Why logic?
Everything we do is based upon some form of Logic - even the foolish things.
What are some of the commonly used argument forms used today?
Some of the argument forms used in fallacies are:
> Extending the argument - here is the popular form where in court or on the street people push the case to points which are beyond the actual scope or point of discussion! This just confuses and moves the argument into areas where there is not any actual relevance to the subject at hand.
> Hasty generalization - this is very often used by people jumping to false conclusions which do not effect or have any relevance to the subject being discussed. This is a fool's argument form.
> Ad Hominem (Abusive) - Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making. Used often in court to discredit a wittiness or in political debates...
> Complex Question (Also called the "Loaded Question")
:
Phrasing a question or statement in such as way as to imply another
unproven statement is true without evidence or discussion. This
fallacy often overlaps with begging
the question (above), since it also presupposes a
definite answer to a previous, unstated question. For instance,
if I were to ask you “Have you stopped taking drugs yet?”
my hidden supposition is that you have been taking drugs.
Such a question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no answer.
It is not a simple question but consists of several questions
rolled into one. In this case the unstated question is, “Have
you taken drugs in the past?” followed by, “If you
have taken drugs in the past, have you stopped taking them now?”
In cross-examination, a lawyer might ask a flustered witness,
“Where did you hide the evidence?” or "when did
you stop beating your wife?" The intelligent procedure when
faced with such a question is to analyze its component parts.
If one answers or discusses the prior, implicit question first,
the explicit question may dissolve.
Example: Complex questions appear
in written argument frequently. A student might write, “Why
is private development of resources so much more efficient than
any public control?” The rhetorical question leads directly
into his next argument. However, an observant reader may disagree,
recognizing the prior, implicit question remains unaddressed.
That question is, of course, whether private development of resources
really is more efficient in all cases, a point which
the author is skipping entirely and merely assuming to be true
without discussion.
> FALLACIES
OF AMBIGUITY
: These errors occur
with ambiguous words or phrases, the meanings of which shift and
change in the course of discussion. Such more or less subtle changes
can render arguments fallacious.
Equivocation:
Using a word in a different way than the author used it in the
original premise, or changing definitions halfway through a discussion.
When we use the same word or phrase in different senses within
one line of argument, we commit the fallacy of equivocation. Consider
this example: “Plato says the end of a thing is its perfection;
I say that death is the end of life; hence, death is the perfection
of life.” Here the word end means "goal"
in Plato's usage, but it means "last event" or "termination"
in the author's second usage. Clearly, the speaker is twisting
Plato's meaning of the word to draw a very different conclusion.
Compare with amphiboly,
below.
Amphiboly
(from the Greek word "indeterminate"): This fallacy is similar
to equivocation. Here, the ambiguity results from grammatical
construction. A statement may be true according to one interpretation
of how each word functions in a sentence and false according to
another. When a premise works with an interpretation that is true,
but the conclusion uses the secondary "false" interpretation,
we have the fallacy of amphiboly on our hands. In the command,
"Save soap and waste paper," the amphibolous use of "waste" results
in the problem of determining whether "waste" functions as a verb
or as an adjective.
Composition:
This fallacy is a result of reasoning from the properties of the
parts of the whole to the properties of the whole itself--it is
an inductive error. Such an argument might hold that, because
every individual part of a large tractor is lightweight, the entire
machine also must be lightweight. This fallacy is similar to Hasty
Generalization (see above), but it focuses on parts
of a single whole rather than using too few examples to create
a categorical generalization. Also compare it with Division
(see below).
Division:
This fallacy is the reverse of composition.
It is the misapplication of deductive reasoning. One fallacy of
division argues falsely that what is true of the whole must be
true of individual parts. Such an argument notes that, "Microtech
is a company with great influence in the California legislature.
Egbert Smith works at Microtech. He must have great influence
in the California legislature." This is not necessarily true.
Egbert might work as a graveyard shift security guard or as the
copy-machine repairman at Microtech--positions requiring little
interaction with the California legislature. Another fallacy of
division attributes the properties of the whole to the individual
member of the whole: "Sunsurf is a company that sells
environmentally safe products. Susan Jones is a worker at Sunsurf.
She must be an environmentally minded individual." (Perhaps
she is motivated by money alone?)
Fallacy of Rectification (Also called “Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness”
by Alfred North Whitehead): The fallacy of treating a word or an idea
as equivalent to the actual thing represented by that word or idea, or
the fallacy of treating an abstraction or process as equivalent to a
concrete object or thing. In the first case, we might imagine a
reformer trying to eliminate illicit lust by banning all mention of
extra-marital affairs or certain sexual acts in publications. The
problem is that eliminating the words for these deeds is not the same as
eliminating the deeds themselves. In the second case, we might imagine a
person or declaring “a war on poverty.” In this case, the fallacy comes
from the fact that “war” implies a concrete struggle with another
concrete entity which can surrender or be exterminated. “Poverty,”
however is an abstraction that cannot surrender or sign peace treaties,
cannot be shot or bombed, etc. Rectification of the concept merely
muddles the issue of what policies to follow and leads to sloppy
thinking about the best way to handle a problem. It is closely related
to and overlaps with faulty analogy and equivocation.
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