Critical Thinking Flashcards
Define argument
a set of propositions (which can be true of false), one of which is the conclusion and the remainder are premises.
Define Deductive Validity.
an argument is deductively valid if it would be impossible for the premises to be true but for the conclusion to be false.
Define Deductive Soundness.
when an argument is both deductively valid and the premises are all true.
What different types of rhetorical ploys are there?
- appealing to emotion and desire
- trading on implicature (implying something without asserting it)
- trading on equivocation (non-rational persuasion by exploitation of vagueness or ambiguity)
What’s the principle of charity?
When reconstructive arguments, aim for the best possible reconstruction, make it as strong as it can be, without being overly charitable.
4 things to do when reconstructing …
- Apply the principle of charity
- Eliminate any ambiguities.
- Eliminate vague terms in our reconstructions. This is because we are clarifying what the arguer has said, and vague terms threaten clarity. Also vague terms have a rhetorical power.
- Eliminate rhetoric as it is a non-argumentative form of persuasion
Define Rational Persuasiveness.
When an argument is deductively valid and that person has good reason/evidence to believe the premises.
What to do if I i don’t know if an argument is sound or not?
Comment on its rational persuasiveness.
What is a formally fallacious argument? Give the examples of formally fallacious arguments.
When there is an inappropriate connection between the premises and the conclusion, a failure of logical connection.
- Affirming the consequent
- Denying the antecedent
- Deriving ought from is
What is affirming the consequent?
It is associated with conditionals and when they are not interpreted correctly.
P1: If P then Q P2: Q -------------------- C: P
e.g.,
P1: If someone is in Glasgow, they are in Scotland
P2: I am in Scotland
————————————————————————-
C: I am in Glasgow
What is denying the antecedent?
P1: If P then Q.
P2: Not-P
————————
C: Not-Q
e.g.,
P1: If there is a person then there is a problem.
P2: There is no person.
————————————————————————-
C: There is no problem.
What is deriving ought from is?
Making claims about what ought to be on the basis of what is.
C: We should overthrow capitalism.
What is a substantive fallacy?
When one of the premises has an unjustified or false assumption. These arguments are unsound.
Ad Hominem
either responding to an argument by attacking the person who has made it, or, by rejecting a particular claim because of dislike for the person who has made it.
Ad Hominem Circumstantial
Involves rejecting of discounting someones arguments in favour of something on the grounds that they would benefit from doing/believing it.
Tu quoque
this involves rejecting or discounting someone’s arguments in favour of acting/not acting in a certain way, on the grounds that they themselves do not act/do act in this way.
Majority Belief
This is the fallacy of concluding on the basis of the fact that most people believe some proposition, p, that p is true.
Conflating Morality & Legality
This involves assuming that anything legal must be moral, or, that anything illegal must be immoral.
Illegitimate Appeal to Authority
This involves making an unjustified appeal to an alleged authority in order to support a claim.
Perfectionist
This involves rejecting/discounting someone’s arguments in favour of a proposal to address a problem, on the grounds that it won’t completely solve that problem.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
This occurs when we mistakenly infer that an event, X, caused another event, Y, merely on the basis of the fact that Y occurred after X.
Correlation for Cause
This involves mistakenly taking the fact that one type of event/state of affairs, X, is always or usually found in conjunction with another type of event/state of affairs, Y, to be sufficient to establish that X causes Y.
Weak Analogy
This involves assuming that, because one thing is similar to another in one respect, it is similar to it in all relevant respects.
Epistemic Fallacy
This arises when we make the mistaken inference that, because someone believes that p, they must also believe that q on account of the fact that p and q are about the same thing or person, even though the way they refer to the thing or person is different.
Which 5 fallacies don’t fit into formal or substantive fallacies?
Straw Man
False Dilemma
Slippery Slope
Red Herring
Begging the Question
Straw man
Straw man arguments misrepresent, distort, simplify, or exaggerate the position of an opponent so that they become easier to refute.
False dilemma
This is the technique of limiting the options on a particular issue to just two, when in fact there are more options. The arguer sets up a dilemma where none in fact exists.
Slippery Slope
Slippery Slope: this technique is employed when an arguer wrongly assumes that to permit or forbid a certain course of action will inevitably lead to the occurrence of further related and undesirable events, without providing good reasons to suppose that the further events will indeed follow.
Red Herring
Red Herring: this technique involves inferring a conclusion from a premise that is strictly irrelevant to it, but in a way that has the potential to fool the audience into accepting the inference.
Begging the question
Begging the Question: an argument commits the fallacy of begging the question when the truth of its conclusion is assumed by one or more of its premises, and the truth of the premises depend for their justification on the truth of the conclusion.
