http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrwUU_YApE
Monday, January 20, 2014
Blog Post 1_ Fallacies
Fallacies fall under many categories, two in particular stand together more often than not. There are responses that choose to attack the opponent instead of
counter-arguing the point. For example, the time-old response of,
"You're wrong because you're stupid." It lacks the logic that should
be addressed in this situation. This kind of fallacy is referred to as
'Ad Hominem’, which translates roughly to 'against the man'. Often this logic, or lack thereof,
is paired with the red-herring fallacy where they change the subject in order
to move away from the topic on hand. Many times these are observed in debates of
kindergarteners, and even more impressive, that of presidential candidates. In particular this was seen in 2012 for the presidential debates. As the back and forth went on slowly more logical fallacies arose. Obama began, instead of tacking Romney's views, an attack on his opponent's character, "Romney's budget he wrote out wasn't very detailed as they always seemed to be." The attack here didn't conclude about the specificity of the Senator's plans, but instead just that the man was vague about things in general. The use of logical fallacies in debates of any nature are meant to brush off the answers that are unknown to a topic that makes the opponent look bad, but end up reflecting poorly on that of the accuser. Many of the types of fallacies coincide with each other, much like with red-herring and ad hominem, though do not add substance to a logical debate as facts and scientific information.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrwUU_YApE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrwUU_YApE
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I wonder if an ad hominem argument is always a fallacy. What if a person is a liar, or often lies about the topic you are discussing, and you point this out to weaken their credibility. Can't something attack your opponent's character but also be relevant for determining how likely what they are saying is to be true and if it can, why would doing so involve committing a fallacy?
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your example. That statement isn't an attack on Romney's character at all, he is criticizing the mans work. What you added is in part your own opinion. Now if you want a real example, pay close attention to Romney when he speaks about Obama in the debates. There were plenty of times where he attacked Obama's character instead of just his work.
ReplyDeleteI think you're missing the point. Obama's argument was a fallacy because he said that the budget lacked detail and proceeded to support this by commenting on Romney's past history, rather than defining what parts of a detailed budge Romney left out. That doesn't make Obama's statements false, but it does present an invalid argument. Furthermore, you seem to have taken this post as an indictment of Obama, which it is in no way. Everyone in the world presents invalid arguments from time to time; often, people don't even know that they are doing it. Your use of diction like "real example" and "pay close attention" was condescending and rude. In fact, your counter example wasn't even a fallacy. Ad Hominem fallacies are not purely attacks on a person's character, but are attacks on character that ignore the premise of an argument. Both Romney and Obama did this, so calm down.
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