Philosophy

[Shadow]

Hi,
that was a long interesting fact filled post about english and the origins of modern english so thank you for explaining it to me

now back to philosophy

For your next question to think about, I'd like you to have a look at the page on fallacies that I linked to above, choose a few of them and then give me your own examples of arguments that make those mistakes. That should get them clear in your mind, then you'll know what to look for when you're having debates with people.

Im not sure what you meant by that part
did u ask me to make my own examples of fallacies and explain them?
if so then ill start with Argumentum ad Hominem

ok an example would be:

Batman vs. The riddler

Batman: ... and therefore i have fully refuted your riddles with examples from Aristotle and Davinci

The riddler: OK fine maybe u did refute them with great examples and sources, but your still ugly and your so dumb that you wear your underpants outside your suit. Even though your name is batman, You smell like a goat, no infact u smell like an ugly goat!

The writing in bold is clearly an attack on the individual instead of the subject at hand. What the riddler did was make the subject personal.
What he failed to realize is that his statement didnt place any effect on the debate itself because he hasnt shown any logical arguement against batmans refutation. This fallacy is known as Argumentum ad Hominem which is translated in english as "Argument against the man".

 

[czgibson]

Greetings Shadow,

Hi,
that was a long interesting fact filled post about english and the origins of modern english so thank you for explaining it to me

My pleasure. I don't seem to be able to write short posts on this subject!

Im not sure what you meant by that part
did u ask me to make my own examples of fallacies and explain them?

That's right!

if so then ill start with Argumentum ad Hominem

Good choice - lots of people make this mistake.

ok an example would be:

Batman vs. The riddler

Batman: ... and therefore i have fully refuted your riddles with examples from Aristotle and Davinci

The riddler: OK fine maybe u did refute them with great examples and sources, but your still ugly and your so dumb that you wear your underpants outside your suit. Even though your name is batman, You smell like a goat, no infact u smell like an ugly goat!

The writing in bold is clearly an attack on the individual instead of the subject at hand. What the riddler did was make the subject personal.
What he failed to realize is that his statement didnt place any effect on the debate itself because he hasnt shown any logical arguement against batmans refutation. This fallacy is known as Argumentum ad Hominem which is translated in english as "Argument against the man".

OK, you've almost got it. The Riddler here is not actually committing the ad hominem fallacy, believe it or not. My reason for saying this is that he doesn't use his opinion that Batman is dumb etc. to say that Batman must therefore be wrong - to do that would be committing the fallacy. Instead, he actually admits that his argument has been refuted before giving these insults. An example of the fallacy would be for the Riddler to say "why should I listen to you? You're so stupid that nobody believes anything you say." It's when someone's opinion of a person becomes the reason for criticising their arguments that the ad hominem fallacy has been made.

Interestingly, it can work the other way, too. In the example you've given, Batman does just this: "and therefore i have fully refuted your riddles with examples from Aristotle and Davinci". The implication here is: "I've used arguments from Aristotle and da Vinci; they were both very clever men, so we should believe what they say." As we know, clever men can sometimes be wrong (e.g. Aristotle). Of course, in your example, Batman could well have used convincing arguments from those sources, and he could have used them well, but we don't have that part of the conversation. Equally, he could have used totally irrelevant examples, or he could have used them badly. Since we don't know how he used these arguments or what they were, his statement as it stands is an example of the ad hominem fallacy in reverse, also known as the argument from authority.

To conclude:

Here's another example of the ad hominem fallacy at work:

Hitler was a vegetarian.
Hitler was a very evil man.
Therefore vegetarianism is wrong.

Here's an example of the argument from authority:

Aristotle said that men have more teeth than women.
Aristotle was a very clever man.
Therefore it must be true that men have more teeth than women.

(He did say this, but with a few simple observations he could have found that it's actually false.)

These are some of the most commonly committed fallacies, so it's useful to know about them. I'm sure you'll spot them many times in the future!

Peace

 

[Shadow]

Hi, its amazing how you solved the question behind my post
I myself had no idea that Batman was commiting Appeal to Authority

How do you see through the lines :?
practice? or 6th sense?

 

[czgibson]

Greetings Shadow,

Hi, its amazing how you solved the question behind my post
I myself had no idea that Batman was commiting Appeal to Authority

How do you see through the lines :?
practice? or 6th sense?

Thank you for your kind words.

You've asked a good question - I suppose it's all down to practice. I've been reading books since before I could walk and I've had a lot of training in close reading at school and university. After your course I'll bet you'll be reading between the lines as shrewdly as anybody!

Out of interest, what type of course is it you are considering? From what you've learned about philosophy so far do you still think it's a good course for you to do? I do hope so - I expect you'd do well on it.

Peace

 

[Shadow]

Hello,

Thank you for your kind words.

Thank you for your kind teaching

You've asked a good question - I suppose it's all down to practice. I've been reading books since before I could walk and I've had a lot of training in close reading at school and university

its like you were born to read?

Out of interest, what type of course is it you are considering? From what you've learned about philosophy so far do you still think it's a good course for you to do?

well the course im going to do is the just basics of philosophy
so for the moment im way ahead of my class already
the course after the course im going to take is about metaphysics and other complicated matters i guess
But my course is probably going to be about Fallacies, Paradox stuff and Philosopher biographies