Skip to main content

Chapter 11


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.

Comments

  1. 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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chap 5

Chapter five focuses primarily on identifying and developing propositions for problems that people think are relevant. It goes over 6 steps for choosing a valid proposition based on a perceived “feeling of doubt.” While all six steps may not be necessary, the collectively ensure a well thought out and firm proposition. The six steps include identifying the question, surveying implicated objectives (or understanding what is the goal accomplishment in regard to the question), searching for new information, considering alternative options, considering costs and risks of each potential proposition, and then finally choosing one of the propositions. The authors then go on to talk about analyzing and strengthening the proposition chosen. This includes identification and ranking of the issues that the proposition addresses as well as understanding how the decision makers will react to these issues and propositions. In general, with all these methods of critically analyzing the proposition, ...

Chapter 10

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...

Chaper 8

Chapter 8 of Argumentation and Critical Decision Making continues down the route of talking about support for argumentation. This chapter specifically focuses on values as support for arguments, how to recognize them and the best ways to attack them. Values are defined as “ concepts of what is desirable that arguers use and decision makers understand” (121).  There are several types of values mentioned such as stated, implied, positive, negative, terminal, instrumental, abstract and concrete values.  Stated values are state directly what concepts they hold. For example, words such as “freedom” or “health” are stated values because they mean exactly what they're trying to portray. Not all values are as explicit. Some are more vague and called implied values. One of the examples that the book uses to show the contrast between the two is in the case of work equality. When talking about the subject saying, “ Equal pay for equal work” would be a stated value and “ Women deserve th...