Unmasking Logical Fallacies: An Analysis of The 2024 Indonesian Vice-Presidential Debates

The logical fallacies that emerged in the 2024 Indonesian vice-presidential candidate debates is interested. By analyzing debate through a descriptive qualitative approach and employing Damer's (2009) classification theory, the study evaluates the presence of unconvincing arguments in the discourse of the three vice-presidential candidates. Logical fallacies, which are errors in reasoning, can obscure listeners and impact comprehension and the quality of arguments in a debate. Data were collected by transcribing argumentative speeches from two YouTube videos of the debates. There were 120 utterances produced by the three vice-presidential candidates. From 120 utterances, 60 logical fallacies were found. The findings reveal that the most prevalent logical fallacies included red herrings (16.67%), where candidates diverted attention from relevant topics to irrelevant ones. Ad hominem attacks (11.67%) were also common. Additionally, appeals to authority (11.67%) cited influential figures to support his argument on "ecological repentance," without strengthening the logical foundation of his argument. This research underscores the importance of recognizing cognitive biases that can undermine argument objectivity. The study highlights the need for heightened awareness of rhetorical manipulation among speakers and audiences to foster a more critical and informed debate culture. The study contributes to political communication studies by providing insights into the rhetorical strategies used in Indonesian political debates and their implications for democratic engagement. The prevalence of logical fallacies points to the necessity for improved debate standards to enhance rational political discourse, ultimately benefiting the democratic process by encouraging informed and constructive participation.


Introduction
Linguistics has relationships with many other scientific disciplines called macro-linguistics.One of these scientific disciplines is logic.The correlation between logic and meaning is what makes logic interesting from a linguistic point of view (Gamut, 1991).Gamut added that the contribution of logic to linguistics is not limited to providing precise descriptions of the meaning of grammatical conjunctions, negation, quantification of expressions, and others.It also offers a semantic interpretation of syntactic operations when examining what arguments are valid based on the meaning of grammatical conjunctions and negations.Likewise, Lawyer (2006) states that logic is about meaning relationships called propositions.To understand how a language works, it is essential to discover its logical structure.More specifically, Gamut (1991) considers logic to be the science of reasoning.Reasoning has various applications, and one of them is argumentation.One area of argumentation that is the main focus is the vice-presidential candidate debate.The vice-presidential candidate debate is a moment for the candidates to convey their vision and mission and invite the public to vote for them.Therefore, it is crucial for them to say something with adequate reasons or strong arguments.Otherwise, their words are questionable or perhaps unacceptable.An argument consists of premises and a conclusion.When the premises fail to support or do not sufficiently support the conclusions, such arguments are categorized as (logical) fallacies (Warman & Hamzah, 2020).
Language is also related to argumentation, as it is used to formulate an argument.The use of complex language can be manipulative or deceptive, and the thoughtless use of language can lead to misperceptions and disagreements (Copi et al., 2016).The result of using such language is a fallacy.Zhou (2018) argues that fallacies in political discourse are tricks that people use in their arguments that seem credible but are actually used to fool the audience.These fallacies can occur intentionally or unintentionally, but both things can cause serious problems, especially in presidential candidate debates, because they can influence and deceive the public's perception of what politicians say.In Indonesia presidential election 2024, the logical fallacies were also found in the debate section performed by the three vice-presidential candidates.These logical fallacies committed by the candidates became phenomenon discussed by Indonesian citizens.Some research on logical fallacies has been conducted in several fields, such as argumentative writing, federal courts, and politics.In politics, there have been several studies on logical fallacies (Hayon, 2005;Khan et al., 2016;Melakopides, 2018;Zhou, 2018).Hayon (2005) studied the types of fallacies in political statements by presenting actual cases as illustrations.He found that many political statements contained compositional fallacies that shifted distributed understanding to collective understanding.Khan et al. (2016) conducted comparative research to investigate informal fallacy manipulation and its relevance as an identity marker.They specifically only analyzed two types of fallacies, namely appeals to coercion and appeals to pity.Their results suggest that informal misrepresentation can be considered an identity marker for political associations.In addition, Zhou (2018) examined the use of logical fallacies in politics.Although there are many types of fallacies, the study only focused on 18 common fallacies and found several fallacies in each type.Still, in the political field, research was also carried out regarding the logical fallacy made by Santoso (2017).He investigated the fallacies of Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's arguments in the first US presidential debate and uncovered six common types of fallacies: straw person, ad hominem, hasty generalization, false cause, slippery slope, and ad populum.
Based on previous research that has been carried out, the researcher attempts to conduct research related to this topic, but in a different area, i.e., the debate for the Indonesian vice-presidential candidate in 2024.Debates in each country can be, in fact, different from each other because they can be influenced by many factors (Isolatus, 2011).Her research disclosed that the presidential debates in Finland were in many ways different from the presidential debates in America.Apart from that, Warman and Hamzah (2020) stated that there is much research on fallacies concerning presidential debates in Western countries, as mentioned above, and especially regarding presidential debates in America (Hameed & Al-Asadi, 2018;Santoso, 2017;Zhou, 2018).However, research discussing the vice-presidential candidate debates in Eastern countries, specifically Indonesia, remains underexposed.This may be because the vicepresidential candidate debate in Indonesia has only been held twice before, namely in 2014 and 2019.In addition, the audience focused more on the presidential candidate debate.Nevertheless, in 2024, when information spreads more quickly, debates between presidential candidates and vice-presidential candidates became increasingly popular.In addition, research conducted by Isolatus (2011) used political analysis to examine the research.On some other cases, the researchers examine the character of the president candidates (Benoit & Hansen, 2004).Santoso (2017) and Warman and Hamzah (2020) chose logical fallacies to examine the president candidates; Joko Widodo, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.This research tried to bring something new that the previous ones could not address.In the previous research, the presidents became the highlight and the subject of the research regarding to their logical fallacies.Meanwhile, in this research, the subject was the vice-president candidate.Therefore, this research seeks to analyze and determine the types of logical fallacies produced by the three vice-presidential candidates, Muhaimin Iskandar (01), Gibran Rakabuming Raka (02), and Mahfud MD (03) in the Indonesian vicepresidential candidate debate in 2024.To answer this research question, the main theory is reviewed regarding the fallacy: Logical Fallacy Theory by Damer (2009) Several researchers have elucidated the classification theory of errors or fallacies (Copi et al., 2016;Damer, 2009;Hamblin, 1986;Mayfield, 2014;Tindale, 2007;Walton, 2006).Hamblin (1986) only included formal fallacies without categorizing them.Thus, it will not be easy to use practically.Although there are many categories and types of fallacies, Tindale (2007) only introduced two categories of fallacies.These two are a transfer fallacy and a structure fallacy.Each category has six and five types, respectively.Likewise, Mayfield (2014) and Walton ( 2006) categorized fallacies into two, and there are less than 20 types of fallacies in these two categories.Furthermore, Copi et al. (2016) introduced four categories of fallacies, namely (1) relevance fallacies, (2) flawed induction fallacies, (3) presumption fallacies, and (4) ambiguity fallacies.In total, there are 19 types in four categories.However, this does not appear to be sufficient since the most common fallacy (ad hominem) is not included.Finally, Damer (2009) introduces more complex types of fallacies and a more comprehensive explanation for each fallacy by providing at least three realistic and practical examples and clear explanations.There are a total of sixty types of fallacies, grouped into five categories.These are fallacies that violate 1) structural criteria, 2) relevance criteria, 3) acceptability criteria, 4) sufficiency criteria, and 5) rebuttal criteria.
Since there are sixty types of fallacies, it is impractical to explain them all in detail.Therefore, what is discussed here is only a general description of fallacies based on these five categories (Damer, 2009).The first is a fallacy that violates structural criteria.This fallacy occurs when there is a structural defect that prevents the conclusion from following the premises (Damer, 2009).The types of fallacies included in this category are arguing in a circle, question-begging language, complex questions, question-begging definitions, incompatible premises, contradiction between premise and conclusion, denying the antecedent, affirming the consequent, false conversion, undistributed middle term, and illicit distribution of an end term.The second is a fallacy that violates the relevance criterion.A debater makes this fallacy if he includes premises or factors that are not relevant to support the conclusion of his argument (Damer, 2009).There are ten types of fallacies in this category, namely genetic fallacy, rationalization, drawing the wrong conclusion, using the wrong reason, appeal to irrelevant authority, appeal to common opinion, appeal to force or threat, appeal to tradition, and appeal to self-interest and manipulation of emotions.
The third is a fallacy that violates the acceptability criteria.According to Damer (2009), there are seven standard acceptability criteria, and if one of these criteria is violated, a fallacy has occurred in this category.The seven criteria are applied when there is: 1. a claim that becomes undeniable public knowledge.2. a claim that is substantiated by personal experience or observation.
3. a claim that is adequately defended within the context of its argument or at least capable of being adequately defended by other accessible sources.4. irrefutable eyewitness testimony.5. undeniable demand from the relevant authorities.6. conclusion to another good argument.7. a relatively minor claim that seems like a reasonable assumption in the context of his argument.
There are sixteen types of fallacies included in this category, namely equivocation, ambiguity, misleading accent, illicit contrast, argument by innuendo, misuse of a vague expression, a distinction without a difference, fallacy of the continuum, fallacy of division, false alternatives, is-ought to fallacy, wishful thinking, misuse of a principle, and fallacy of the mean and faulty analogy.Fourth, fallacies that violate the sufficiency criterion.A debater is considered to have made this fallacy if he draws a conclusion based on premises that are not sufficient in number, type, and weight to establish the truth of the conclusion (Damer, 2009).Fourteen types of fallacies fall into this category.These examples are insufficient sample, unrepresentative data, arguing from ignorance, contrary-to-fact hypothesis, the fallacy of popular wisdom, special pleading, omission of key evidence, confusion of a necessary with a sufficient condition, causal oversimplification, post hoc fallacy, neglect of a common cause, domino fallacy, and gambler's fallacy.
The last one is a fallacy that violates the rebuttal criterion.This fallacy occurs if the debaters do not include serious criticism that is anticipated to attack their argument (Damer, 2009).The types of fallacies in this category are denying the counterevidence, ignoring the counterevidence, abusive ad hominem, poisoning the well, two-wrong fallacy, attacking a straw man, trivial objections, red herring, and resorting to humor or ridicule.All types of fallacies described by Damer (2009) can be observed in the figure below.

Method
The design of research is descriptive research with a qualitative approach.According to Igwenagu (2016), descriptive research involves studying a particular situation to ascertain whether there is a general theory that can emerge from the situation.Meanwhile, the qualitative approach is related to qualitative phenomena, such as phenomena related to or involving qualities or types (Kothari, 2004).This aligns with this research because it is also related to the study of a particular situation (the 2024 Indonesian vicepresidential candidate debate) and is linked to qualitative phenomena because it is associated with the quality of arguments and types of fallacies.
The data sources for this research were two video transcripts of debates for the Indonesian vicepresidential candidates in 2024.The data used were utterances containing logical fallacies uttered by the three vice presidential candidates: Muhaimin Iskandar (MI), Gibran Rakabuming Raka (GR), and Mahfud MD (MD) during the 2024 vice presidential candidate debate.The population and sample of this research is 125 utterances produced by the candidates.These numbers gained by observing the vice-presidential candidates debate on YouTube.In analyzing the data, the researcher carried out the following analysis techniques: (1) classifying the utterances of the three candidates as belonging to common types of logical fallacies based on Damer's (2009) logical fallacies classification theory; (2) listing the data into a table based on type to show the frequency and percentage; (3) analyzing the data by comparing the frequency of logical fallacies made by the three candidates to see the types most frequently used by the candidates and find out the differences and similarities between them; and (4) drawing conclusions based on these findings.

Result
After analyzing the data, it was found that a number of fallacies were made by the three vice presidential candidates, which fell into these five categories.Twenty-two fallacies of sixty types were uncovered in their arguments.The frequency and percentage of the twenty-two can be seen in the table below.From the 120 utterances produced by the candidates, 60 logical fallacies were found.The 60 logical fallacies are presented as follows.Based on the table above, it can be seen that there are 5 fallacy categories committed by the vicepresidential candidates of Indonesia 2024.The 5 categories include structural, relevance, acceptability, sufficiency, and rebuttal category.These findings were in line with what Damer (2009) proposed, however, not all logical fallacy types committed by the candidates.From the 60 types of categories mentioned by Damer (2009), 22 types of categories presented in this research as shown in the table.After analyzing the data, it was found that Red Herring (16.67%) was the most frequent logical fallacies committed by the candidates.The following rank was achieved by Appeal to Irrelevant Authority (11.67) and Ad hominem (11.67).Further findings analysis is presented in discussion.

Discussion
Table 1 presents that of the five categories, the second category, namely fallacies that violate the relevance criterion, appeared in most types of fallacies.Of ten types, six were found.Among them were appeal to common opinion, drawing the wrong conclusion, appeal to irrelevant authority, appeal to force or threat, appeal to tradition, and appeal to self-interest and manipulation of emotions.Apart from that, in the fourth category of fallacies that violate the sufficiency criterion, six types of fallacies out of fourteen were found, including insufficient sample, unrepresentative data, arguing from ignorance, causal oversimplification, post hoc fallacy, and domino fallacy.Then, in other categories, a maximum of three types were uncovered in each category.Regarding the types, a total of 60 occurrences were found in the twentytwo types.Red herring was the most common type, with a frequency of ten occurrences.Fallacies like this are not commonly found in presidential debates or political discourse (Hameed & Al-Asadi, 2018;Santoso, 2017;Zhou, 2018).According to Damer (2009), a red herring is a type of fallacy that creates arguments by diverting discussion topics with no relevance.This is done in the hope that someone will be willing to respond and create a new topic of discussion.A red herring has the characteristic of an argument that is completely unrelated to the premise that will be used as a conclusion and a statement.Therefore, the dominant use of red herrings indicates that the three vice presidential candidates tended not to respond to the proposed premises and were looking for new discussion topics.
The second highest frequency was appeal to irrelevant authority and ad hominem, which had a total of seven occurrences.This was followed by false alternatives and attacks on straw men as many as five times.Appeal to common opinion, drawing the wrong conclusion, and unrepresentative data each had a lower frequency of fallacies three times.In addition, the remaining eleven types of fallacies had a frequency of once, and the domino fallacy appeared once.Following is an analysis of the three dominant fallacies.One example of each type will be described below.

Red herring
In the world of debate, the ability to answer questions correctly and in accordance with the premises is the key to a strong and convincing argument.A skilled debater is not only able to present solid arguments but is also able to respond appropriately to questions asked.In the debate arena, every statement made must be supported by relevant evidence and consistent with the agreed premises.Therefore, as a debater, it is important to always pay attention to the premises that have been given and answer each question carefully without making new statements that could disrupt the consistency of the argument.However, if a debater expresses an argument that is completely unrelated to the premises that will be used as a conclusion, he has committed a red herring fallacy (Damer, 2009).There are several similar fallacies found in this research, as follows: [Gibran: "Gus Muhaimin ini lucu ya menanyakan masalah lingkungan hidup tapi kok pakai botol-botol plastic itu padahal saya, Pak Ganjar, Prof. Mahfud pakai botol kaca itu gimana komitmennya botol plastic semua itu…"] [Gibran: "Gus Muhaimin is funny, asking about environmental issues, but why are you using plastic bottles, when I, Mr. Ganjar, and Prof. Mahfud use glass bottles?How committed are you?All of those are plastic bottles..

."]
Gibran used a red herring fallacy by trying to divert attention from Muhaimin's question about bioregional-based development strategies to an irrelevant topic, namely the choice of drinking bottles.This did not provide an appropriate answer to the question asked.
[Muhaimin: "yang patut untuk bisa menjadi alat ukur adalah bahwa dari seluruh rencana mengurangi deforestasi itu adalah berapa prestasi untuk melakukan penghijauan atau reforestrasi sampai hari ini saya setuju dengan Pak Mahfud tidak ada keseriusan dan kesungguhan untuk itu bahkan mau menyediakan pangan nasional saja kenapa tidak melibatkan petani malah juga melakukan penggundulan gutan dan gagal lagi karena apa, karena tidak melibatkan masyarakat ada setempat juga tidak melibatkan para petani bahkan merusak keanekaragaman hayati kita."][Muhaimin: "what should be used as a measuring instrument for all plans to reduce deforestation is how many achievements that have been carried out for greening or reforestation.I agree with Mr. Mahfud.There is no seriousness and sincerity in that.When providing national food, why don't you involve farmers?Instead, you carried out deforestation and failed again.Why so?Because it does not involve the local community and does not involve the farmers and instead destroys our biodiversity."]Muhaimin used a red herring by diverting attention from the real issue, i.e., greening or reforestation efforts, to national food issues and involving farmers.He concluded that there was no seriousness and sincerity in greening or reforestation efforts based on the lack of involvement of local communities and farmers without providing concrete evidence or arguments to support his opinion.

Appeal to irrelevant authority
During a debate, an arguer may attempt to support a claim by using certain pleas as reasons or evidence.It is fine if he appeals to the assessment of the relevant authority or someone who is an expert in the particular field and is unbiased.However, if he appeals against the judgment of someone who is not an authority, the judgment of an unidentified authority, or the judgment of an authority that may be biased, he commits the fallacy of appealing to an irrelevant authority (Damer, 2009).The authority is someone who has knowledge related to the claim and is free from any prejudice or conflict of interest that might prevent him from providing a valid assessment.This is an example of the type found in this study.
[Muhaimin: "saya hanya mengajak Pak Prabowo, Pak Gibran, Pak Mahfud, Pak Ganjar saya Mas Anis dan siapapun untuk kita sama-sama tobat ekologis memperbaiki ke depan menjadi lebih baik lagi."][Muhaimin: "I invite Mr. Prabowo, Mr. Gibran, Mr. Mahfud, Mr. Ganjar, me, Mas Anis, and anyone else to make ecological repentance to improve the better future."]Muhaimin used the appeal to authority fallacy by mentioning the names of respected or influential figures to strengthen his argument about the importance of carrying out "ecological repentance."However, mentioning these figures did not mean that his argument was logically stronger.

Ad hominem
Ad hominem is a type of fallacy that involves giving a counterargument by pointing out a person's negative traits that refer to certain physical traits, characteristics, and circumstances.This argument attempts to attack the truth of a claim by pointing out the negative characteristics of the person who supports the claim.Ad hominem reasoning is usually viewed as a logical fallacy, as it has no relevance to the topic being discussed (Damer, 2009).
[Mahfud: "saya juga ingin mencari tuh jawabannya ngawur juga itu gila ini ngarangngarang gak karuan mengkaitatkan dengan sesuatu yang tidak ada gitu ya begini loh kalau akademis itu gampangnya kalau bertanya yang kayak gitu-gitu tuh recehan gitu recehan recehan.Oleh sebab itu itu tidak layak dijawab menurut saya dan oleh sebab itu saya kembalikan saja ke moderator ini gak layak dilayak dijawab, gak ada jawabannya ini terima kasih."][Mahfud: "I also want to find the answer.It is nonsense, too; it is crazy, it is made up, and it is crazy to attribute it to something that does not exist.The academics see that question as something trivial and frivolous.Therefore, in my opinion, it is not worth answering, and I will return it to the moderator.This is not worth answering, and there is no answer to this.Thank you."]Mahfud used ad hominem by stating that Gibran's question was "inconsequential" (chaotic) and "crazy" (unreasonable) and that the question was not worth answering because it was considered unreasonable.This is a form of refusing to answer a question on the grounds of not believing in the validity or importance of the question without providing a valid argument for the issue being asked.The findings of this study revealed that red herrings, which have not been discovered by previous studies (especially in the US presidential debate), were the most common fallacies made by the three vice presidential candidates.However, the appeal to irrelevant authority was found in previous research (Warman & Hamzah, 2020), which said that this fallacy was something unusual.In fact, it was the most dominant, even though Warman and Hamzah's (2020) research focused on presidential candidate debates.This may be because the debates that occur in each country can be different due to many contributing factors, as found by Isolatus (2011) in his research.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of this research, it was revealed that the candidate and vice-presidential debates in each country are different, especially in terms of the types of logical fallacies found, as previously stated.Straw man and ad hominem fallacies were among the most frequent fallacies made by the two American presidential candidates in the 2016 presidential election, as found in previous studies.However, these two types were not used at all by the Indonesian presidential candidates during the debate.On the other hand, the fallacies they made were ones that rarely occur.In prior research (Warman & Hamzah, 2020), the fallacies that often occurred were false alternatives, drawing the wrong conclusion, and ad hominem.However, previous studies still focused on presidential candidate debates, and this research brings novelty by analyzing vice presidential candidate debates, especially in 2024.In addition, the results of this research highlight the importance of being aware of cognitive biases that can damage the objectivity of arguments.Some forms of fallacy, such as selective selection of evidence, can produce misleading information and harm the quality of the discussion.This research contributes to our understanding of how misguided thinking can damage the quality of debate, give rise to unproductive controversy, and, at the same time, give rise to negative sentiments about the vice-presidential candidate's personal branding.Therefore, it can be concluded that logical fallacies are commonplace and often made by presidential and vice-presidential candidates, but the types of fallacies made are not always similar or the same.Further research on how to help people identify logical fallacies is highly recommended because this research was only limited to types of logical fallacies.

Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The authors state that there is no conflict of interest concerning the publication of this paper.

Table 1 .
Types of logical fallacies by MI, GR, and MD