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 because it is the one we all have to look out for. When you are under
attack, the typical response is to want to fire back at that person that is
attacking you, but by responding with a countercharge you are just showing that
you have no other argument but to attack a claim. It is not always a fallacy to
respond to a charge with a countercharge, like everything in argumentation
context is extremely important; things like decision makers, who will oppose,
and the setting, always needs to be taken into consideration because the way we
argue will vary due to those factors.
There were a couple of terms I found in this chapter that I wish were explained a little more. First, the concept of uncritical responses to refutation is only covered briefly. I think that this is one of the most fundamental barriers to effective public argumentation in the United States right now. I find this issue most concerning for the liberal party. Recalling the last election and the concept of 'incremental' argumentation, I feel that people demonstrated a massive failure of critical thinking by voting for third parties or not voting. People who were disappointed with Hillary Clinton's candidacy in place of Bernie Sanders decided to either continue voting for Bernie or not vote altogether. Neither of these strategies amounted to effective support of their cause, and they constitute the uncritical "knee-jerk" reaction described in this chapter. In this case, uncritical response to opposition worked directly against the interests of the decision-makers. A...
Great job elaborating on this chapter Chloe. Fallacy claims are something common in arguments or debates. When first reading this, it was difficult to understand based off the textbook definition. With your explanation is clearer now. I agree with some of your points as well. For instance, I agree with your statement about the Tu Quoque, or counter charge, that it is the most important fallacy because it is the most common one. Counter charge is important to me because I experience them in my daily arguments on basketball topics. So I relate to your statement totally and back you up on it completely.
ReplyDelete