An Expert for Every Cause

Looking for links on appealing to authority? This is your post! First, here's an interesting article on a great question: How are those of us who aren't experts supposed to figure out the truth about stuff that requires expertise?

Not all alleged experts are actual experts. Here's a method to tell which experts are phonies (this article was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education).

It's important to check whether the person making an appeal to authority really knows who the authority is. That's why we should beware of claims that begin with "Studies show..."

And here's a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Christopher Walken completely flunks the competence test.

Possible Paper Articles

Here are some links to a variety of articles you could use for your paper on explaining and evaluating an article's argument. I strongly recommend using one of these articles, since most contain bad arguments:

1. Down With Facebook!: it's so stupid
2. Do Fish Feel Pain?: "it's a tricky issue, so I'll go with my gut"
   
3. In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: are some people just not meant for college?
4. Study Says Social Conservatives Are Dumb: but that doesn't mean they're wrong
5. You Don't Deserve Your Salary: no one does
   
   
6. The Financial Crisis Killed Libertarianism: if it wasn't dead to begin with
7. How'd Economists Get It So Wrong?: Krugman says the least wrong was Keynes
8. An Open Letter to Krugman: get to know your field
9. Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace ponders animal ethics
10. The Dark Art of Interrogation: Bowden says torture is necessary
11. The Idle Life is Worth Living: in praise of laziness
12. Should I Become a Professional Philosopher?: maybe not
    
13. Blackburn Defends Philosophy: it beats being employed

Paper Guideline

Due Date: the beginning of class on Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Worth: 5% of final grade

Length/Format: Papers must be typed, and must be between 300-600 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word & WordPerfect have automatic word counts.)

Assignment:
1) Pick an article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal in which an author presents an argument for a particular position. There are some links to potential articles here. I recommend choosing from those articles, though you are also free to choose an article on any topic you want.

TIP: It’s easier to write this paper on an article with a BAD argument. Try finding a poorly-reasoned article!

You must show Sean your article by Monday, April 19th for approval. The main requirement is that the article present an argument. One place to look for such articles is the Opinion page of a newspaper. Here’s a short list of some other good sources:

• The New Yorker
• Slate
• New York Review of Books
• London Review of Books
• Times Literary Supplement
• Boston Review
• Atlantic Monthly
• The New Republic
• The Weekly Standard
• The Nation
• Reason
• Dissent
• First Things
• Mother Jones
• National Journal
• The New Criterion
• Wilson Quarterly
• The Philosophers' Magazine
  

(for even more sources, check out the left-hand column of Arts & Letters Daily)

2) In the essay, first briefly explain the article’s argument in your own words. What is the position that the author is arguing for? What are the reasons the author offers as evidence for her or his conclusion? What type of argument does the author provide? In other words, provide a brief summary of the argument.
NOTE: This part of your paper shouldn’t be very long. I recommend making this about one paragraph of your paper.

3) In the essay, then evaluate the article’s argument. Overall, is this a good or bad argument? Why or why not? Systematically evaluate the argument: Check each premise: is each premise true? Or is it false? Questionable? (Do research if you have to in order to determine whether the author’s claims are true.) Then check the structure of the argument. Do the premises provide enough rational support for the conclusion? Does the argument contain any fallacies? If you are criticizing the article’s argument, be sure to consider potential responses that the author might offer, and explain why these responses don’t work. If you are defending the article’s argument, be sure to consider and respond to objections..
NOTE: This should be the main part of your paper. Focus most of your paper on evaluating the argument.

4) Attach a copy of the article to your paper when you hand it in. (Save trees! Print it on few pages!)

Have You Stopped Loading Questions?

Begging the Dinosaur

I couldn't resist giving you some stuff on begging the question. Here's my favorite video for Mims's logically delicious song "This is Why I'm Hot":

Let's Be Diplomatic: Straw Person

Here's some stuff on the straw man fallacy:

• Politicians love to distort their opponents' positions. Even Obama does it.
• Politicians aren't alone: we do it, too. Often we distort arguments for claims we disagree with without even realizing it. This is because we have trouble coming up with good reasons supporting a conclusion that we think is false, so we have a tendency to make up bad reasons and attribute them to our opponents.
  
• Hire your own professional straw man!

Also, speaking of red herrings, here's a cute cat picture:

Wait, we weren't just speaking of red her--Oh. I see what you did there.

Clever.

By Request

It wasn't here when you wrote it, but it is now:

Class Canceled Monday 3/22

Monday's class (March 22nd) is canceled. Sorry for the late notice.

Accentuate the Fallacy

The dark cartoon strip Cyanide & Happiness often employs amphiboly and the fallacy of accent for humorous results.





This one has a double accent fallacy:

Group Presentations

UPDATE: Here are the new dates for each presentation. Two groups will be going on some days.

Here are the assigned groups for the group presentations on fallacies, along with your topics and the tentative date of each presentation (those dates will probably be pushed back):

1. Accent & Division (already went): Bryan H., Hunter
   
2. Ad Hominem & Appeal to Force (already went): Andrew, Courtney, Kelly
   
3. Appeal to Pity & Popular Appeal (Monday, 3/22): Bob, Nick
   
4. Appeal to Ignorance & Hasty Generalization (Monday, 3/22): Fred, Justin, Lillie
   
5. Straw Man & Red Herring (Wednesday, 3/24): Jason, Jay
   
6. Begging the Question & Loaded Question (Friday, 3/26): Brent, Miranda
   
7. Appeal to Authority & False Dilemma (Friday, 3/26): Chris, Kyle, Tracey
   
8. Slippery Slope & The Naturalistic Fallacy (Monday, 3/29): Brian L., Dane
   

Feedback Wanted

Now that we're halfway through the course, I want to know what you like and dislike about the class so far. Give us your anonymous feedback in the comments to this post. In particular, I'd like to hear any constructive criticism you have, and tips for making the class better.

That's an Ad Hominem, Jerk

Here's some links on the ad hominem (personal attack) fallacy:

• Sure, some critics of Obama are racist, but does that mean we can dismiss their arguments? As much as we might want to, logically, no we cannot!
• Some variants on the personal attack: tu quoque (hypocrite!) and guilt by association (she hangs around bad people!).
• I should note that tu quoque isn't always fallacious reasoning.
  
• "The ad hominem rejoinders—ready the ad hominem rejoinders!"
• Remember our rallying cry: "STUPID PEOPLE SOMETIMES SAY SMART THINGS."
  

Get to studying, you ignorant sluts.

Midterm

Just a reminder: The midterm will be held at the beginning of class on Friday, March 12th. It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've done in class so far:

• definitions of 'logic,' 'reasoning,' and 'argument'
  
• evaluating arguments
• types of arguments:
  -deductive (aim for certainty, are valid/invalid and sound/unsound)
  -inductive (generalizing from examples, depend on large, representative samples)
  -args about cause/effect (correlation vs. causation)
  -abductive (inferences to the best explanation)
  
• the 4 to 6 fallacies covered in class so far
  

Get to studying!

Take My Wife, As Amphiboly

Here's some stand up from Henny Youngman, the violin-toting comedian who came up with "Take my wife... please!" How many jokes rely on amphiboly?

Fallacies, Fallacies, Everywhere

Looking for links on fallacies and equivocation? This is your post! First, there's a nice series of short articles on a bunch of different fallacies, including many that aren't in our book.... but also an entry on equivocation.

Speaking of, my best friend the inter-net has some nice examples of the fallacy of equivocation. Here is one good one:

A feather is light.

What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

Murder on the Abductive Express

Here's a paper that explains why I disagree with our textbook's explanation of the scientific method. It's important to consider and test multiple possible explanations rather than a single hypothesis:

• J.R. Platt's "Strong Inference" (pdf)

(NOTE: Platt uses the word "inductive" in a more general way than we do in class, to refer to any non-deductive kind of reasoning--that is, arguments that don't attempt to absolutely prove their conclusion.)

Also, in honor of abductive arguments, here's a dinosaur comic murder mystery.

P.S. I just bought this book: Inference to the Best Explanation by Peter Lipton.