Fallacies

Question 1

Fallacy

Answer 1

• is a “pattern of argumentation that violates one of the [RSA] criteria that a good argument must satisfy
• that occurs with some marked degree of frequency”

Question 2

Irrelevant Reason

Answer 2

• the premise used in support of the claim is not relevant.
• violates the relvant branch of the RSA triangle

Question 3

Hasty Conclusions

Answer 3

• violates the sufficiency branch of the RSA triangle.
• it fails in one of the following ways:
  
  • It ignores the presence or possibility of contrary evidence,
  • The evidence provided was not gathered systematically & methodically,
  • The evidence provided is not great enough to justify the claim

Question 4

Problematic premise

Answer 4

• Violates the acceptability branch of the RSA triangle.
• It is possible, if not likely, that it will be rejected by those opposing the conclusion it is supporting.
• Such a premise cannot be offered on its own, but must itself be supported in order to be used in support of a claim.

Question 5

Begging the Question

Answer 5

• is a form of acceptability fallacy
• in some way includes the initial claim as part of the premises justifying the claim.
• This often happens as a result of using synonymous terms in a premise and claim, “I really like chocolate because chocolate tasted so good.”
• When we talk about liking a food, we are talking about the way it tastes. Or (b) that uses a premise that could only be accepted if the claim has also been accepted

Question 6

Inconsistency

Answer 6

• is a form of acceptability fallacy
• multiple premises being in conflict with each other in some way.
• by having two or more premises that cannot both be true at the same time. In order for premises to be consistent, they must both be able to be true at the same time.
• The second, and more common example, is when there is a conflict between stated premise and the actions of the arguer. This is more commonly known as hypocrisy.

Question 7

Straw Man

Answer 7

• It is very common to stray from the issue at hand either accidentally through misunderstanding or by design for the purpose of presenting a caricature of the apposing argument that is more easily attacked or ridiculed.

Question 8

Ad Hominen

Answer 8

• Attack “against the person”
• committing this fallacy are not making an argument against the issue, they are making an argument against the person.

Question 9

Guilt By Association

Answer 9

• It is the accusation that, just because you know or are even friends with a person, you must share their views, and are in some way guilty of the same flaws, failings, and crimes.

Question 10

The Nazi Fallacy

Answer 10

• Often a form of second-order fallacy with guilt by association by first setting it up through a straw man comparison of some sort. Nearly any argument that uses a Nazi comparison but does not directly concern the Nazis &/or World War II may suffer from this due to the emotional weight of the word “Nazi”.

Question 11

Faulty Analogy

Answer 11

• When an analogy is used, but the comparison does not apply either because the relevant property set does not apply, or it is questionable that there are in fact relevant properties between the compared items

Question 12

Two Wrongs

Answer 12

• a comparison is made to a another incident in an attempt to justify an action or to mitigate the consequences.
• It is a particular variety of faulty analogy that fails because the other incident in comparison is either not relevant or not sufficient to justify excusing the “wrong”.

Question 13

Improper Appeal to Practice

Answer 13

• Similar to two wrongs, except the activity in question is not a specific instance, but a general practice.
• The common practice is conceded to be wrong
  *

Question 14

Questionable Causes

Answer 14

• committed when someone arguing to a cause fails to provide the necessary support to demonstrate the causal link
• when someone arguing from a cause uses a causal/effect relationship as a premise when there is not enough support to do so
• the causal link is questionable or not acceptable.

Question 15

Post hoc Ergo Procter Hoc

Answer 15

• The causal link is based solely on proximity in space or time without any evidence of a connection.
• The causal link is based on only a loose evidence of connection, while there are other plausible explanations that have not been ruled out.
• There may be a correlation of some sort in the proposed causal link, but it has not been established systematically to a level of statistical significance
• The proposed causal link is only a correlation, and other possible correlations have not been checked to determine which is the cause, if any.

Question 16

ambiguity

Answer 16

• A term that may have multiple meanings has been used, but the context & usage does not provide enough information to determine which meaning is intended.

Question 17

equivocation

Answer 17

• is similar to ambiguity because it requires the use of a term with multiple meanings.
• equivocation uses multiple meanings, so the application of the term is inconsistent.

Question 18

vagueness

Answer 18

• is more general, where there meaning of an entire premise or claim is indeterminate, and could have many interpretations.

Question 19

freeloading term

Answer 19

• A fallacy that uses an emotionally charged term in a way that attempts to use the built-in evaluation to support the claim without providing support for that built-in evaluation.
• Often times this also results in the fallacy begging the question as well.

Question 20

Improper Appeal to Authority

Answer 20

• one of the following criteria for a proper appeal has not been met: Competence Opportunity/Familiarity Consensus Credibility

Question 21

Appeal to Popularity

Answer 21

• the supporting evidence is that many other people believe it to be true.

Question 22

Slippery Slope

Answer 22

• A claim that an action or decision will set in motion a series of events that will lead to an undesirable outcome.
• The outcome is linked with the initial decision through a series of causal links that are unsupported or questionable.
• This is an extreme example of the questionable cause fallacy.

Question 23

Argumenttum ad Avaculum (Argument by Force)

Answer 23

• It is literally intimidation, threatening either actual force or consequences (getting fired from a job).
• Most often this is not seen in the form of a real argument, since you cannot actually convince people to believe something by force, only intimidate them into not voicing objections.

Question 24

Appeals to Emotion

Answer 24

• Appeals to fear are very common
• appeal to sympathy
• Straw men fallacies often take the form of an appeal to ridicule.
• Buttering someone up through flattery is another example.

Question 25

Standard of relevance

Answer 25

• is a principle that says that any reason or premise used in support of a claim must be relevant to that claim.

Question 26

standard of sufficiency

Answer 26

• the principle that says that a premise should demonstrate sufficient reason in itself to justify the claim it is supporting.

Question 27

standard of acceptability

Answer 27

• is the principle that says that the premise must be acceptable to participants in the argument
• If the other parties in the argument are likely to disagree with the premise, the premise is not acceptable, at least not on its own, and needs to be supported in some way in order to be usefully included in the argument.

Question 28

Logically Good Argument:

Answer 28

• is one with strong premises that a reasonable person is likely to accept and concur with a conclusion based on those premises.

Question 29

Negation:

Answer 29

“Not”, ~, ¬

Question 30

Conjunction:

Answer 30

“AND”, &, /\

Question 31

Disjunction:

Answer 31

“Or”, V

Question 32

Exclusive Disjunction:

Answer 32

“xor”

Question 33

Conditional:

Answer 33

“if”, ->

Question 34

Biconditional:

Answer 34

“if and only if”,

Question 35

Formal Logic

Answer 35

• May also be called symbolic logic or Propositional Logic.
• These are logical systems that abstract statements away from content in order to examine logical relationships in a pure form.

Question 36

Imformal Logic

Answer 36

• is a broad term that can cover quite a bit, but generally refers to the study of reasoning, argumentation, logical fallacies, critical thinking, and so on as they appear in natural language.
• Our book “Logical Self-Defense” is a book of Informal Logic

Question 37

1 Rule of Assessing Arguments:

Answer 37

Withhold judgment until the entire argument is within view. It is all too easy to overlook something important due to premature judgment. Such premature isn’t just your initial response to the claims and premises as you encounter them. It may also come in the form of preexisting bias, either for or against the conclusion or aspects of the evidence.

Question 38

Subordinate Premise:

Answer 38

• Those that serve to support a premise which in turn supports the primary claim.

Question 39

Independent Premise

Answer 39

• Those that work separatley from each other, both supporting the claim in different ways

Question 40

Joint premise

Answer 40

those that work together to support a claim

Question 41

internal conclusion

Answer 41

• these serve as the conclusion for an internal argument complete with its own internal premises,
• the sum total of which form another premise supporting the primary conclusion

Question 42

primary conclusion

Answer 42

the conclusion or claim of an argument

Question 43

unstated premise

Answer 43

• a statement that is not expressed in the written or spoken argument but it must be added to the explicist premise to make those relevant as support for the conclusion,
• it is a proposition likely to be accepted by the original author and it would likey be used by the arguer in addressing the audience

Question 44

unstated conslusion

Answer 44

a conclusion that is not directly speified of explicitly states, but it is strongly implied or inffered

Question 45

five catergories a text can be placed into

Answer 45

• 1: The prose yields a logically good argument, and nothing in the context point against that interpretation
• 2: The passage yields an argument that in the context, there is some reason to think that the author intended [to make an argument] but it is not a logically good argument. In that case, you have to decide between two options: (a) the author did not intend to argue … or (b) the author intended to argue [but did so badly]
• 3: The passage yields an argument, but only a logically bad one, and there is an alternative interpretation based on context. Verdict: Call is, not an argument, but instead whatever it seems to be (a joke, a piece of sarcasm or irony, simply an opinion) [or a proto-argument]
• 4: The piece of prose might be construed to yield a partial argument or moves in the direction of argument, and the context is favorable to reading it as argumentative, yet what is stated is so tentative or so unformed that to reconstruct an argument out of it would require, in effect, creating an argument oneself based on the hints the author gives.
• 5: What has been said is non-argumentative. Verdict: No Argument. The author is doing something besides making an argument

Question 46

Principle of Charity:

Answer 46

• “requires interpreting a speaker’s statements to be rational and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation.[1]
• In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies or falsehoods to the others’ statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available.”

Question 47

Burden of Proof:

Answer 47

• “When someone asserts an opinion to which there are well-known objections, the asserter has an obligation, if it is requested, to provide a reason for accepting the opinion.” (p. 14)

Question 48

Contextual Indicators of a Conclusion:

Answer 48

Therefore So Hence Thus Accordingly And [so] It follows that I conclude that My conclusion is

Question 49

Contextual Indicators of a Premise:

Answer 49

Because Since For Given that Granted that For the reason that

Question 50

Proto Arguments:

Answer 50

• Proto arguments rise above the status of just an opinion by being more than just a claim.
• They lack either reasons to support them or lack a clear link from the support to the opinion.

Question 51

Argument building blocks:

Answer 51

• Claim: The opinion or assertion being made
• Premises: The reasons and evidence expressed in support of the claim
• Conclusion: The expression of the claim in the argument.

Question 52

argument

Answer 52

• what someone makes or formulates (reason or evidence) as grounds or support for an opinion…
• a claim, together with one or more sets of reasons offered by someone to support that claim…
• opinion + reasons/ justifications etc

Question 53

Opinion

Answer 53

• any belief or attitude held or expressed by anyone the value of an unsupported opinion is a function of the context in which it is expressed: what is the opinion about? Whose opinion is it?

Question 54

Resonance:

Answer 54

• when the recipients of the message “do not perceive the themes [of the] messages to be imposed on them from an outside authority to which they are required or committed to defer.”
• When a message coincides with existing beliefs, values, and attitudes it is said to resonate with the audience.

Question 55

Group Norms:

Answer 55

“beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors derived from membership in groups.

Question 56

Attitudes:

Answer 56

“readiness to respond to an idea, an object, or a course of action. It is an internal state or feeling toward, or an evaluative response to, an idea, person, or object” (p. 35)

Question 57

Values:

Answer 57

• “A value is a special kind of belief that is not likely to change.”
• A belief that is somehow more central to a person’s sense of self and identity.

Question 58

Beliefs:

Answer 58

• “a perceived link between any two aspects of a person’s world…
• a belief express a relationship between two [or more] things (“I believe that a laptop computer will help me get better grades”) or
• a thing and a characteristic of that thing.” (p. 33)

Question 59

Response changing:

Answer 59

• The most difficult end to achieve, this when the propaganda’s goal is to unseat a currently held belief.
• Often done with the aid of an anchor that draws a comparison (analogies & metaphors are very useful here) to an existing belief.
• In selling a product it could be as simple as drawing a comparison: “You have health insurance don’t you? Well this is health insurance for your car!”

Question 60

Response reinforcing:

Answer 60

Just as it sounds, this reinforces the current sentiment. Today when the public is admonished to “support the troops”, this is response reinforcing.

Question 61

Response shaping:

Answer 61

• Guiding sentiment to the desired end point. Such as a news broadcast that reports on a new story in a positive of negative light.

Question 62

Persuasion can become propaganda when:

Answer 62

• The persuader begins to mislead their audience
• The goals of the persuader diverge from those of the audience Elements of coercion enter into the situation
• This is why propagandists often try to hide their intent and their identity: “no audience members… will put up with hearing that they are being manipulated and used to fulfill another’s selfish needs.
• Thus the propagandist cannot reveal the true intent of the message”

Question 63

Persuasion:

Answer 63

• “a complex, continuing, interactive process in which a sender and receiver are linked by symbols, verbal and nonverbal, through which the persuader attempts to influence the persuadee to adopt a change in a given attitude or behavior” (p.31)
• It is also a form of communication. It is transactional or interactive dependency between participants, which is a primary way it differs from propaganda:
• Any such dependency is one-way only in propaganda. It seeks voluntary change, while propaganda often seeks to coerce change through threats, fear, guilt, or other forms of emotional blackmail.

Question 64

Communication

Answer 64

is a process in which a sender transmits a message to a receiver through a channel. (p. 28)

Question 65

Subpropaganda:

Answer 65

• Efforts in support of propaganda, that may make the recipient more receptive to the message
• such as pharmaceutical sales reps and the perks they give doctors, Access & privileges (and threat of their removal) given to political reporters

Question 66

Successful propaganda

Answer 66

• often requires that recipients are restricted from or are ignorant of sources of information that conflict with the message:
• Obscured Source Legitimating Source (like money laundering)

Question 67

Gray Propaganda:

Answer 67

• Propaganda that is somewhere in between,
• where the source may or may not be hidden,
• the information may be accurate in part or full
• but not free of bias or logical fallacies.

Question 68

Black Propaganda:

Answer 68

• Propaganda that comes from a concealed source with messages that are deceitful in nature.

Question 69

White Propaganda:

Answer 69

• Propaganda that comes from a source that is not hidden and it providing accurate information.

Question 70

Integrative Propaganda:

Answer 70

• Propaganda that attempts to pacify, sooth, or placate the recipients.

Question 71

Agitative Propaganda:

Answer 71

Propaganda that attempts to arouse, incite, or inflame the recipients.

Question 72

Propaganda’s Purpose:

Answer 72

Shape Perceptions Manipulate Cognitions Direct Behavior

Question 73

Propaganda:

Answer 73

• Biased Communication Attempts to persuade or induce emotions through means other than reason, logic, etc.
• Often though not always of a political nature (Why would this be?)
• Truth-Agnostic: It doesn’t have to be a untrue, the truth is simply irrelevant In news organizations or politicians, “Spin” Always some sort of organization/group/interest/ involved.
• If it’s just at the individual level, it’s probably bullshit, not propaganda.
• “Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” (p. 7) …
• Propaganda has a selfish intent in that “Propaganda seeks to achieve a response, a specific reaction or action from an audience” that favors the propagandist but perhaps not the audience.
• “Most often associated with the management of public opinion where public opinion has been defined as “an implicit verbal response or answer that an individual gives in response to a particular situation in which some general question is raised” (p. 46)