Fallacies

One concept in the class that we have discussed that I believe needed to be further researched is Fallacies. After reading the section of the textbook that discussed this topic, I felt that I did not fully understand some concepts involving fallacies. One website that I found helpful was http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/fallacies.html. I felt that this website helped me better understand fallacies. One concept that this website helped me understand was arguments. Under the argument section of this website it talks about using good premises. It says that good premises are ones that you have good reason to believe are true and relevant to the issue at hand. Another point that this website made about arguments was that they should provide good support for the conclusion. One section of this website that really helped me better understand this concept was the section that described each fallacy in detail and provided good examples for each fallacy.

Assignment 2: Social Organizations

I found the second major group project to be very useful. This assignment was very interesting for me because I was interested in learning more about different social organizations. For this project, my group choose the social organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also known as MADD. This assignment was very useful because we were able to connect what we leaned in class to the real world. One component of this assignment that I enjoyed was that we had to find different artifact on the MADD website that were related to different concepts in the textbook. This project was also very informative because we had to truly learn what the social organization was fighting for and what their stance was on certain social issues. Another component of this project that I enjoyed was that we got to work in groups and work together to complete this assignment. Overall, I found this assignment to be very helpful and informative.

Chapter 8

"General Claims and their contradictories" was the first concept discussed in chapter 8. I learned many new things from this section. This section says that we need to know how to reason using general claims that assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection. This section discusses the terms "all" and "some". According to the text "all" means "every single one, no exceptions." All can also mean "every single one, and there is at least one." The meaning of "all" depends on the argument. The next term discussed is "some." "Some" means "at least one." In other cases "some" can mean "at least one, but not all." The meaning of "some" depends on the argument. Another term discussed is "no". "No" means "not even one, every single one is not." The next term in this section is "only". "Only" means "Only S are P" and it means "All P are S." Claims usually start with words such as: all, some, some are not, no. On the other hand, contradictories can start with words such as: some are not, not every, no, all are not, not even one, all are, some are. A personal life example of this is if someone said: "All basketball players are tall." The contradictory of this would be: "Some basketball players are not tall, just look at Earl Boykin."

Conditionals

I found the section of that text about conditionals to be interesting. A claim is considered a conditional claim if it can be rewritten as an "if..then..." claim that must have he same truth value. There are two parts to a conditional, the antecedent and the consequent. "If A, then B", the claim A is the antecedent, and the claim B is the consequent. An example of this would be: "If John gets taller, he will make the basketball team." In this example, the antecedent is "John gets taller" and the consequent is "He will make the basketball team." A contradictory of a conditional is: "If A, then B" has contradictory but "not A but not B." The contradictory of a conditional is not another conditional. Contrapositive's were also discussed in this section. The contrapositive of "If A, then B" is "If not B, then not A." A claim and its contrapositive are equivalent.The terms "necessary" and "sufficient" were also discussed in this chapter. A is "necessary for B means "If not A, then not B is true." A is sufficient for B means "If A, then B is true." Slippery slope arguments were also discussed in this section. A slippery slope argument is a bad argument that uses a chain of conditionals, at least one of which is false or dubious.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 discussed counterarguments. The first concept discussed was "Raising Objections." Raising Objections is basically a way to show that an argument is bad. You can do this by calling one of the premises into question or showing that an unstated premise is dubious or shows how the argument is weak. There are three different ways of refuting an argument. The first way is by showing that at least one of the premises is dubious. The second is by showing that the argument is not valid or strong. The final way is by showing that the conclusion is false. An argument can also be refuted indirectly. If you want to reduce to the absurd, you must show that at least one of the claims is false or dubious. You can also draw a false or unwanted conclusion from the claims to show that the claims are collectively unacceptable. Sometime when people attempt to refute an argument, it turns out to be a bad argument.

Chapter 6

One of the important concepts in chapter 6 was "Considering the Alternatives." This section discussed compound claims. A compound claim is a claim that is composed of other claims, but it has to be viewed as just one claim. An example of a compound claim would be, "I'll go to the game or I'll stay home and watch it on t.v." Another concept discussed was "alternatives." Alternatives are the claims that are the parts of an "or" claim. A contradictory of a claim is a claim that has the opposite truth value in all possible circumstances. An example of a contradictory of a claim is: Claim: "John is talking" Contradictory: "John is not talking." There is also a contradiction of an "or" claim. This means that: A or B has contradictory not A and not B. A contradictory of an and claim is: A and B has contradictory not A or not B. False dilemma's were also discussed in this chapter. A false dilemma is a bad use of excluding possibilities where the "or" claim is false or implausible.

Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises

I found the section titled "Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises" to be very interesting. The first common mistake in arguing premises is arguing backwards. Arguing backwards is when "it's a mistake to reason that because we have a strong or valid argument with a true conclusion, its premises must be true" According to the text, an argument is supposed to convince us that its conclusion is true, not that its premises are true. The second mistake discussed is called confusing possibility with plausibility. When this common mistake comes up, we should not believe the theory, but rather look for evidence before we believe the argument. The third mistake discussed is bad appeals to authority. This is "a mistake to accept a claim as true solely because a lot of other people believe it. This mistake is common in everyday conversation when we are talking to our friends because we tend to view our friends as authorities. The next mistake discussed is mistaking the person for the claim. This is when you reject a claim solely because of who said it. If you did not believe what your classmate said just because that particular classmate said it, then you are making this mistake. The final mistake is mistaking the person for the argument. This is very similar to the previous mistake. With this mistake, you should not reject an argument solely because of who said it.

Advertising on the Internet

The advertisement that caught my attention was featured on Yahoo(www.yahoo.com). The advertisement was located near the bottom of the Yahoo homepage. I clicked on the ad and it took me to this webpage:http://www.healthheadlines.com/article/content/fb_lgid=16&fb_lpid=180&fb_itid=13357&fb_itid2=1072&nid=58&aff_id=promo_lookdown_verd. The advertisement was for Force Factor. The claims that this advertisement made was that "Force Factor builds muscle faster." The ad also said that Force Factor was the "USA's #1 Strength Enhancer." This advertisement was offering a free sample. The evidence that the ad gives is a quote from U.F.C. Champion B.J. Penn: "Force Factor is the absolute best product to hit the market in years." This provides evidence for the claim because a U.F.C. champion is a reputable source for building muscle.The ad also listed the benefits of Nitric Oxide: Drastic Muscle Gains,Increased Blood Flow and Oxygen Delivery to Muscles, Transform Your Body, Boosted Strength, Endurance and Power, Supports Your Immune System, Immediate Results. This shows that Nitric Oxide will benefit your body greatly. Since this advertisement was featured on the Yahoo homepage, it seems likely that this is a reputable advertisement. Based on my personal experience though, I would have to suspend my judgement on the claim, due to the fact that most advertisements of this sort are false.