The fallacy of composition: Guiding concepts, historical cases, and research problems

Abstract

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied by theorists and trivially illustrated in textbooks, some view it as ubiquitous and highly significant. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements that are often confused, and is often carelessly conflated with the fallacy of division. And although some apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic's imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I find three important historical examples: Aristotle's geocentric argument from natural motion, as critiqued by Galileo; a step in the theological argument from design, as critiqued by Hume; and Michels's iron law of oligarchy, as critiqued by social scientists Dahl and Lipset. Finally, I formulate some problems for future research on compositional arguments: distinguishing incorrectness from fallaciousness; elaborating general principles of evaluation; clarifying the three distinct subtypes; shifting from the arbitrary pluralism of argument-identification to the normal meta-argumentation of argument-analysis; and further historical-empirical search for such fallacies in various controversies, over holism, over global warming, and over national debts.

Missing the bigger picture: Why insect monitoring programs are limited in their ability to document the effects of habitat loss

“…One interpretation of such results is that insects are resilient to the stressors of the Anthropocene. This inference suffers from the fallacy of composition, that is, transferring onto the whole attributes that belong solely to component parts (Finocchiaro, 2015). In this case, the parts are field locations where insects are monitored, and the whole is insect diversity and abundance at landscape, regional, and global scales.…”

Distributed autobiographical memories, distributed self‐narratives

“…From the assumptions that (1) autobiographical memories are distributed and that (2) distributed autobiographical memories are “building blocks” of self‐narratives, Heersmink infers that self‐narratives are also distributed: “My claim is that the building blocks of self‐narratives have internal (i.e., neurological and biological) and external (i.e., technological and social) components, suggesting that narratives are distributed” (Heersmink, 2020a, p. 9, see also 2020b). However, drawing this inference means to commit a fallacy of composition (see Finocchiaro, 2015). From the premise that we can ascribe the property of distributedness to autobiographical memories (parts), it does not follow that we can ascribe this same property to self‐narratives (whole).…”

Her Bi̇ri̇mi̇z İçi̇n Ayri Ayri Uygun/Doğru Olan Hepi̇mi̇z İçi̇n De Uygun/Doğru Olur Mu? Terki̇p Yanilgisinin Ekonomi̇deki̇ Yansimalari

“…), Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09, CD-ROM (ss. 1-10), Windsor, ON: OSSA;Finocchiaro, M. A. (2015).…”