What Makes a Fallacy Serious?

Among the defining criteria of a fallacy, Douglas Walton requires that its flaw must be serious. This allows his distinction between “serious” fallacies, minor ones, or mere blunders. But what makes a fallacy serious? Isn’t being fallacious serious enough? Walton leaves these questions unanswered but often calls to his distinction between sophism and paralogism. Several ways to apply the adjective “serious” to fallacies are discussed. Some depend on the type, others on structural aspects, and others on a dialectical background

Regulation and Productivity in the Quebec Manufacturing Sector

We investigate the impact of occupational safety and health (OSH) and environmental regulation on the rate of growth of total factor productivity (TFP) in the Quebec manufacturing sector during the 1985-88 period. Our results show that environmental regulation and OSH protective reassignments (a prevention policy with respect to OSH) have led to a reduction in productivity growth, while the presence of mandatory prevention programs and of fines for infractions to OSH rules have led to an increase in productivity growth. Interestingly, this is, to our knowledge, the first result showing that OSH regulation may have had a positive effect on productivity growth. Nous évaluons l'impact qu'ont eu les réglementations en matière de santé et sécurité du travail et d'environnement sur la croissance de la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF) du secteur manufacturier québécois au cours des années 1985-88. Nos résultats montrent que la réglementation environnementale et les réaffectations préventives (une mesure de prévention des accidents de travail) ont réduit la croissance de la productivité, alors que les mesures de prévention obligatoires et l'importance des amendes imposées pour infraction aux normes du travail ont augmenté la productivité. Notre étude est la première, à notre connaissance, qui indique un effet potentiellement positif de la réglementation sur la croissance de la productivité.Environmental regulationl Safety and health regulation; Productivity, Réglementation environnementale ; Réglementation de la santé et de la sécurité du travail ; Productivité

On the difference between fallacy and sophism

The translation into French of the English word “fallacy” opens a discussion on the difference between fallacy and sophism in English. The two words are sometimes synonyms, but a difference is sometimes made on the ground that a sophism is deliberate and a fallacy is non-deliberate. In a second part of the paper this distinctive criterion is taken seriously to discuss the relative frequency of sophisms and of fallacies for a typical kind of fallacious argument. I claim that this aspect should be taken into account by a theory of fallacious argument

Commentary on: Maurice Finocchiaro\u27s The fallacy of composition and meta-argumentation

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The tetrazolium reduction method for assessing the viability of individual bacterial cells in aquatic environments : improvements, performance and applications

Le système transporteur d'électron des bactéries réduit le 2-(p-iodophenyl) -3(p-nitrophenyl) -5-phenyltetrazolium chloride (INT) en INt formazan qui est détecté dans les cellules par un précipité opaque. Un nouveau protocole est proposé, qui améliore la méthode, pour les bactéries des milieux aquatiques, la rendant à la fois plus rapide, sensible et fiable. (Résumé d'auteur

Formation and Transportation of Methane Hydrate Slurries in a Flow Loop reactor : Influence of a Dispersant

6 pagesIn this paper, we present the experimental results obtained from a new flow loop reactor in which methane hydrate particles are crystallized in water droplets transported in a oil flow. The final goal of this apparatus is to couple the rheology with the Particle Size Distribution of water droplets and gas hydrate during crystallization and to observe the influence of dispersants and/or kinetics additives (PVP). In this paper, we describe the flow loop plant and we show preliminary results of the rheology of the emulsion before crystallization and suspension after methane hydrate appearance. The influence of a dispersant additive is observed at a water content of 9 % vol