COMM 3615: Argumentation (FA18)

I had a hard time picking a chapter to read for this blog post because I am really interested in argumentation in law, religion, and politics. I decided to do my blog post on chapter 16 “Argumentation in Government and Politics” because I think this is a topic that really pertains to present times, especially if we take a look at President Trump, it has been made very clear that his argumentational ways are faulty. Political argumentation is defined in the text as “...the process of using verbal and visual arguments to influence the policy decisions of a political community.” (278) The most important thing to remember with political argumentation is that the main claims that are used are policy claims, claims that advocate for some kind of policy change. I think the most important part of political arguments is evidence and credibility together. In order for the audience to adhere to your claims as a political figure, the evidence you are presenting must be credible, and therefore havi...

For our final blog post, I chose to focus on Chapter 16, which covers argumentation in government and politics. I chose this chapter because this is the subject I had focused my annotated bibliography around, so I was interested in expanding upon what I had previously learned. The topic that stuck out to me the most in the chapter was the concept of the public sphere. This likely wouldn't have stuck out as much to other people, but I took a rhetorical theory class last semester that put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the public sphere, and I thought it was cool to see how that concept tied to argumentation. In my rhetorical theory class, we talked about the public sphere and how it has changed since Plato's time, and before. We talked a lot about the bourgeoisie, who were the "upper class" at the time, and how they would form these "public spheres" to have meetings and make decisions about who society should be run. The circle was selective. Howe...

In this chapter on fallacy claims, I think the biggest foundation is honesty.   When you look at any of the other topics we have looked at (evidence, values, etc.), we learned that we need to be able to have proof and background to support our argument.   In this chapter, we learned that we need to give accurate information to the decision makers, otherwise we are providing misleading information.   The book argues that using fallacies is inappropriate, but I would argue it is more than inappropriate, and that it is completely wrong.   I think using fallacies can harm your reputation and that is so important when making arguments.   I also wonder why a person would want to provide bad information.   I think that it is always best to give the best, 100% accurate information so that the best decision can actually be made, even if the decision is not what you would have wanted.  

Chapter 11 of the textbook discusses refutation by fallacy claims. Fallacies are individual errors in reasoning that are subject to refutation. The textbook says that “a fallacy claim asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers. The textbook also gives three characteristics central to the concept of fallacy. First when charging that an argument makes a fallacy you must prove it to the decision makers in a satisfactory way. In order to prove a fallacy you cannot merely point it out to the decision makers, you must instead pinpoint the issue and prove that it is, in fact, a fallacy. Second a fallacy claim is significant and cannot just be nit-picking an argument. A fallacy cannot just be a small slip of the tongue for example it must be a significant deviation from the appropriate practices of argumentation. Finally a fallacy claim is dependent on a significant rule of argumentation and for ...

Responding to a charge by making a countercharge, or a tu quoque  is the term for when someone responds to a claim by pointing to another claim which seeks to nullify or normalize the original charge. The textbook provides an example of a university professor charged with using funds to lavishly redecorate his office; his countercharge is to make salient that the attorney general (who asserted the original charge) just spend significant money for a new door into her office. The Recent statement Trump made about the Saudi government, which made public the USA's (quietly held) 30 year tradition of exempting the Saudi government from human rights abuses because they are a clever economic ally in the Middle East, made the left furious. Conservative commentators made the point that Obama too was guilty of turning a blind eye to the Saudi Arabia government. The erroneous argument made by the right in response to left's back lash fails to address the issue at hand. However, it does d...

In Chapter 11, the authors of the text discuss refutation by fallacy claims. The authors describe fallacies as individual errors in reasoning subject to refutation; however, in argumentation, they stress using the term “fallacy claim”. The authors state, “A fallacy claim asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers” (Rieke, Sillars, & Peterson, 174). When describing the characteristics of fallacy claims, the authors discussed something particularly interesting. The authors remarked, “A fallacy claim charges significant deviance from appropriate argumentation practices” (Rieke, Sillars, & Peterson, 175). Criticizing small and insignificant errors in your opponent’s arguments is not especially effective and criticizing errors requires more critical judgment to appropriately refute an argument in a collaborative manner like the authors have stressed in earlier chapters. To illustrate t...

I thought this chapter was super interesting, especially because it mentioned tu quoque fallacies, otherwise known as changing the subject when accused of something and redirecting attention by pointing out something else. I think this happens a lot when unsavory accusations are made against public figures. Oftentimes, the response will be to point out something bad that the accuser did, even if it does not address the initial claim in the slightest. President Trump is a frequent subject of to quoque fallacies. The most prominent example I can think of is where he repeatedly brought up Hillary Clinton's emails while not addressing the public's demand for his tax records. President Trump still has not released all of his tax records and often takes to Twitter to redirect claims back at his accusers. However, many of his rebuttal claims are sensationalized, so people pay more attention to the claims that he makes rather than the initial accusatory claim. This also gets back to cr...

I'd like to look at a few select concepts from this chapter. First, I found the section on fallacious claims of sophistry interesting because sophistry is a major topic in my rhetorical theory class. A major problem with the behavior and style of the sophists was their tendency to resort to circular argumentation to prove their points. I was happy to see circular argumentation appear again in this section because I personally find it to be a fixture of manipulative people. In ancient Greece, the original sophists held personal maxims that often related to the "all" or the infinite. Their arguments about any subject would generally devolve into a claim about the infinite and unknowable. In effect, this was circular argumentation because everything was reduced to the same point or points constantly. Today, I see this with political pundits arguing about the merits of different systems of government and trade. Often, these discussions become nonsensical because the discuss...

In this chapter we take a look at fallacy claims as a way to use them in refutation. I think this is important because we have the ability to hold people accountable to their claims and arguments. This is strictly important when arguing things that can possibly contradict what you are wanting to say in the message. Following the rules of argumentation is important in the systematic approach of making sure an argument is solid. For example, if logic is used in an argument and the result of the claims are illogical, then that could be a fallacy claim. An example from the textbook would be "Japanese eat raw fish. Sharks eat raw fish. Therefore, Japanese are sharks" (Pg.176). The logical fallacy has to do with the middle term in the statement as it does not link Japanese to sharks. Therefore, the third claim would be false and illogical. It is important to take into consideration the logical fallacies because it can claims not true even though the statements might be. This is imp...

In chapter 11 we talked about Fallacy. Fallacy is defined as a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument and/or a failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid and/or faulty reasoning; misleading or unsound argument. Therefore, in an article written about the prisoners in a Delaware prison being beaten by correctional officers the supervisor thought the prisoners complaints were a fallacy. She did not believe that the information that the prisoners were giving about being physically and verbally abuse was real even though there was evidence from the prisoners psychiatrists and exams. She thought they were trying to get the correctional officers in trouble and that the information they were providing for this argument were fallacy when in fact it was real. How would you not know that this information is true? Situations like this are tricky, would you believe the prisoners after who knows what they have done in and outside the prison in the past? Maybe th...

Fallacy claims in argumentation are points of weakness or flawed logic in a persons argument that another person can use against you, or vice versa, to weaken the other persons argument or discredit them. When you are able to pinpoint a fallacy, it is important not to just state that they are being illogical but to address the statement directly from which they said to make it as clear as possible to the decision makers which helps guide them through why the statement or stance the opposition is taking is being inconsistent. In addition, a fallacy can occur when a fact that an arguer is giving is either over or understated. This happens because someone may want to emphasize how important or insignificant something is to the decision makers and at face value, may look very valid, but looking into the actual stats of the statistic, it is no more than an inflated/deflated number used to gain favor quickly and can corrected. Fallacy claims and there recognition may also depend on...

A fallacy is an error in reasoning. The word fallacy actually comes from the word logic. We use the term fallacy for argumentation because it is not automatic and must be argued like any other claim. (pg.174) There are many types of fallacy claims. Fallacy claims of sophistry, appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, fallacies in language, etc. Appeal to authority I believe is the most important. Appeal to authority is something that I mention in my other blog posts when talking about credibility and its importance. In the book it talks about how appeal to authority is when someone believes a claim is true just because someone with authority says so. The issue with that is that just because someone has authority or is credible doesn't necessarily mean they are credible in the topic that is being discussed. The book says it this way, "When the so-called authority is not an authority on the question at issue or is biased." (pg.178) This is important because before just as...

Fallacies are, at their core, illogical arguments, and most people who are familiar with basic argumentation are familiar with the concept of a logical fallacy. However, many people are unaware of what can be defined as a fallacy, and this can lead to people making arguments that they believe to be logically sound when in reality they are anything but. A common example of this is the fallacy of begging the question. The book says that begging the question occurs when an arguer assumes that the point they are trying to prove is true when making their argument, and using that assumption as support for another claim. This can be especially problematic when partisan media is involved, as people can receive biased news and then use it as support for another claim. An example of this would be someone arguing in favor of using tear gas on immigrants because of the need to keep out people who will hurt our country and citizens after hearing on Fox News that immigrants are dangerous. The poin...

This week's chapter is about refutation by fallacy claims. Fallacy claims stem from the concept of argumentation or refutation through logic. However, logic is often viewed as having ties to mathematics, and it isn't usually applied to decision making. So, fallacy claims come into play as a sort of conceptual logic; it points out violations of important rules of argumentation that are applicable to the decision makers. Fallacies are not automatic, they are argued like other claims. The book states that there are three central characteristics of fallacy. The first is is that one must be able to pinpoint an issue that needs resolution and prove it to the decision makers. For example, some people argue that they dislike Trump because he is inconsistent. If they were to make this claim to a group of decision makers, however, they would need to support that, otherwise, Trump could just say, "no I'm not," and move forward. In this case, one would want to bring up, say...

Chapter 11 defines its main idea of fallacy claims on page 174, which says that it “asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers.” This definition is understandable, however there are three main characteristics (p.175) to this concept that must also be considered when using this type of claim. These three characteristics play into each other very well as they all connect to different aspects of a fallacy claim. First, a fallacy claim requires a person to pin-point the hidden issue that needs to be fixed. This concept involves undertaking the opposing point that may contain a fallacy, then proving this violation of argument to decision makers. This is not usually self-evident, which is why arguers need to seek out these false claims. A good example of this is when pointing out simple inconsistencies in an opposing argument, one needs to specifically point out why their opponent is inconsis...

In this chapter, the author talks about refutation by fallacy claims. He talks about the different types of fallacies and how they are used in argumentation. He defines a fallacy claim as “one that asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers.” In this blog post I will particularly focus on the Ad Hominem Fallacy. It is defined as “when people turn their criticism against a person rather than the person’s ideas.” The author gives the example of how we unconsciously use the ad hominem fallacy when listening to argument by attractive people and tend to believe them more than unattractive people just based on their looks. He also gives an example of how people might blame and start threatening all Muslims in a city upon learning that the shooting in the city mall was done by a Muslim immigrant.               These examples le...

I'm really excited to discuss this chapter! Studying fallacies has been a part of my education since high school and I feel it rarely has come up in my Comm courses. So, for this post, I want to take the opportunity to talk about 2 of the fallacies I find most interesting, and explain how I see them applying to arguments. First, let's start with a fun on; deception. I think the most interesting part of deception the idea that deception only works because the group being deceived subconsciously wants the same outcome. The book references advertising, explaining that the ideal imagery depicted in many ads, "relies on the force of our own fantasies" (182). This makes deception a little tricky, because it create a double-edged sword. On one hand, you can appeal to the masses by tapping into their hopes and dreams to get them to follow you, but in order to do so you have to intentionally lie, falsify, orc cover-up information that would keep them from following you. Defi...

Chapter 11 focuses on three types of fallacy claims that can be made as refutation in argument. Of the three, incorrect logic, sophistry and violations of discussion rules, I find sophistry the most intriguing. Sophistry deals with the idea that fallacies in argument are often plausible even though they don’t hold true, and the danger is that they are often believed by the public and can result in bad decisions. I think this is extremely important in politics, especially in today’s political climate, because uncalled fallacies can lead to devastating policy decisions. There is a certain responsibility put on a presenter in the light of sophistry because he or she can be accountable, through their fallacies, for huge decisions for the country. Ad Hominem and countercharge are fallacies that are used regularly by politicians; it is not uncommon for them to build themselves up by tearing their opponents down, attacking their beliefs and personhood. Sadly, this does help popularity and the...

In chapter 11, the book shifts towards the topic of refutation by fallacy claims, which means when you state someone’s claim is factually wrong. All fallacies talked about in this chapter are important and seen in every argument. I think I witness a fallacy in the arguments I have daily with teammates about sports. After every claim made, someone tries to refute the argument because of false statements made, then the counterclaims tend to find its way into each and every argument. I think the counterclaims are the most important part in this section because it allows you to correct your fallacy in continue to strengthen your argument for your decision makers. In all honesty, rebuttals in general strengthens any argument because it makes you think your argument through. In addition to that, a counterclaim to a fallacy in an argument just strengthens it even more with correcting your fallacy with a new and improved claim with the right facts.

Chapter 11 addresses the issue of various fallacies that are often seen when doing a rebuttal and how to use fallacy claims in order to call out this faulty rebuttal. Similar to chapter 10, chapter 11 discusses how to avoid having a bad refutation by avoiding the use of fallacies in a rebuttal.   A fallacy claim which is defined in the text as “…asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers.” (174) is the claim one should make when a fallacy in the rebuttal occurs. There are various fallacies listed in this chapter that are important in my opinion and are fallacies that we see in almost every argument. Responding to a rebuttal with a counter charge, known as tu quoque, is in my opinion the most common rebuttal we see in everyday argumentation as well as “professional” argumentation, for example a presidential debate. This fallacy is the most important one in my opinion...