Beyond Fact-Checking: The Importance of Logic-Checking in Public Discourse

This paper makes the case for what we call ‘logic-checking’. The paper begins by providing an overview of the development of fact-checking and of how fact-checking functions. As part of this discussion, we identify some limitations of fact-checking, including its reliance on testimony to function as intended. Such considerations, we argue, motivate logic-checking, which, when well articulated, can demonstrate that a piece of reasoning is flawed to an audience. What logic-checking involves is set out and examples of logic-checking are provided. The objection that experts in informal logic conducting logic-checking will be biased, thus undermining the whole enterprise, is considered and rejected.