I'm reading through some of the submissions and it's becoming obvious that not all of you have a clear idea about what an argument is. An observation on your part that someone has done something that you do not like, or has said something misleading, is not a fallacy. A lie is a statement, not an argument. This assignment begins with your selection of an argument that someone has made about a candidate that takes the form of one of the fallacies listed in the page I linked you to.
Part of the assignment is to do the assigned readings and give me the assigned work, not something you have written for yourself. Half of my job--the most unpleasant half--is to figure out who has read the material and who has not. Some of this difficulty, again, might simply come from ignorance about what is and is not a logical argument. My bad for not going over this in class, but it is one of those subjects we tend to assume has been covered in high school. I'll not make that assumption again.
Let's figure out what an argument is. Again Monty Python helps clarify the issue much better than I can. For less silly content, here are some of the definitions or "argument" from dictionary.com:
- a discussion involving differing points of view; debate: They were deeply involved in an argument about inflation.- a process of reasoning; series of reasons: I couldn't follow his argument.
- an address or composition intended to convince or persuade; persuasive discourse.
There are other definitions--check them out--but let's stick to these. Notice that the second definition states that an argument is a process of reasoning, while the third states that an argument is meant to persuade. These aren't necessarily the same. A process of reasoning--let's call it a logical argument--may be unexciting and not persuade the listeners, while a non-logical--or fallacious--argument, might be very persuasive (Vote McCain and you'll lose 30 pounds in your sleep!). Often these can be more persuasive that logical arguments, which tend to make the brain hurt.
Let's look at a couple of more terms in order to clarify this further. The first term is "fallacy." The second is "valid."
Fallacy. Again here are three definitions from dictionary.com:
- a misleading or unsound argument.
- deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness.
- Logic. any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.
Valid, again from dictionary.com:
- Producing the desired results; efficacious: valid methods.
- Containing premises from which the conclusion may logically be derived: a valid argument.
- Correctly inferred or deduced from a premise: a valid conclusion.
Notice the last two definitions especially. My apologies to the logicians, who won't find this summary adequate, but a valid argument is meant to retain the truth embedded in its premises. The classic example of such an argument is the syllogism (definition from--guess where):
- Logic. an argument the conclusion of which is supported by two premises, of which one (major premise) contains the term (major term) that is the predicate of the conclusion, and the other (minor premise) contains the term (minor term) that is the subject of the conclusion; common to both premises is a term (middle term) that is excluded from the conclusion. A typical form is “All A is C; all B is A; therefore all B is C.”
A fallacy argument, by definition, loses the truth of its premises as the argument progresses--but that does not mean it can't be persuasive. Your job, again, is to look at the arguments you see being made about the candidate--not your personal assessments of them--and to test for their validity.
If you have not done the assignment as I have asked, I will ask that you do it again.
Once all these assignments are in, we can spend some time determining whether democratic politics are rational exercises or are purely driven by fallacy. This may prove depressing.
