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Claims are constantly being made, many of which are confusing, ambiguous, too general to be of value, exaggerated, unfalsifiable, and suggest a dichotomy when no such dichotomy exists. Good critical thinking requires a thorough understanding of the claim before attempting to determine its veracity. Good communication requires the ability to make clear, precise, explicit claims, or “strong” claims. The rules of reason in this book provide the framework for obtaining this understanding and ability.
This book / online course is about the the eleven rules of reason for making and evaluating claims. Each covered in detail in the book.
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Hello Daryl, and welcome. I think I know what you're talking about. Let's parse your post:
I interpreted this as being one of those cases where people say things like "everyone knows X" as if something were obvious, but X is actually contentious, therefore not obvious. Depending on how it is expressed specifically, it could be prejudicial language ("all good people know X") or proof surrogate ("X is an indisputable fact no one could possibly deny" - note the use of the word "indisputable", which is masquerading as evidence for X). EDIT: See Dr Bo's answer. "Alleged Certainty" fits this example way better than whatever I name-dropped in my screed.
Two fallacies going on here - the first is poisoning the well (this is setting the narrative that the opponent is untrustworthy, stupid, otherwise immoral etc). This primes people to see the opponent in a negative light, which makes them prejudiced against said opponent's arguments - before the audience has even seen them. The second is a strawman fallacy. The speaker "acknowledges" the existence of counterarguments, but bastardises them such that the audience doesn't see them as serious threats to the speaker's thesis.
Here, I picture the speaker making a string of claims - A, B, C, etc - wrapped in extremely emotional rhetoric. The audience, or opponent, accepts all the claims up to the final one - say, D - which is swiftly contested. However, A, B and C are also questionable claims, but thanks to the emotional blindsiding effect, they've gone uncontested. Thus, the speaker has smuggled dubious claims past their interlocutor via sloppy reasoning. The closest match I can think of is hypnotic bait and switch (but the definition implies that the claims are uncontroversial and true - I believe the format can work for cases where the claims are false or at least equivocal, but are accepted as true.) EDIT: As Dr Bo points out, this could also be considered a Gish Gallop. To deal with it, it's probably best to take stock of every individual point the speaker makes - if necessary, ask them to repeat themselves. You'd want to make sure you're focusing on the most relevant parts of the argument. |
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answered on Monday, Jul 25, 2022 07:04:17 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE) | ||||||||||||
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