What determines if an argument is fallacious
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What determines if an argument is fallacious? Why and how are fallacies used intentionally?
Identify and describe some slippery slope arguments regarding controversial social issues. What issues might we tend to think about in black-and-white terms? Why?
What's a hypothetical syllogism?
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The expert determines if an argument is fallacious.
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Critical Thinking
By Bjarke Viskum, phD (ip), University of Stirling
1) A fallacy is a form of argument but importantly a bad argument. It is an argument where the premises do not support the conclusion to the needed degree. Thus, a fallacy not simply a matter of being wrong about certain facts - say for example I believe premise 1: the car is on fire to be true, whereas it is in fact false. Rather, a fallacy is in general a form of error in reasoning. Hence, what determines whether an argument is fallacious or not is whether the premises support the conclusion to the needed degree. If it is a valid inductive argument the premises must make the conclusion make likely. In a valid deductive argument on the other hand it follows that if the premises are true the conclusion must also be true.
2) There are numerous forms of fallacies, from the blatantly obvious to the very sophisticated. The most common form of fallacy is probably the so-called ad hominem argument. An example of the ad hominem argument could be the following: A right-wing politician says that he doesn't believe in 'global warming' and that we should rather rely on ...
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