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For Reflection #1 we will focus on specific skills required for philosophical thinking. From the possible three questions below, you must complete at least TWO to receive full credit for your reflection. The three possible questions are in bold at the top of the page. Below the questions, I have included additional information by way of a philosophical explanation to make answering each question easier for you! Please take a moment to carefully read the philosophical explanation so that you can get full credit for this assignment.
1. Pick one of the following logical fallacies (straw man, begging the question, ad hominem, post hoc, false dichotomy, appeal to authority, equivocation, or hasty generalization) and search social media for an example of this fallacy in action. Once you have found an example of this fallacy, please 1) take a screenshot of the fallacy to submit for your reflection and then 2) explain how this example fits the criteria of whatever particular fallacy you are doing, and 3) what steps you would need to take in order to fix the logical fallacy (that is to make this a good, coherent argument.)
2. Find a letter to the editor (or an opinion piece) on an issue you care about: sports, politics, arts, a local cause, a school or person, etc. [This can be most any news source or blog, etc. so long as whatever source you use has an editor!] After copying the link (or taking a screenshot of the letter) please analyze the argument following the steps explained below.
3. Create a thought experiment to prove a philosophical intuition you have about something. Please review the examples below if you need help sorting out how to write a thought experiment.
1. Fallacies
A logical fallacy is made whenever someone makes a false inference within an argument or syllogism. Or said another way, a fallacy occurs wherever there is faulty reasoning in an argument.
Straw Man Fallacy: To misrepresent the position of the opponent, usually by replacing their position with a different/weaker position, and then attacking that (weaker) position. The subject of the argument itself is not being addressed.
Example: Rather than address someone’s nuanced position, I might simplify their argument in order to defeat it.
Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning) Fallacy: Re-stating or reaffirming the premise as the conclusion, without any further explanation.
Example: “Joe always tells the truth.” You might ask me how I know that. If I respond: “because Joe says he always tells the truth.” That is circular reasoning.
Ad Hominem Fallacy: Attacking the person and not their argument. Often this looks like saying someone’s identity disqualifies them from making an argument.
Example: Telling someone that they are stupid doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to their argument. Sometimes stupid people make smart points.
Post Hoc Fallacy: Correlation doesn’t necessarily entail causation. Just because one event happens before the next event, doesn’t mean that the first event caused the second event to happen.
Example: As it turns out, divorce rates in Maine correlate to the per capita consumption of margarine. [Science News for Students, Kowalski, K. ] But just because these two correlate does not mean that one causes the other. (Divorces do not necessarily cause more consumption of margarine.)
False Dichotomy: A fallacy because it erroneously limits options.
Example: Perhaps your friend or partner has told you that you have two options: do a thing now or do a thing later. But oftentimes this gets rid of other important options (like should you do this thing at all.)
Hasty Generalization: A fallacy because it involves drawing a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon that has been reached on the basis of one or a few instances of that phenomenon.
Example: The one time I went to Texas everyone was wearing cowboy hats. Therefore I assume that everyone in Texas wears cowboy hats.
2. How to analyze philosophical texts.
When you are reading philosophy texts, please ask yourself the following questions.
What? 1)What is the focus of the text? 2) What is their fundamental argument? 3) What point are they trying to prove?
Why? 1) Why have they written this? 2) What/who is it in response to? 3) What was it written for?
How? 1) How have they proved their point? 2)How does the argument take shape?
The first time your read through:
Read as you would normally
Don’t expect to understand everything!
Don’t stop at bits you find confusing (there will be time for this later)
Try and get an overall sense of the argument the author is presenting
What examples do they use?
What are the obvious strengths and weaknesses?
How do they defend their thesis?
At this stage, you should be able to roughly answer some of the initial questions, and begin to piece together an overall understanding of the issues presented.
The second time you read through:
This one is about the details
Try and read this a bit more slowly (I know this can be painful!)
How does each part of the text help to answer the key questions?
3. Thought experiments
One of the ways that philosophers tease out their intuitions on a question is by providing hypothetical examples (usually the stuff of sci-fiction movies.) These thought experiments are like scientific experiments as they have a hypothesis that the philosophers want to test. But in these cases, you “complete” the experiment by thinking about similar situations slightly different variables.
The Frankfurt counter-examples are just this—meant to judge your intuition about freedom. Here is an example of one of Frankfurt’s thought experiments.
“BLACK AND JONES: A neuroscientist, Black, wants Jones to perform a certain action. Black is prepared to go to considerable lengths to get his way, but he prefers to avoid showing his hand unnecessarily. So he waits until Jones is about to make up his mind what to do, and he does nothing unless it is clear to him (Black is an excellent judge of such things) that Jones is going to decide to do something other than what he wants him to do. If it were to become clear that Jones is going to decide to do something else, Black would take effective steps to ensure that Jones decides to do what he wants him to do, by directly manipulating the relevant processes in Jones’s brain. As it turns out, Black never has to show his hand because Jones, for reasons of his own, decides to perform the very action Black wants him to perform.” From Frankfurt, H. (1969) “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Journal of Philosophy 66: 829-39.
The Frankfurt counterexamples were used to push back against the hypothesis that the only way to be morally responsible is if you could have done otherwise. This changed the way people understood freedom, as before these counterexamples it was thought that freedom meant the possibility of doing otherwise.
Ad Hominem Fallacy: Attacking the person and not their argument. Often this looks like saying someone’s identity disqualifies them from making an argument.
Example: Telling someone that they are stupid doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to their argument. Sometimes stupid people make smart points.
Taking keys away from someone generally applies to an elder person who is no longer capable of driving. This post is an example of an Ad Hominem Fallacy because it is implying President Trump
Hasty Generalization: A fallacy because it involves drawing a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon that has been reached on the basis of one or a few instances of that phenomenon.
Example: The one time I went to Texas everyone was wearing cowboy hats. Therefore I assume that everyone in Texas wears cowboy hats.
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