Flashcards
B&K ch 7 (pseudo-reasoning)
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- 1two types of fallacies1. formal fallacies
2. substantive (informal) fallacies - 2formal fallacies meaningthe inappropriate connections are failures of logical connection, simply a logical mistake (invalid arguments)
- 3substantive fallaciesthe inappropriate connections involve reliance on some very general unjustified assumptions/inferences.
when the implicit premises are made explicit it becomes clearer that they're false/unjustified - 4FORMAL FALLACIES affirming the consequentP1) if P, then Q.
P2) Q.
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C) P. - 5FORMAL FALLACIES denying the antecedentP1) if P, then Q.
P2) not-P.
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C) not-Q. - 6prescriptive conclusiona conclusion making a claim about something that should/ought to be done/avoided or believed/not believed
- 7FORMAL FALLACIES the fallacy of deriving 'ought' from 'is'the fact that something happens to be the case is insufficient grounds for concluding that it OUGHT to be the case (or vice versa)
e.g. British monarchy has existed for a thousand years, thus it should be retained. - 8SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES fallacy of majority beliefbecause the majority believe a certain proposition, the proposition must be true
- 9SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES common practice'everyone does it' so something wrong is justified
- 10SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES the gambler's fallacy (/monte carlo/maturity of choices)stems from a misunderstanding of the factors that can influence probability. people believe something is more likely to happen when it hasn't happened in a while
- 11SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES ad hominem ('to the man')can be committed in two ways:
1. responding to someone's argument by attacking the person
2. rejecting a claim because of dislike for the person who makes it - 12SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES ad hominem circumstantialwhen someone's argument in favour of doing/believing something is discounted on the grounds that they would allegedly benefit from our doing/believing it
- 13exception for ad hominem claimswhen it is justified to doubt someone's credibility; e.g. with people who are often dishonest, it's acceptable to state that their statements should be treated with scepticism
- 14SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES tu quoque ('you too')when we reject a person's claim that a behaviour/proposal should be refrained from/discarded on the grounds that they themselves practise that behaviour (or vice versa)
whenever someone's behaviour is inconsistent with their advice, that advice is false - 15SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES appeal to authoritywhen an argument makes an unjustified appeal to an alleged authority.
doesn't mean that all appeals to authority are fallacious; only those that are mistaken about someone's claim to be authoritative about the matter in hand. - 16SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES perfectionist fallacywhen we place excessive demands on an idea/proposal and then reject it purely on the grounds that it will not COMPLETELY solve a problem
- 17SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES conflation of morality with legalitythe mistake of assuming that anything legal must be moral and/or that anything illegal must be immoral.
"there's no law against it, so it's acceptable" or "there's a law against it, so it's unacceptable" - 18SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES weak analogybecause one thing is similar to another in one respect, it's therefore similar in all respects (and similar objects should be treated identically)
- 19SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES causal fallacieswhen we make mistaken inferences about the cause(s) of something
- 20SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES three types of causal fallacies1. post hoc ergo propter hoc
2. mistaking correlation for cause
3. inversion of cause and effect - 21SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES causal fallacies - post hoc ergo propter hocwhen we mistakenly infer that an event X caused an event Y merely on the basis that Y occurred after X
- 22SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES causal fallacies - mistaking correlation for causewhen the fact that two things often occur together is mistaken as proof that one of the two causes the other
e.g. poverty and educational underachievement - 23SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES causal fallacies - inversion of cause and effect"if X causes Y, an absence of X will prevent Y"
e.g. drinking milk (X) causes us not to be thirsty (Y). not drinking milk (not-X) causes us to be thirsty (not-Y) - 24SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES epistemic fallacieswhen we make unwarranted inferences from what is known, believed or proven
- 25SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES epistemic fallacies - appeal to ignoranceconcluding either that because a claim has not been proven it must be false (negative form) or that because it has not been disproved it must be true (positive)
- 26SUBSTANTIVE FALLACIES epistemic fallacies - epistemic fallacywrongly concluding that if someone believes that (on the grounds that P and Q are about the same thing/person) P, then they must also believe that Q.
- 27leibniz's lawif one thing is the same, identical thing as another, then what is true of one must be true of the other
- 28does leibniz's law apply to the epistemic fallacy?no, because it's possible that a person doesn't know that P and Q are about the same thing/person
(e.g. Margaret Thatcher and Iron Lady, or cannabis and the most effective anti-nausea drug for chemotherapy patients) - 29propositional attitude verbsverbs such as 'knows', 'believes', and 'wants', that are used to propose a certain attitude of the person in question.
can be used to make the opponents' positions appear more extreme than they actually are. - 30red herring fallacyinferring 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
premise is irrelevant to the conclusion but is somehow still convincing (e.g. trump) - 31slippery slope fallacywhen an arguer wrongly assumes that to permit/forbid a course of action will inevitably lead to the occurrence of further related and undesirable events, without providing good reasons to suppose that those will indeed inevitably follow
- 32floodgatesthe arguer alleges without evidence that allowing X will inevitably open the floodgates to Y and Z
- 33straw target fallacywhen an arguer ignores their opponent's real position on an issue and sets up a weaker version of that position by misrepresentation, exaggeration, distortion or simplification (making it easier to defeat, without addressing the actual argument)
- 34false dilemmalimiting consideration of positions on an issue to fewer alternatives than are actually available to be considered (typically the arguer pretends that there are only 2 options; a bad one and their preference)
- 35begging the question (circular reasoning)when the truth of its conclusion is assumed by one or more of its premises, and the truth of the premise(s) depends for its justification on the truth of the conclusion
- 36fallacy of confusing absolute and relative differencerelative risk is the risk if you're already part of the specific subgroup (and the number is therefore much more dramatic).
absolute risk is about the risk in the entire population (and is therefore much less dramatic).
media reports sometimes deliberately gloss over the difference - 37the base rate fallacyP1) most Ringons have a criminal record
P2) few non-Ringons have a criminal record
P3) Apex has a criminal record.
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C) Probably Apex is a Ringon.
if there are way more non-Ringons than Ringons, then chances are higher that Apex is a non-rincon.
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- SSR Flashcards on B&K ch 7 (pseudo-reasoning), created by Sabine - on 20/09/2020.
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