CRITICAL INQUIRY
PART TWO
CHAPTER 5
OBJECTIVES
• 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
CHAPTER 5
• Introduction
• Influencing Others
• Rhetoric
• Logical Force vs. Rhetorical Force
• Rhetorical Devices
• Rhetorical Devices I
• Euphemisms & Dsyphemisms
•
•
•
•
•
Euphemism
Examples
Dysphemism
Examples
Appropriate Use
CHAPTER 5
• Weaslers
•
•
•
•
Weaslers
Examples
Weasel Words
Qualifying
• Downplayers
•
•
•
•
Defined
Common Downplayers
Downplaying with conjunctions
Context & Downplaying
CHAPTER 5
• Rhetorical Devices II
• Stereotypes
• Stereotype
• Examples
• Uses
• Innuendo
• Innuendo
• Examples
• Condemning With Faint Praise
• Loaded Questions
• Loaded Question
• Examples
CHAPTER 5
• Rhetorical Devices III
• Horse Laugh/Ridicule/Sarcasm
• Horse Laugh
• Methods & Examples
• Hyperbole
•
•
•
•
•
Hyperbole
Examples
Considerations
Varieties
Effects
CHAPTER 5
• Rhetorical Devices IV
• Rhetorical Definitions & Rhetorical Explanations
• Rhetorical Definitions
• Rhetorical Explanations
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
CHAPTER 5
• Proof Surrogates & Repetition
• Proof Surrogate
• Defined
• Examples
• Repetition
• Introduction
• Method
• Critical Thinking
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.
CHAPTER 5
RECAP
• 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.
CHAPTER 5
RECAP
• 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
CHAPTER 5
RECAP
• 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.
CHAPTER 6
OBJECTIVES
• 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
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
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
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
CHAPTER 6
• Peer Pressure
• Defined
• Examples
• Bandwagon
• Group Think Fallacy
• Introduction
• Examples
• Nationalism
• Defined
• Use
• Examples
• Emotional Fallacies
• Defined
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
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
CHAPTER 6
• Two Wrongs Make a Right
• Two Wrongs Make a Right
• Examples
• Other Considerations
• Retributivism
• Punishment/Retaliation
• Prevention/Self Defense
CHAPTER 6
RECAP
• 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
CHAPTER 6
RECAP
• 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
CHAPTER 7
OBJECTIVES
• 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
CHAPTER 7
• The Ad Hominem (“to the man”)
• Introduction
• Personal Attack
• Defined
• Examples
• The Inconsistency Ad Homimen (ad homimem tu quoque)
•
•
•
•
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
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
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
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
CHAPTER 7
• Begging the Question
• Begging the Question
• Defined
• Misuse
• Examples
• Rhetorical Definitions
CHAPTER 7
RECAP
• 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.
CHAPTER 7
RECAP
• 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.