concepts

I would like to talk about to concepts that have stuck with me throughout my entire semester. One would be the strawman fallacy and calling in your debts. One of the reasons why these stuck with me is because they both have really distinct titles. The strawman fallacy could also be an analogy to how fake or how false the statement is. The strawman is basically when you restate someone’s argument and modify it to sound fallacious or weaker. It is basically putting words in someone’s mouth. This argument stuck to me because it is such a common example that occurs during everyday life. Another example that is very common is calling in your debts. This is an effective device to sway emotion and get people to do certain things. This is what I liked about the concepts that I learned in class. I was able to relate them to everyday life and this is what made it a little easier to understand.

Class evaluation

My favorite thing about this class was having it online, which made it convenient for me to just stay home and do work. I was able to actually focus a little bit more because I was either at home or in the library and I had no classroom distractions. Also, if I ever got bored of reading the material I could always just take a break. Another thing that I enjoyed about this class was that I had a group to meet up with and I was able to actually interact with other people and work on projects. Something that I didn’t like about the class was that I would constantly have to look on the web page to see if there was any updates and sometimes I would be just too busy to check. I feel that this class could be improved by having face to face office hours or maybe even video chat. Other than that, the class was very enjoyable.

What I learned in Class

During this semester, I learned a lot of terms and concepts related to critical thinking such as strong vs. valid arguments, how to test for a good argument, I learned about claims, how to work in a group, and a lot more. I feel that the most valuable lesson that I have learned in this whole time I was in this class was team building. In the beginning of class I had to meet with a group of people that I didn’t know to complete one common goal. We had to use synergy in order to find the right times to meet up, accomplish tasks and resolve conflict. Within our groups, we learned different leadership styles as well as how to effectively lead a group discussion. We also learned that participative leadership style was the most effective because it gets everyone involved. Also, the work was distributed evenly and we were able carry our own weight.

Mission Critical Statement

The mission critical statement Website is useful because it contains various amounts of arguments and definitions for arguments. The Website includes basic parts of an argument and basic relations, analysis of arguments, Fallacies and non-rational persuasion, and other common fallacies. There are many terms that we have learned in the class so far that appear on the web page. For example the conjunction and and the disjunction or. This is one very basic concept that has been introduced in our previous classes. One of the categories that we were not introduced to in class was appeal to indirect consequences. Within that category we have the idea of wishful thinking. This concept is a concept that is often used in comedies in my opinion. Wishful thinking is basically a thought which on a positive note tries to distract the other person from the issue. I found the example in the yellow box very effective. The answer was “I’m not going to let Joe’s actions affect his promotion. After all wouldn’t be better if there was no sexual harassment in the workplace?” I found this a great example of wishful thinking.

Cause and Effect Website

The Cause and Effect Website reading was useful and very insightful. It demonstrated how people think when tracing back from an incident to the cause of an incident. The example was who was responsible for the car accident. The objective is to pinpoint exactly what was the cause of the accident. The question is, was it the bicycles fault for the accident or was it the fault of the person slamming the breaks? The strength of the argument relies on three main factors. According to the website, the first reason is how acceptable the implied comparison is. This basically means that we need to compare to other experiences with this instance in order to come to a conclusion. The second reason is how likely is the case for the causation which means how reasonable is it to say that A happened because of B. In this case, how likely is it to say that it was the bicycles fault that the driver immediately stepped on their breaks. The last claim according to the text is how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is meaning how credible is it to say that the bicycle was the only reason why there was an accident. Overall this reading was interesting.

Different Types of Resoning Examples

1.Reasoning by Analogy
Premise 1: I am in the comm40 class that is required for graduation.
Premise 2: Robert has not taken the comm40 class.
Conclusion: Robert cannot graduate

2.Sign Reasoning
I have noticed that I have not done all three of my blogs within 12 hours apart.
I will be sure to do that next week to make up for my mistakes this week.

3.Casual Reasoning
Premise 1: I feel very lazy at the moment.
Premise 2: I wasn’t able to do my homework.
Conclusion: Therefore my day was not productive.

4.Reasoning by Criteria
I have noticed that you have not fundraised enough money to cover the costs of your club expenses. You need to sell more items.

5.Reasoning by Example
You should study at least 3 hours a day for that class to do well. I noticed that people who spend more than three hours studying for that class get A’s in the class.

6.Inductive
The store has been opening at 9 a.m. everyday for the past 6 months. The store will open at 9 a.m.

7.Deductive
Premise 1: All Giants fans were at the Giants parade.
Premise 2: I am a Giants fan.
Conclusion: I was at the parade.

Fallacy of Competition

One concept that I have found useful is fallacy of composition. This fallacy states that whatever is the truth about an individual also stays true for the group. This is a very common fallacy. For example, the school should raise the tuition percentage just as the books that we should buy should be raised as well. Here lies an analogy between school and books. The first argument states that the school should raise tuition. One would ask why. The answer would be to cover costs from students because lack of funding from the government. However, the percentage price of books should not be raised because it just doesn’t make sense. Just because books and school are related, both prices shouldn’t be raised to match the other. It would not make any sense for schools to raise book prices because they are trying to keep low prices to entice students to shop at their store. I felt that fallacy of composition is a common fallacy which can be easily noticed.