy of possible problems with the logic.
On the other hand, informal fallacies, or inductive fallacies... you've got a point there in some cases, I suppose.
You are confusing physics with biology, if you will. You could say the entire field if biology is redundant -- it's all consequences of basic physics -- and yet biology is a very useful science.
Arguments aren't presented mechanically step-by-step with a citation of rule at each step; they elide and summarize information, and skip logical steps.
The fallacies show you where to look for insufficencies, to avoid being misled by invalid shorthand arguments.
Well, no. We can trivially identify the presence of a fallacy by knowing a few things about logic and so on. The same is not true of biology: an experienced physicist won't necessarily have much ability solving biology problems, as you know.
(I don't remember thinking about the individual fallacies by name very much at all except when I was learning logic, where they were used as examples. Once you're a little more experienced, it would be akin to saying to oneself "okay, now I am using the present tense" while writing.)
