How would you construct an essay based on the chosen one of the most common logical fallacies and analyze the faulty reasoning? Be sure to choose from the To Start You Off:  Some Common Fallacies below and base your response on being the British Governor General assigned to India during the Indian Independence era

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How would you construct an essay based on the chosen one of the most common logical fallacies and analyze the faulty reasoning? Be sure to choose from the To Start You Off:  Some Common Fallacies below and base your response on being the British Governor General assigned to India during the Indian Independence era. 

 

you will address the following:

• What is the logical fallacy that you have chosen? Describe it and briefly explain its significance.
• In what ways did it appear in speeches and arguments? Describe specific points that were raised, including evidence used (or lack thereof).
• Did students in the course recognize it when it appeared and challenge it, or did they seem persuaded by it? Again, make specific references to the course.
• How did your character group and/or faction respond to this bad argument, if at all? Did you become more adept at discovering this error as it occurred more frequently?
• What general lessons did you learn from paying attention to logical reasoning and argumentation?

 

 

We are surrounded by rhetoric and discourse, much of it emotional and ill-informed, or based on poor logic. Poor argumentation finds adherents or succeeds because it is appealing on its face, interesting, and/or viscerally powerful, though if you think carefully or look deeper, it begins to fall apart.  Good logical reasoning is an important life skill because it will help you become a clearer thinker, less likely to be drawn in by facile arguments (appealing on the surface, but without great depth, consistency, or coherence). Your first step in combatting the tendency to rely on emotion and bad arguments is learning to recognize logical fallacies when they are presented to you, and that is where the Bad Argument (or "fact-checking") assignment comes in.

 

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments offers you common errors in reasoning.  Familiarize yourself with it so that you can learn some of the most common pitfalls in arguments and identify them when they occur.  You will keep track of the arguments made in the speeches and note the most common logical fallacies. (Include a list of the logical fallacies that you discover in the speeches, by speech, date, and type of fallacy.)  You will choose one of the most common logical fallacies and analyze the faulty reasoning. 

 

Here's a reference link to the book needed for help (An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments) : https://fliphtml5.com/wavk/ybdt/basic/

 

(Mind you your character is the British Governor assigned to India by Winston Churchill)

 

 

To Start You Off:  Some Common Fallacies

1. ad hominem: "to the man" (Latin). Attacking a person instead of his argument.

Example: "Ghandi is a ridiculous figure who walks around barefoot.  How can we take him seriously?" Calling someone a name does not prove that his argument is wrong.) [Almossawai p. 40]

 

1. argument from irrelevant authority: relying on the opinions of an "expert" rather than logic or evidence. [Almossawai p. 12]

Example: "Rousseau has shown that the General Will must never be divided." (Why should we rely on the judgment of Rousseau? Of course one should value the ideas of experts. If a snake bites you and a doctor tells you to drink an antidote, you probably should do so. If you ask why and he says, "Because the great physician Hippocrates recommends it," he is again making an "argument from authority." More logically, he could say, "Every time I give someone who's been bitten by a snake this antidote, he recovers; when I don't, they die.")

 

1. circular reasoning: stating in one's proposition that which one aims to prove. [Almossawai p. 42]
   Example: "The Catholic Church always wants land and power: they're a bunch of greedy hypocrites!" (If someone is greedy, he will behave greedily by definition, but you need examples if you want to demonstrate that to someone who doesn't share your belief.) 
   
    
2. confirmation bias: focusing on evidence that supports your argument while ignoring evidence that refutes it. 
   Example: "How can you tell when the British are lying? By watching to see if their lips are moving." (The speaker remembers all of the times that the British lied but forget the times they told the truth. Confirmation bias often surfaces when people base their beliefs on faith, tradition, and prejudice.) [Almossawai's version is called "No True Scotsman p. 26]
   
    
3. slippery slope: claiming that some change in procedure, law, or action will result in calamity. [Almossawai p. 36]
   Example: "If we allow people to question scientific authority, then they will question religious authority, and then they will question all authority and revolt altogether!" 
   
    
4. hasty generalization: basing controversial conclusions on limited evidence. Controversial statements require corroboration: more than one or two pieces of evidence. [Almossawai p. 22]
   Example: "Pétion was drunk last night. I saw him weaving back and forth as he came down the road early this morning." (Perhaps Pétion had been hit on the head by robbers or was suffering from the flu. Before any reasonable inference can be made, more evidence is required.)
   
    
5. glittering generality: relying on the force of one's words and the emotions they elicit instead of offering logically sound arguments. Pretty language replaces sound reasoning and evidence. [These are often red herrings of emotional appeal: see for example Appeal to the Bandwagon Almossawai p. 38 and Appeal to Fear Almossawai p. 20]
   Example: "India is our nation, our destiny, our most cherished possession; if it dies, so do we all!" (These noble words assume that everyone cares more about India - whatever that means -- than anything else, including their lives. This is doubtful. A "glittering generality" substitutes fancy and flattering words for strong, solid argumentation.)
   
    
6. post hoc ergo propter hoc: "after this, therefore because of this" (Latin), also known as the rooster syndrome. Assuming that X causes Y because X precedes Y. [Almossawai discusses two causal fallacies, including this one, on page 18]

Example: "The crowing of the rooster causes the sun to rise" or "After the seizure of the Bastille, the price of bread rose exorbitantly." (In this fallacy an arguer claims, without proof, that an effect [the rise of the sun or the price of bread] was the result of a cause [the crowing of the rooster, the emergence of the National Assembly].) 

 

reductio ad absurdum: "reduction to the absurd" (Latin). Assuming a claim for the sake of argument, extending it to an obviously absurd conclusion, and citing this absurdity to rebut the original claim. Typically used by an advocate to attempt to expose another advocate's fallacy, relying on the fact that increasing distance from an original cause-effect assertion decreases confidence in the claim. 
Example: "If we allow women to vote, they will eventually be elected to the National Assembly. They are more likely to vote to pay for social programs like education and social welfare.  Soon France will be bankrupt."  [This is different from a slippery slope argument because it takes a logical possibility that is present in the original claim and takes it to an absurd conclusion to rebut the original claim, rather than extrapolating out to imaginary consequences.]