Wednesday February 25, 2008
January 10, 2009
Today’s Agenda:
So, we were supposed to meet on Monday to go over your arguments, but, due to the storm, we could not.
I think the best thing for us to do at this point would be to spend today reviewing and re-examining the basic information we have on Claims , Evidence and Warrants, and then to meet on Friday to have our conferences. Your conference with me will count as your mid-term. I think this might work better for some of you with complicated travel schedules on that day.
Journal entry:
I had you blog on how you thought you were going to re-write your argument to make it a Toulmin argument. You did this writing before you actually made the changes. Now that you have made the changes, I want you to write about what, exactly, and how, exactly, you went about doing this.
Group Discussion
Class Discussion
We will be breaking into groups of 3, and in those groups we are going to be looking at a speech at President Obama gave last night to Congress. He lays out an argument for his stimulus plan in this speech. What I want you to see today is that he is using a Toulmin argument, and that it can be broken down into Claims, Evidence and Warrants. The document is too long for us to read all the way through, so what we are going to do is, in our groups, break the document up.
One of you will be looking for claims, one of you will be looking for evidence, one of you will be looking for warrants , and when you have this information, I want you to come back together and talk about it.
For Friday, read chapter 17: Fallacies in arguments: write a 1.5 page blog post on an argument you are aware of that uses flawed reasoning.
[...] Wednesday, Feb 25 [...]
Kevin H
2/26/09
R&C II
Flawed Reasoning
In arguments people try to convince others by giving claims and evidence to back up these claims that they are making. An argument is essentially giving your view on a controversial topic; if it was not controversial it would not be worth writing about. In the many arguments the author makes what is called flawed reasoning, or essentially making a mistake within their argument. Many of these fallacies of arguments are based off of the key principles that arguments can consist of. The major things that are within an argument are pathos, ethos, and logos based arguments; it is from these that flaw reasoning takes place. These “flashpoints” or “hotspots” raise questions about the strategies that the author goes about in their argument. Flawed reasoning can be found in many types of arguments again ranging widely from fairly controversial, to the most extreme controversies.
One of the most momentous decisions I had to make in life was to come to college, or to go into the working world with not a college education. A point that I had to appeal too many is that if you do not go to college you will end up not being able to make it in this world. I kept referring back to this main point making the people I talked to feel horrible for the decision that they had made not to go to college. I was using flawed reasoning here in my approach, saying that if you do not get an education you will not be anything in life. I was using a scare tactic to scare people into going to college, but was it really me who was giving the youth of America the feeling of being a nobody if you do not go to college? I believe that the United States government is doing this to us in some way making what I am talking about even more controversial. It is referring to a choice that many must take in life. One direction leads you to become a model citizen in the United States; the other shows you as the working class just barely making ends meat. Here the flawed reasoning of an either-or choice only shows the two sides of an argument. There could be many more outcomes than going to college, and not going. These two choices seduce those in the population that are more oblivious to going to college and having a better life. The argument is not making people more knowledgeable it’s giving them choices and making them decipher between the two. In life you have more than two choices and the ones that are telling you otherwise are flawed in their reasoning. If you do not go to college you could in fact have just a good a life as someone who went to college for so many years. The outcomes of specific events and the way that people are using scare tactic to convince people that doing one thing is better than another. This kind of reasoning is flawed mainly on the pathos based arguments, but in the cases of ethos, and logos there are flawed reasoning within them as well. They appeal to falsehoods, equivalence, and causality making those who write them more and more flawed themselves.
Jack Hersom
Comp II
Prof. Crowley
2/26/09
Ch: 17 Response
Just as arguments appear in our everyday life, false arguments occur as much, if not more than arguments holding some validity. Some of these false arguments try and use “Scare Tactics,” in hopes to persuade the intended audience one way or another. This is just one simple example of how false arguments attempt to hold validity. Other persuasive tactics include “Sentimental Appeals,” “Bandwagon Appeals,” and “Appeals to False Authority.” False arguments try to appeal to pathos, ethos, or logos in their arguments just as other arguments that actually hold truth do.
A specific argument that I am aware of that uses flawed reasoning is a type of “Faulty Causal,” argument. This type of argument is defined as, “the fallacious assumption that because of one event or action follows another, the first necessarily causes the second.” This means that a claim would be made and the evidence for this claim would be backed up by the first initial claim. An example in the book talks about a lawsuit between a writer and Coors. The claim of the writer was that, “drinking copious amounts of the company’s beer had kept him from writing a novel.” This argument falls under the category of a “Faulty Causal,” because the author was the one who kept himself from doing the writing. Therefore, the argument contains flawed reasoning.
An argument that contained flawed reasoning that happened in my life fell under the category of “Faulty Causality.” One of my friends on the hockey team last year refused to wash his hockey jerseys because we were on a winning streak, which created flawed reasoning in his argument. His claim was that the reason why we were on a winning streak was because he hadn’t washed his jerseys. This falls under the category of a, “Faulty Causality,” because the he was assuming that by not washing his jersey the result was wins. This argument clearly holds some flawed reasoning because it makes no sense for a jersey to be the only reason for a win or a loss in a sporting event.
Flawed reasoning occurs in arguments often, and can be passed for valid arguments easily if the claims, reasons, and warrants behind the argument is not closely monitored and analyzed. Invalid arguments may also fly under the radar if they appeal to the intended audience through the use of pathos, ethos, or logos. Careful scrutiny of arguments must happen in order to determine whether or not the argument is valid or contains flawed reasoning.
After reading the chapter seventeen on fallacies of arguments, or flawed reasoning’s. I can think of more than one way a presidential election uses flawed reasoning to persuade there audience. Flawed reasoning’s are false facts with in pathos, ethos, and logos based arguments. I don’t know if you have ever seen that late night commercial that shows a kid sleeping and then a phone rings. A president, facing a way from the camera, picks it up and on the other end someone says that there’s an attack taking place on America. The point of the commercial is to say, who do you want answering that phone if some attack was to take place. A scare tactic sponsored by a political party to make you go vote for their nominee.
Another argument that can be based on fallacies is either-or-choices. Either-or-choices are a good tactic for a presidential election to get you to change your mind on a bill or your presidential vote. A candidate can use them to there advantage to help get things done. As is the case in the recent election we had. We were given the choice either elect some kind of change, or stay with what wasn’t working. Most times an either-or-choice is a way to try and convince an ignorant audience to vote a certain way.
Some other popular ads that you see during presidential elections are ones that seem to be attacking one of the opponents to a candidate. We saw it in the election in 2004, when both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were making personal attacks at each others service records. The one I remember is John Kerry saved three of his platoon members, and George Bush ran to Canada to keep from going to Vietnam. This type of argument is called an Ad hominem which is Latin for “to the man” and is one where you try and destroy the authority of an opponent. One more way that these types of arguments show up in presidential elections is through the polling results. They only poll a few thousand people and use statistics to calculate what it would look like if the whole population had voted. This is called hasty generalization, and is another form of stereotyping.
The flawed reasoning’s used in presidential elections seem to be endless. They are a good way to rhetorically make people see your view on controversial subjects. Although it doesn’t seem like it’s the right thing to do; it gets people out and voting, and in the long run its more important to get people to get out perform one of our greatest right as an American citizen.
Sherry C.
Fallacies of Argument
2/27/09
It was very interesting to learn about these many types of arguments, many of which, I never knew even existed even though they are used on a daily basis all around us. Most of these arguments I have used without even knowing it and it was interesting to realize just what I had been doing. One of my favorite arguments that I use with my niece is the Appeals to False Authority argument. This argument is when you claim that a fact is true simply because you said that it is so. For example, when I ask her to do anything, such as pick up her toys, eat her broccoli, or brush her teeth before bed, her usual response it to ask why? Instead of trying to explain to her that broccoli is good for her or that she has to brush her teeth in order to keep them healthy and clean, I simply tell her that it is because I said so and she usually accepts this as the truth. So far this argument has worked on her but I don’t think that it will work for very much longer.
Another argument that I see on a daily basis are the commercials that use the Sentimental Appeals argument. This argument has Sarah McLachlan petting a dog and speaking about all of the abused animals that need our help and to donate money, while in the back ground you hear a slow and sentimental song playing and pictures of adorable dogs and cats float across the screen. All of this is an argument that is geared to making you feel bad for the animal. It makes you want to run out to the humane society and adopt an animal or send money to help them out. All of these arguments are ones that we see everyday and recognizing them is away to prevent yourself from being unconsciously manipulated.
Chapter seventeen discusses flaws in different types of arguments. These flaws are referred to as fallacies. Fallacies can be described as “flashpoints” or “hotspots” in an argument because they make the audience question the ethics of the argument. This flawed reasoning raises debate about whether the argument is “fair, accurate, or principled.” Essentially, the controversy or flaws in an argument relates to ethos, pathos, and logos. Every type of argument has some type of fallacies whether it is from appealing to false authority, bandwagon appeals or scare tactics.
In an emotional argument, scare tactics “can be both powerful and suitable.” It is common for writers or other people to apply scare tactics in an argument to “exaggerate possible dangers.” They are generally used to try to make their argument more convincing because it is easier to imagine something fearful or terrible happening rather than something “statistical.” For example, my parents used scare tactics in an argument we had about where I was going to attend college. At the time I was living in Georgia and had every intention of going to the University of Georgia after I graduated high school. However, my mom and dad were moving to Maine and wanted me to go with them to attend school. Obviously, I disagreed with that idea. The scare tactic my mom used in the argument was that if I stayed in Georgia then I would have to find my own way to pay for college, food, my car, etc. In the end, I ended up moving to Maine even though I was 100% against the idea.
The flaw in the argument I had with my parents was a scare tactic. Although I was against their side of the debate about where I should attend college, I was scared if did not do what they said. I definitely would rather attend college where I do not want to than have to try to pay for college and everything else on my own at such a young age. I think scare tactics are good idea in order to convince someone in an argument even though sometimes they can be unethical.
CBW
Fallacies of Arguments
Certain arguments that are controversial are sometimes classified as fallacies. There are many types of fallacy arguments that are made in daily life, including one common one called a sentimental appeal. A sentimental appeal includes using excessive emotion in an argument to distract people from seeing the facts to make their point. Whenever an author can make the reader feel heart-wrenched or make them hear-warming, or even make them feel guilty while examining your argument. Emotions can override anything while making an argument.
This type of fallacy is used in making television commercials. You see these types of commercials that use sentimental appeal to encourage you to adopt an abandoned animal, sponsor a child who is halfway across the world because they are in dire need for food or shelter, and so forth. They all try to make you feel bad by displaying powerful images of dogs, poor children, or whatever it is they’re advertising to try to get through to you so you don’t even think about whether or not you can afford to sponsor what they’re advertising.
Another type of fallacy argument discussed in chapter seven was a bandwagon appeal, which is an argument that encourages people to do the same thing they’re doing or follow the same belief that everyone else is taking. One example of this is the general peer-pressure that kids go through growing up to try to “fit in the crowd.” The types of peer-pressures they go though from anything from partying, drinking, to doing drugs or hardcore paraphernalia. The concept itself is comparable to the saying “would you jump off a bridge if you were told to?”
One more type of fallacy argument described in the chapter is called a slippery slope. A slippery slope is an argument that forecasts a tiny mishap into becoming a big disaster if you don’t take part in preventing a certain action, and is sometimes exaggerated to get a point across. For example, after the incidents of 9/11, some people I personally know think that if a group of certain Muslims are evil enough to attack the twin towers and kill thousands of people, than we must protect our country by attacking all the Muslims over in the Middle East and prevent the world from being destroyed.