Section 4

Question 1

fallacy of relevance

Answer 1

a bad argument that has no bearing on the claim

Question 2

ad hominem fallacy

Answer 2

“against the man”; instead of responding to argument, one attacks the person against their idea directly.

Question 3

genetic fallacy

Answer 3

arguer critiques the origin of a claim rather than the claim/argument itself (eg. oh you get that bad idea from your dad.)

Question 4

straw figure fallacy

Answer 4

arguing the weakest version of the opponents argument while ignoring the strongest. (fighting with a straw man vs a real person)

Question 5

red herring vs straw figure

Answer 5

red herring is changing topic. straw figure is changing other persons argument.

Question 6

irrelevant appeal

Answer 6

anything that is not relevant to the argument at hand.

Question 7

equivocation

Answer 7

when the same word is used to describe different premises. (eg kids are headache, aspirin fixes headache, aspirin makes kids go away xxx)

Question 8

formal fallacy

Answer 8

has to do with structure

Question 9

informal fallacy

Answer 9

has to do with content

Question 10

appeal to ignorance

Answer 10

lack of evidence on one side of an argument does not prove the other side to be true.

Question 11

slippery slope

Answer 11

when one event is said to lead to another event (usually disastrous) via a chain of other events. conclusion is usually unlikely, even if each individual piece is more likely to happen.

Question 12

texas sharpshooter

Answer 12

drawing a bullseye around your conclusion and picking evidence based on said conclusion instead of coming to a conclusion based on evidence you already have. a type of bias. aka the fallacy of cherry picking.

Question 13

post hoc

Answer 13

just because one thing happened after another, does not mean that the first thing caused the second thing. eg just because B rode your bike last doesn’t mean that he is the reason your chain is busted.

Question 14

hasty generalization

Answer 14

aka jumping to conclusions. when one generalizes about a group and does so without evidence or too small of a sample. eg seeing two rotten tomatoes out of 100 and assuming they are all rotten

Question 15

fallacies of presumption

Answer 15

when an argument rests on an unjustified assumption.

Question 16

black and white/false dilemma fallacy

Answer 16

assumed that without good reasoning, that there are only two options;that it is black or white.

Question 17

burden shifting

Answer 17

shifting the burden of proof onto the other arguer when it is your job to do so. (eg. you did this unless YOU can prove that you DIDNT)

Question 18

syllogism

Answer 18

two premise, one conclusion. eg. i like all veggies. carrots are veggies. therefore i like carrots. premises support each other

Question 19

immediate inferences

Answer 19

one premise, one conclusion. eg. i like all veggies. so, there aren’t any veggies that i don’t like.

Question 20

independent support

Answer 20

when the premises support the conclusion itself

Question 21

conjoint support

Answer 21

when the premises don’t support the conclusion without the help of other premises. the premises support each other.

Question 22

the general specific pattern

Answer 22

two premises where one is a generalization and the other is a specific claim under the umbrella of that generalization.

Question 23

use a bracket in mapping when considering …

Answer 23

conjoint support

Question 24

negation test

Answer 24

helps to see if premises are independent or conjoint. makes inferences the opposite to see if the claim still makes sense. if it does make sense, then the inference is independent. if it falls apart, it is conjoint.

Question 25

hidden assumptions

Answer 25

pieces of an argument that are not explicitly stated, but are rather assumed. refer to lesson 4.5 for examples.