Critical Inquiry

1. Critical Inquiry Part Two

2. Chapter 5objectives • Students will learn to: • Define the difference between rhetoric and argument • Detect rhetorical devices and their persuasive impact • Recognize prejudicial and nonprejudicial uses of rhetorical devices • Identify and critique the use of euphemisms, dysphemisms, weaslers, and downplayers • Identify and critique the use of stereotypes, innuendo, and loaded questions • Identify and critique the use of ridicule, sarcasm, and hyperbole • Identify and critique the use of rhetorical definitions, explanations, analogies, and misleading comparisons • Identify and critique the use of proof surrogates and repetition • Identify and critique the persuasive aspects of visual images

3. Chapter 5 • Introduction • Influencing Others • Rhetoric • Logical Force vs. Rhetorical Force • Rhetorical Devices • Rhetorical Devices I • Euphemisms & Dsyphemisms • Euphemism • Examples • Dysphemism • Examples • Appropriate Use

4. Chapter 5 • Weaslers • Weaslers • Examples • Weasel Words • Qualifying • Downplayers • Defined • Common Downplayers • Downplaying with conjunctions • Context & Downplaying

5. Chapter 5 • Rhetorical Devices II • Stereotypes • Stereotype • Examples • Uses • Innuendo • Innuendo • Examples • Condemning With Faint Praise • Loaded Questions • Loaded Question • Examples

6. Chapter 5 • Rhetorical Devices III • Horse Laugh/Ridicule/Sarcasm • Horse Laugh • Methods & Examples • Hyperbole • Hyperbole • Examples • Considerations • Varieties • Effects

7. Chapter 5 • Rhetorical Devices IV • Rhetorical Definitions & Rhetorical Explanations • Rhetorical Definitions • Rhetorical Explanations

8. Chapter 5 • Rhetorical Analogies & Misleading Comparisons • Rhetorical Analogies • Misleading Comparisons • Question 1: Is Important information missing? • Question 2: Is the same standard of comparison being used? Are the same reporting and recording practices being used? • Question 3: Are the items comparable? • Question 4: Is the comparison expressed as an average? • Mean • Median • Mode

9. Chapter 5 • Proof Surrogates & Repetition • Proof Surrogate • Defined • Examples • Repetition • Introduction • Method • Critical Thinking

10. Chapter 5 • Persuasion Using Visual Images • Introduction • Images • Images & Claims • Images & Emotions • Fake & Misleading Images • Deliberately manipulating the image. • Using unaltered images with misleading captions. • Deliberately selecting a camera angle that distorts information. • Lack of authority (author name, credentials) • Stills taken out of movies • Stills taken of models • Stills that are staged • Complete fabrications.

11. Chapter 5recap • Persuasion is the attempt to win someone to one's own point of view. • Rhetoric seeks to persuade through the use of the emotive power of language. • Although it can exert a profound psychological influence, rhetoric has no logical force; only an argument has logical force—i.e., can prove or support a claim.

12. Chapter 5recap • There are a multitude of rhetorical devices in common use; they include the following: • Euphemisms: seek to mute the disagreeable aspects of something or to emphasize its agreeable aspects • Dysphemisms: seek to emphasize the disagreeable aspects of something • Weaselers: words and phrases that protect a claim by weakening it • Downplayers: techniques for toning down the importance of something • Stereotypes: unwarranted and oversimplified generalizations about the members of a group or class • Innuendo: using words with neutral or positive associations to insinuate something deprecatory • Loaded questions: questions that depend on unwarranted assumptions • Ridicule and sarcasm: widely used to put something in a bad light • Hyperbole: overdone exaggeration • Rhetorical definitions and explanations: used to create favorable or unfavorable attitudes about something • Rhetorical analogies and misleading comparisons: these devices persuade by making inappropriate connections between terms. • Proof surrogates suggest there is evidence or authority for a claim without actually saying what the evidence or authority is • Repetition: hearing or reading a claim over and over can sometimes mistakenly encourage the belief that it is true

13. Chapter 5recap • These devices can affect our thinking in subtle ways, even when we believe we are being objective. • Some of these devices, especially euphemisms and weaselers, have valuable, nonprejudicial uses as well as a slanting one. Only if we are speaking, writing, listening, and reading carefully can we distinguish prejudicial uses of these devices. • Although photographs and other images are not claims or arguments, they can enter into critical thinking by offering evidence of the truth or falsity of claims. They can also affect us psychologically in a manner analogous to that by which the emotive meaning of language affects us, and often even more powerfully.

14. Chapter 6objectives • Students will learn to: • Recognize and name fallacies that appeal directly to emotion • Recognize and name fallacies that appeal to psychological elements other than emotion

15. Chapter 6 • Introduction • Introduction • Pseudoreasoning • Things to Keep in Mind • Fallacies that Involve Emotions • The “Argument” from Outrage (Appeal to Anger) • Introduction • We may think we have been given a reason to be angry when we have not. • We may let the anger we feel as the result of one thing influence our evaluations of an unrelated thing • The “Argument” from Outrage • Scapegoating • Examples

16. Chapter 6 • Scare Tactics • Scare Tactics • Examples • Scare Tactics & Warnings • Other Fallacies Based on Emotions • “Argument” from Pity (Appeal to Pity) • Defined • Examples • Pity & Reasons • “Argument” from Envy • Defined • Examples

17. Chapter 6 • Apple Polishing • Defined • Examples • Praise/Being Polite • Guilt Trip • Defined • Examples • Appropriate Guilt • Wishful Thinking • Defined • Examples • Positive Thinking • The Placebo Effect • Attitude

18. Chapter 6 • Peer Pressure • Defined • Examples • Bandwagon • Group Think Fallacy • Introduction • Examples • Nationalism • Defined • Use • Examples • Emotional Fallacies • Defined

19. Chapter 6 • Some Non-Emotion Based Fallacies • Smokescreen/Red Herring • Smokescreen/Red Herring • Examples • Everyone Knows • “Argument” from Popularity (Appeal to Popularity, Ad Populum, Appeal to Belief) • Defined • Differences from peer pressure & groupthink • Examples • When What People Believe Determines What is True. • When What People Believe Indicates What is True. • Another Technique

20. Chapter 6 • “Argument” from Common Practice • Defined • Different from the “Argument” from Popularity • Examples • Request for Fair Play • “Argument” from Tradition • Defined • Examples • Test of Time • Rationalizing • Rationalizing • Examples • Non-Selfish • Encouraging Others

21. Chapter 6 • Two Wrongs Make a Right • Two Wrongs Make a Right • Examples • Other Considerations • Retributivism • Punishment/Retaliation • Prevention/Self Defense

22. Chapter 6Recap • Fallacies that appeal to emotion: • Argument from outrage • Scare tactics • Argument by force • Argument from pity • Argument from envy • Apple polishing • Guilt trip • Wishful thinking • Peer pressure “argument” • Groupthink fallacy • Nationalism

23. Chapter 6Recap • Other fallacies discussed in this chapter don't invoke emotions directly but are closely related to emotional appeals. These include • Red herring/smoke screen • Appeal to popularity • Appeal to common practice • Appeal to tradition • Rationalization • Two wrongs make a right

24. Chapter 7Objectives • Students will learn to: • Recognize several types of fallacies that confuse the qualities of a person making a claim with the qualities of the claim • Recognize fallacies that refute a claim on the basis of its origins • Recognize fallacies that misrepresent an opponent’s position • Recognize fallacies that erroneously limit considerations to only two options • Recognize fallacious claims that one action or event will inevitability lead to another • Recognize arguments that place the burden of proof on the wrong party • Recognize the problem in arguments that rely on a claim that is itself at issue

25. Chapter 7 • The Ad Hominem (“to the man”) • Introduction • Personal Attack • Defined • Examples • The Inconsistency Ad Homimen (ad homimemtuquoque) • General Form • Version 1: Action inconsistent with claim. • Version 2: Past claim not consistent with current claim. • Examples • Circumstantial Ad Homimen • Defined • Form • Examples • Poisoning the Well • Defined • Example • Version: denial

26. Chapter 7 • Genetic Fallacy • Genetic Fallacy • Examples • Difference between ad hominem & genetic fallacy • Positive Ad Hominem Fallacies • Positive Ad Hominem • Straw Man • Straw Man • Defined • Unknown Fact • Examples

27. Chapter 7 • False Dilemma • False Dilemma • Defined • Examples • Combined with Straw Man • Real Dilemmas • Perfectionist Fallacy • Defined • Examples • Legitimate Standards • Line Drawing Fallacy • Defined • Examples • Vague Terms

28. Chapter 7 • Slippery Slope • Slippery Slope • Version 1: Inevitable • Version 2: Continue on a course (“Vietnam Fallacy”) • Non-fallacious cases that look like Slippery Slope • Examples • Misplacing the Burden of Proof • Burden of Proof • Placing the Burden of Proof • Initial Plausibility • Affirmative/Negative • Special Circumstances • Appeal to Ignorance • Defined • Examples

29. Chapter 7 • Begging the Question • Begging the Question • Defined • Misuse • Examples • Rhetorical Definitions

30. Chapter 7recap • 1. Personal attack ad hominem: Thinking a person’s defects refute his or her beliefs. • 2. Circumstantial ad hominem: thinking a person’s circumstances refute his or her beliefs. • 3. Inconsistency ad hominem: thinking a person’s inconsistencies refute his or her beliefs. • 4. Poisoning the Well: encouraging others to dismiss what someone will say, by citing the speaker’s defects, inconsistencies, circumstances, or other personal attributes. • 5. Genetic Fallacy: thinking that the origin or history of a belief refutes it. • 6. Straw Man: “rebutting” a claim by offering a distorted or exaggerated version of it. • 7. False Dilemma: an erroneous narrowing down of the range of alternatives; saying that we have to accept X or Y (and omitting that we might do Z). • 8. Perfectionist Fallacy: arguing that we either do something completely or not at all. • 9. Line-drawing fallacy: requiring that a precise line be drawn someplace on a scale or continuum when no such precise line can be drawn; usually occurs when a vague concept is treated like a precise one.

31. Chapter 7recap • 10. Slippery slope: refusing to take the first step in a progression on the unwarranted grounds that doing so will make taking the remaining steps inevitable or insisting erroneously on taking the remainder of the steps simply because the first one was taken., • 11. Misplacing burden of proof: requiring the wrong side of an issue to make its case. • 12. Begging the question: assuming as true the claim that is at issue and doing this as if you were giving an argument.