Categorize the Flawed Argument Flashcards
Understand how to describe an argument's flaw
Recognizing and Reacting to Sampling Flaws
- Notice that the basis for the conclusion is one example,
testimonial, survey, or sample. - Assess the sample size and representativeness of the
sample. - Verify that the author’s conclusion extrapolates away
from the evidence.
Common Wording for Sampling Flaw Answers:
- Generalizes too hastily from a potentially atypical
sample - Bases a general conclusion on too few examples
- Takes for granted that the observed participants are representatives of an entire population or category of people in general.
Overgeneralization (Sampling Fallacy)
- Occurs anytime a sample or example is too narrow to support a broad conclusion.
- Whether a group self-selects into a sample also impacts the sample’s representativeness. (motive can be biased)
Comparison Flaws (bad analogy)
Committed when a comparison between two things (or phenomena) is used to draw an invalid conclusion.
Two general forms:
- X is similar to Y in one respect, so they must be similar in another respect.
- X is dissimilar to Y in one respect, so we can conclude that they are dissimilar in some other respect.
Comparison flaws can be characterized by the use of a bad analogy and an incomplete comparison. Comparison flaws can be thought of as causation flaws, if we think of the flaw as failing to consider other ways that different results could have happened (aka failing to causation).
Recognizing and reacting to Comparison Flaws:
- Notice that two things are held up together as similar, dissimilar, or analogous.
- Consider what might be missing or faulty in the comparison.
Ad Hominem
An argument commits an ad Hominem Flaw when it presents someone else’s claim and then rejects the validity of the claim through some personal attack. Most commonly, will accuse the arguer either off hypocrisy or or of having a vested interest in then outcome of the argument.
Conditional Logic Flaws
Occur when there is conditional logic present in the argument (argument should contain statements of conditional logic in premises and/or conclusion) and the argument contains a logical “misstep” or “bad move”
Conditional Logic Flaws
we’re given a conditional statement (or two); then told that one of the things from the conditional statement takes place. In logic speak, this is called fulfilling the condition. From that, the argument concludes that another thing from the conditional statement actually takes place (another condition is fulfilled). depending on which condition is fulfilled and which is concluded, these arguments can be valid (aka doesn’t commit a flaw) or INVALID (AKA COMMITS A FLAW).
Illegal reversal and illegal negations are conditional logic flaws.
Conditional Logic Flaws
If the argument core contains a conditional logic flaw, then the correct answer would describe that gap in reasoning using either the language of assumption or the language of objection:
- The argument presumes that any improvement leads to a successful outcome. (assumption language)
- The argument fails to consider that one might improve somewhat without the outcome being successful overall.
Conditional Logic Flaws:
Often Hinge on one of two illegal moves…
- an illegal reversal
- an illegal negation
the simplest conditional flaw questions will make one of these two moves. They offer a conditional statement as its premise and then conclude the statements reversal.
Helpful to diagram the arguments contained within.
Causation Flaws
Most Common Reasoning Errors you’ll see on Flaw Questions. Involve cause and effect, aka causation. Any claim of one element having a direct impact on another can be considered a claim of causation.
Causation Flaws:
To support its causal conclusion, a flawed causation argument usually provides a correlation as evidence. Two typical forms of correlation are
statistical and temporal.
Causation Flaw: Issues of causation will not always be stated explicitly in the conclusion. Often, they will be implied by
the way the premise CONNECTS to the conclusion. (implicit)
Causation Flaw:
Implicit causation claim
Occurs when the causation claim is never explicitly stated. Rather it is implied. The author is making an unstated assumption is using the evidence to VALIDATE the conclusion. The author is assuming that because two things are associated, one must have caused the other. Remember: Correlation never proves causation.
Causation Flaw:
When debating causation flaws, ask two questions:
- does the reverse make sense too? Could B have caused A?
2. Could some third thing cause both A and B?
Causation Flaw:
Vital to Correctly Identifying a Causation Flaw
- Recognize the explicit claim or implicit assumption the author makes about causation.
- Stay open to answer choices that suggest possible alternative modes of causation.
Common Wording for Causation Answers: (to Flaw Questions)
- Mistakes an effect for a cause
- Fails to consider that an association between two things might be due to their common relationship to a third factor
- “ignores the possibility that” drivers who drive recklessly have a preference for red cars (aka an association between two things might be due to their common relation to a third factor)
Other flaws include:
- Sampling Flaws
- Comparison Flaws
- Ad Hominem Flaws
- Appeal to Inappropriate Authority(rarer)
- Unproven vs. Untrue
- False Choice
Other Flaws (that are rarer on the test but show up often as a wrong answer choice option- so be cautious of them… b/c they are typically NOT the correct answer to Flaw Questions)
- Part vs. Whole
- Percent vs. Amount
- Equivocation (Commonly a Wrong Answer Choice)
- Self-Contradiction Flaw (Commonly appear as a Wrong
Answer choicer) - Circular Reasoning (Show up More often Often for
Wrong Answers then ever being the correct answer)
Appeal to Inappropriate Authority Flaw
The author appeals to a source of authority to SUPPORT the conclusion. These arguments support a theory by introducing a source that may not be reliable. Sometimes an argument will use the fact that experts agree about something to conclude that that thing is actually the case. However, if the author concludes this they are assuming that the experts aren’t wrong in some way. We have to accept the author’s premise (that the experts agree), but we don’t have to accept the experts’ opinion when we haven’t been given any actual evidence. If the experts are wrong, then the argument falls apart.
Another way this flaw appears is as an appeal to an authority speaking outside his or her realm of expertise. Even so, the author would still be assuming that an opinion is correct. Maybe others disagree!
Appeal to inappropriate Authority:
Tips: Recognizing and reacting to Appeal to Inappropriate Authority Flaws:
- Argument cites an expert opinion to support the
conclusion. - Ask if there is any evidence other than the expert
opinion cited? - Ask whether it is clear that the expert cited actually
has expertise in the area relevant to the conclusion of
the argument.
Unproven vs. Untrue Flaw
Arguments that conclude that something is UNTRUE based on evidence (a premise) that says only that the thing has not been sufficiently proven. Three versions:
- Concluding that something doesn’t exit because we
can’t prove that it does. - Concluding that something is incorrect because it lacks
support or the support is flawed. - Concluding that something is real or correct because
we can’t prove it to be false.
Unproven Vs. Untrue flaws: (TIPS for recognizing and reacting to these flaws)
- Look for discussions of compromised or insufficient evidence in the premises with phrases such as “failed to disprove” or “disproven”
- Remember that a lack of evidence can never be used as support to disprove something. Without evidence, we cannot say whether the conclusion is true of false.
Unproven Vs. Untrue Flaws: (Common Wording for Unproven vs. Untrue Answers)
- the author takes a failure to prove a certain claim as proof that the claim is false.
- the author fails to consider that a claim that was believed for questionable reasons is nonetheless true.
- use the lack of evidence contradicting a claim as conclusive evidence for that claim.
False Choice Flaw
the author considers only two options or groups, mistakenly assuming them to be the only two possibilities. Failure to consider a middle ground between two extremes.
False Choice Flaw: TIPS
Recognizing and Reacting to False Choice flaws:
- be on the lookout for two groups or options.
- Sometimes, both options will appear in the premises.
Other times, an argument will rule out one possibility in
the premise and arrive at some other, previously
unmentioned, possibility in the conclusion. - Whenever you see a binary relationship in a Flaw question, ask, ‘are there any other options here that are being overlooked?
Common Wording for False Choice Answers
- The author fails to consider that there may be other…
- The author neglects to rule out competing options.
Conditional Logic or “bad move” Flaw:
Illegal Negation-
taking the nonexistence of something as evidence that a necessary precondition for that thing also did not exist
Part vs. Whole Flaw (Rare on Test.. Commonly show up in wrong answer choices however)
To spot Part vs. Whole flaws, look out for references to membership or for broad characterization about a group or its members. This can look like a Sampling Flaw, but instead of drawing statistical conclusions, these arguments usually come to conclusions about EVERY member of a group or of the group as a whole.
When an argument introduces a new characteristic and concludes that because one of the terms has this characteristics, another must have it too. The attribution of characteristics alerts us to the fact that it is a Part Vs. Whole flaw.
Common Wording for Part vs. Whole Answers (on Flaw questions)
- the author takes for granted that a characteristic of each part of the event must also be true of the whole event.
- the author infers that each part of a system has a certain property on the basis that the system itself has that property.
Equivocation flaw: (rarely the correct answer on test, commonly show up as a wrong answer choice however)
occurs when the author uses the same word or concept in two very different ways. Comparing the first usage to the second usage, we should see that the terms of the discussion have greatly shifted.
Circular Reasoning (used FAR more often for WRONG ANSWERS)
- the author draws a conclusion and says that its correct.. because its correct… there is no premise. literally.
Common wording for circular reasoning answers:
- assumes what it sets out to prove
- presupposed what it seeks to establish
- the conclusion is merely a restatement of the premise
Self Contradiction Flaw (this flaw as well as Circular Reasoning flaw appear several times over and over again as a wrong answer. Very rarely actually on the test as a correct answer)
Common wording for Self-Contradiction Answers:
- basis its conclusions on claims that are inconsistent with each other.
- contains premises that cannot be all true.
