Ch. 13-17

fallacies of relevance

-ad hominem -appeals to authority -appeals to popular opinion -appeals to tradition -appeals to emotion

appeals to emotion types

-appeal to pity -appeal to fear

fallacies of vacuity

-circularity -begging the question -self sealers

slippery slope fallacies

-conceptual -fairness -causal

methods of refutation

-counterexamples -reductio ad absurdum -parallel reasoning

refutation methods

-counterexamples -reductio ad absurdum -parallel reasoning

fallacies of ambiguity

-definitions -semantic -syntactic -equivocation

ad hominem fallacies

-deniers -silencers -dismissers -genetic -tu quoque -inconsistency

responses to causal

-deny that supposedly horrible effects are horrible -deny that one thing is related to the other

circularity

if one of the premises that is used to support conclusion is the same as the conclusion -doesn't have to be worded exactly the same, can just mean the same thing

self-sealers

immune to counter refutation -"anyone who wants to quit smoking can quit anytime" -"then he doesn't REALLY want to quit"

lexical/dictionary definitions

inform us what most people mean when they use the term -car=automobile

slippery slope vs. heap

no real/significant difference between two classifications vs. nothing has the property in question

Sorites

no things have the property in question 1) take vague predicate (bald) 2) an obviously true claim (Obama is not bald) 3)incremental difference to first (if Obama lost one hair he wouldn't be bald) 4)repeat step 3 until there's none 5)an obviously false claim (if Obama lost all but one of his hairs, he wouldn't be bald)

disambiguating definitions

offered to avoid ambiguity or equivocation, often specify which kind of lexical definition is being used -"When I say x, I mean y, not z"

false dichotomy

offering limited options when more are available

causal slippery slope

one thing will lead to a serious of others, and finally, something awful

genetic fallacy

origin makes claim false -"Jewish physics"

appeals to emotion

pity, fear

ostensive definitions

pointing to the thing being defined -that's a chair *points*

begging the question

rationale for premises just accepts conclusion -have to already believe the conclusion for the premises to be valid

semantic ambiguity

related to confusing meaning of the word -Obama smokes (meats? cigs?)

relevance

relationship between conclusion and premises

majority claims

show that conclusion does not hold for majority cases

some claims

show that none to refute

reductio ad absurdum

shows premise or conclusion is absurd or leads to an absurdity

stipulative definitions

stipulated for purpose of argument or a discussion -often introduced explicitly -"By such and such an expression, I mean..."

conceptual slippery slope

things at opposite ends of spectrum aren't different enough to make a distinction -sanity and insanity (some people are just a little weirder)

silencers

type of ad hominem -"you don't get to say this because" -revoke right to speak without necessarily denying truth of statement

tu quoque

type of ad hominem -charges of hypocrisy

deniers

type of ad hominem -deny truth of what is said or soundness of an argument -Mussolini was an awful person and said the sky is blue, so it can't be blue

dismissers

type of ad hominem -doesn't deny truth of statement or speaker's right to say it -shows why the fact this speaker supports a claim is not a good reason to believe the claim -speaker is untrustworthy and can't give us a good claim

middle ground

type of false dichotomy -assumes middle ground is truth

systematic/theoretical definitions

used to give order and structure to a subject matter -A is the brother of B -A and B have the same parents and A is male

precising definitions

used to resolve vagueness, draw sharp boundaries on terms -a big city is one with x miles

appeals to tradition

what everyone's always done

appeals to popular opinion

what general public believes

parallel reasoning

"That's just like arguing"

fairness slippery slope

-"where do you draw the line?" -differences along continuum are just a matter of degree

fallacies of vagueness

-heaps -slippery slope

definitions

-ostensive -lexical/dictionary -disambiguating -stipulative -precising -systematic/theoretical

fallacies of refutation

-straw man -false dichotomy -fallacy of composition

equivocation

-type of ambiguity -when an expression is used in different senses in an argument

4 classes of fallacies

-vagueness -ambiguity -relevance -vacuity

how to do equivocation

1) distinguish possible meanings of ambiguous phrase 2) restate argument in standard form with different meanings 3) evaluate resulting arguments separately -if fail, they commit the fallacy

how to get out of a Sorites

1) reject Modus Ponens 2) premises become false at some point, but where?

ad hominem

arguments against the person instead of claim or argument -not always fallacious, but usually are

composition

assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole

division

assumes what is true of the whole is true of the parts

universal claims

can be discounted with just one counterexample

straw man

fails to actually address claim

appeals to authority

false authority

syntactic ambiguity

when you know meaning of every word and sentence is still ambiguous -Fred like sushi more than Bob