Logical Fallacies: a Beginner’S Guide Which Logical Fallacy Would Be Your Favorite Pick from the List Below?
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Couch's “Physical Alteration” Fallacy: Its Origins And
COUCH’S “PHYSICAL ALTERATION” FALLACY: ITS ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES Richard P. Lewis,∗ Lorelie S. Masters,∗∗ Scott D. Greenspan*** & Chris Kozak∗∗∗∗ I. INTRODUCTION Look at virtually any Covid-19 case favoring an insurer, and you will find a citation to Section 148:46 of Couch on Insurance.1 It is virtually ubiquitous: courts siding with insurers cite Couch as restating a “widely held rule” on the meaning of “physical loss or damage”—words typically in the trigger for property-insurance coverage, including business- income coverage. It has been cited, ad nauseam, as evidence of a general consensus that all property-insurance claims require some “distinct, demonstrable, physical alteration of the property.”2 Indeed, some pro-insurer decisions substitute a citation to this section for an actual analysis of the specific language before the court. Couch is generally recognized as a significant insurance treatise, and courts have cited it for almost a century.3 That ∗ Partner, ReedSmith LLP, New York. ∗∗ Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Washington D.C. *** Senior Counsel, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, New York. ∗∗∗∗ Associate, Plews Shadley Racher & Braun, LLP, Indianapolis. 1 10A STEVEN PLITT, ET AL., COUCH ON INSURANCE 3D § 148:46. As shown below, some courts quote Couch itself, while others cite cases citing Couch and merely intone the “distinct, demonstrable, physical alteration” language without citing Couch itself. Couch First and Couch Second were published in hardback books (with pocket parts), in 1929 and 1959 respectively. As explained below (infra n.5), Couch 3d, a looseleaf, was first published in 1995.. 2 Id. (emphasis added); Oral Surgeons, P.C. -
Informal Fallacies 2
Ashford University - Ed Tech | Informal_Fallacies_2 JUSTIN Hi, everybody. This is going to be a continuation of the informal logical fallacy HARRISON: discussion. The next one we're going to be talking about is the relativist fallacy. This is a common one that you see. Even in intellectual circles, you see really smart people falling into this fallacy. Well, I guess you can be consistent, but it's very hard to be consistent. The relativist fallacy occurs when you say that, for example, different cultures have different beliefs so what's right in one culture or what's right for one group is right and good. And then something that's opposite in another group is considered right and good. And those two things are right and good for both cultures or groups or whatever it might be. Well, there are different types of relativism, but cultural relativism would say things like, well, we can't judge other cultures because their actions are right based on their own definitions of what is right. And our definitions of what is right and wrong are different. Therefore, what they believe is right is right and what we believe is right is right. And hopefully you can see the problem with this is that-- let's say that we're confronting a culture that subjugates women. And in that culture, it is right or morally acceptable to gang rape a woman, which is actually-- this happens in the world-- when she's been accused of some crime-- often a crime that she didn't commit, but she's just been accused of it. -
A Pragmatic Study of Fallacy in George W. Bush's Political Speeches Pjaee, 17(12) (2020)
A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF FALLACY IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S POLITICAL SPEECHES PJAEE, 17(12) (2020) A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF FALLACY IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S POLITICAL SPEECHES Dr. Ghanim Jwaid Al-Sieedy1, Haider Rajih Wadaah Al-Jilihawi2 1,2University of Karbala - College of Education. Dr. Ghanim Jwaid Al-Sieedy , Haider Rajih Wadaah Al-Jilihawi , A Pragmatic Study Of Fallacy In George W. Bush's Political Speeches , Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology 18(4). ISSN 1567-214x. Keywords: Political speeches, Pragmatics, Fallacy, Argument. Abstract: A fallacy can be described as the act of issuing a faulty argument to support and reinforce a previously published argument for purposes of persuasion. However, a fallacy is a broad subject that has been addressed from several viewpoints. A few experiments have tried to counter the fallacy pragmatically. However, the attempts above have suffered from shortcomings, which made them incomplete accounts in this regard. Hence, this study has set itself to provide pragmatic models for the analysis of fallacy as far as its pragmatic structure, forms, methods, and applications are concerned. These models use many models produced by several academics and the researchers themselves' observations. The validity of the established models was tested by reviewing seven speeches by George W. Bush taken before and after the war in Iraq (2002-2008). The analyses demonstrated the efficacy of the models created. Mostly because they have yielded varied results, it is clear that fallacy is a process of stages, with each round distinct for its pragmatic components and strategies. 1. Introduction: The fallacy has been regarded as a critical issue by numerous studies investigating the definition from different lenses. -
Chapter 4: INFORMAL FALLACIES I
Essential Logic Ronald C. Pine Chapter 4: INFORMAL FALLACIES I All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare necessities and then must be expressed in a few stereotyped formulas. Adolf Hitler Until the habit of thinking is well formed, facing the situation to discover the facts requires an effort. For the mind tends to dislike what is unpleasant and so to sheer off from an adequate notice of that which is especially annoying. John Dewey, How We Think Introduction In everyday speech you may have heard someone refer to a commonly accepted belief as a fallacy. What is usually meant is that the belief is false, although widely accepted. In logic, a fallacy refers to logically weak argument appeal (not a belief or statement) that is widely used and successful. Here is our definition: A logical fallacy is an argument that is usually psychologically persuasive but logically weak. By this definition we mean that fallacious arguments work in getting many people to accept conclusions, that they make bad arguments appear good even though a little commonsense reflection will reveal that people ought not to accept the conclusions of these arguments as strongly supported. Although logicians distinguish between formal and informal fallacies, our focus in this chapter and the next one will be on traditional informal fallacies.1 For our purposes, we can think of these fallacies as "informal" because they are most often found in the everyday exchanges of ideas, such as newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, political speeches, advertisements, conversational disagreements between people in social networking sites and Internet discussion boards, and so on. -
Logical Fallacies and Distraction Techniques
Sample Activity Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy: Logical Fallacies and Distraction Techniques Joe Heafner [email protected] Version 2017-09-13 STUDENT NOTE PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT. 2017-09-13 Activity0105 CONTENTS Contents QuestionsSample Activity1 Materials Needed 1 Points To Remember 1 1 Fallacies and Distractions1 Student1.1 Lying................................................. Version 1 1.2 Shifting The Burden.........................................2 1.3 Appeal To Emotion.........................................3 1.4 Appeal To The Past.........................................4 1.5 Appeal To Novelty..........................................5 1.6 Appeal To The People (Appeal To The Masses, Appeal To Popularity).............6 1.7 Appeal To Logic...........................................7 1.8 Appeal To Ignorance.........................................8 1.9 Argument By Repetition....................................... 10 1.10 Attacking The Person........................................ 11 1.11 Confirmation Bias.......................................... 12 1.12 Strawman Argument or Changing The Subject.......................... 13 1.13 False Premise............................................. 14 1.14 Hasty Generalization......................................... 15 1.15 Loaded Question........................................... 16 1.16 Feigning Offense........................................... 17 1.17 False Dilemma............................................ 17 1.18 Appeal To Authority........................................ -
Summer 2002 PROFILES in FAITH in THIS ISSUE 1 Profiles in Faith: John Calvin (1509–1564) John Calvin by Art Lindsley by Dr
KKNOWINGNOWING A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind C.S. LEWIS INSTITUTE OINGOING &D&D Summer 2002 PROFILES IN FAITH IN THIS ISSUE 1 Profiles in Faith: John Calvin (1509–1564) John Calvin by Art Lindsley by Dr. Art Lindsley Scholar-in-Residence 3 C.S. Lewis Feature Article: C.S. Lewis on Freud and Marx by Art Lindsley 6 A Conversation with: Ravi Zacharias 8 Review & Reflect: Two Giants and the he mere mention of John Calvin’s maintains, “Calvin is the man who, next to St. Giant Question: a name (born July 10, 1509 in Noyon, Paul, has done the most good to mankind.” review of Dr. France – died May 27, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, En- Armand Nicholi’s T book The Ques- 1564 in Geneva, Switzerland) glish preacher, asserts, “The T tion of God produces strong reactions both longer I live the clearer does it ap- by James Beavers pro and con. Erich Fromm, 20th “Taking into pear that John Calvin’s system is century German-born American the nearest to perfection.” 12 Special Feature psychoanalyst and social phi- account all his Basil Hall, Cambridge profes- Article: losopher, says that Calvin “be- sor, once wrote an essay, “The Conversational longed to the ranks of the failings, he Calvin Legend,” in which he ar- Apologetics greatest haters in history.” The gues that formerly those who by Michael must be Ramsden Oxford Dictionary of the Christian depreciated Calvin had at least Church maintains that Calvin reckoned as one read his works, whereas now 24 Upcoming Events was “cruel” and the “unopposed the word “Calvin” or “Calvin- dictator of Geneva.” On the other of the greatest ism” is used as a word with hand, Theodore Beza, Calvin’s negative connotations but with successor, says of Calvin, “I have and best of men little or no content. -
Scientific Method DRAFT
SCIENTIFIC METHOD John Staddon DRAFT Scientific Method DRAFT CONTENTS Preface 3 Chapter 1: Basic Science: Induction 6 Chapter 2: Experiment 21 Chapter 3: Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing 31 Chapter 4: Social Science: Psychology 51 Chapter 5: Social Science: Economics 67 Chapter 6: Behavioral Economics 84 Chapter 7: ‘Efficient’ markets 105 Chapter 8: Summing up 124 Acknowledgements 131 2 Scientific Method DRAFT Preface The most profound ideas cannot be understood except though the medium of examples. Plato, Philebus Most people assume that science can answer every question. Well, not every , perhaps, but every question except matters of faith or morals – although a few atheistical fundamentalists would include those things as well. How many people are killed or hurt by secondhand tobacco smoke each year? How should you discipline your children? What is the best diet? The questions are important and confident answers are forthcoming from experts. The confidence is often unjustified. There are limits to science, both practical and ethical. But for many social and biomedical questions, demand for simple answers tends to silence reservations. Flawed and even fallacious claims meet a need and get wide circulation. “Don’t know” doesn’t get a look in! When conclusive science is lacking, other influences take up the slack: faith, politics, suspicion of authority. Even when the facts are clear, many will ignore them if the issue is an emotional one – fear for their children’s safety, for example. The anti-vaccine crusade launched in a discredited study by British doctor Andrew Wakefield in 1998 is still alive in 2017, partly because most people do not understand the methods of science and no longer trust experts. -
Prestructuring Multilayer Perceptrons Based on Information-Theoretic
Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 1-1-2011 Prestructuring Multilayer Perceptrons based on Information-Theoretic Modeling of a Partido-Alto- based Grammar for Afro-Brazilian Music: Enhanced Generalization and Principles of Parsimony, including an Investigation of Statistical Paradigms Mehmet Vurkaç Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Vurkaç, Mehmet, "Prestructuring Multilayer Perceptrons based on Information-Theoretic Modeling of a Partido-Alto-based Grammar for Afro-Brazilian Music: Enhanced Generalization and Principles of Parsimony, including an Investigation of Statistical Paradigms" (2011). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 384. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.384 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Prestructuring Multilayer Perceptrons based on Information-Theoretic Modeling of a Partido-Alto -based Grammar for Afro-Brazilian Music: Enhanced Generalization and Principles of Parsimony, including an Investigation of Statistical Paradigms by Mehmet Vurkaç A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering Dissertation Committee: George G. Lendaris, Chair Douglas V. Hall Dan Hammerstrom Marek Perkowski Brad Hansen Portland State University ©2011 ABSTRACT The present study shows that prestructuring based on domain knowledge leads to statistically significant generalization-performance improvement in artificial neural networks (NNs) of the multilayer perceptron (MLP) type, specifically in the case of a noisy real-world problem with numerous interacting variables. -
Warnings, Disclaimers, and Literary Theory
Reading the Product: Warnings, Disclaimers, and Literary Theory Laura A. Heymann* I. INTRODUCTION Few television commercials for alcohol end with the protagonist slumped unconscious on the couch, falling off a bar stool, or driving a car into a telephone pole. To the contrary, as many of us have experienced, advertising writes a very different narrative: that purchase and consumption of the advertised beverage will make one more attractive, expand one's social circle, and yield unbridled happiness. It is a story that, the advertiser hopes, will inspire consumers to choose its beverage during the next trip to the store; in this vein, the true protagonist of the commercial is the brand. Marketing scholars and, to a lesser extent, trademark scholars have increasingly viewed advertising and branding through the lens of literary theory, recognizing that consumers interpret communications about a product using many of the same tools that they use to interpret other kinds of texts.1 But this lens has not been similarly focused on an important counternarrative: the warning or disclaimer (such as "Caution: This product may contain nuts" on a candy bar or "Not authorized by * Associate Professor of Law, College of William & Mary - Marshall-Wythe School of Law. Many thanks to Jessica Silbey and the participants in the "Reasoning from Literature" panel at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting, where this work was first presented. Many thanks also to Peter Alces, Mark Badger, Barton Beebe, Deborah Gerhardt, and Lisa Ramsey for helpful comments; to the staff of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities for their very thoughtful and perceptive edits; and to Brad Bartels and Katharine Kruk Spindler for research assistance. -
The Role of Reasoning in Constructing a Persuasive Argument
The Role of Reasoning in Constructing a Persuasive Argument <http://www.orsinger.com/PDFFiles/constructing-a-persuasive-argument.pdf> [The pdf version of this document is web-enabled with linking endnotes] Richard R. Orsinger [email protected] http://www.orsinger.com McCurley, Orsinger, McCurley, Nelson & Downing, L.L.P. San Antonio Office: 1717 Tower Life Building San Antonio, Texas 78205 (210) 225-5567 http://www.orsinger.com and Dallas Office: 5950 Sherry Lane, Suite 800 Dallas, Texas 75225 (214) 273-2400 http://www.momnd.com State Bar of Texas 37th ANNUAL ADVANCED FAMILY LAW COURSE August 1-4, 2011 San Antonio CHAPTER 11 © 2011 Richard R. Orsinger All Rights Reserved The Role of Reasoning in Constructing a Persuasive Argument Chapter 11 Table of Contents I. THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSUASION.. 1 II. PERSUASION IN ARGUMENTATION.. 1 III. BACKGROUND.. 2 IV. USER’S GUIDE FOR THIS ARTICLE.. 2 V. ARISTOTLE’S THREE COMPONENTS OF A PERSUASIVE SPEECH.. 3 A. ETHOS.. 3 B. PATHOS.. 4 C. LOGOS.. 4 1. Syllogism.. 4 2. Implication.. 4 3. Enthymeme.. 4 (a) Advantages and Disadvantages of Commonplaces... 5 (b) Selection of Commonplaces.. 5 VI. ARGUMENT MODELS (OVERVIEW)... 5 A. LOGIC-BASED ARGUMENTS. 5 1. Deductive Logic.. 5 2. Inductive Logic.. 6 3. Reasoning by Analogy.. 7 B. DEFEASIBLE ARGUMENTS... 7 C. THE TOULMIN ARGUMENTATION MODEL... 7 D. FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS.. 8 E. ARGUMENTATION SCHEMES.. 8 VII. LOGICAL REASONING (DETAILED ANALYSIS).. 8 A. DEDUCTIVE REASONING.. 8 1. The Categorical Syllogism... 8 a. Graphically Depicting the Simple Categorical Syllogism... 9 b. A Legal Dispute as a Simple Syllogism.. 9 c. -
Propaganda Techniques
Propaganda Techniques Adapted from Wikipedia Ad hominem ( “to the person”) A Lan phrase which has come to mean aacking your opponent, as opposed to aacking their arguments. Ex. "Your fashion opinion isn't valid; you can't even afford new shoes." Ad nauseam (“to the point of nausea”) or Repe==on This argument approach uses =reless repe==on of an idea. An idea, especially a simple slogan, that is repeated enough =mes, may begin to be taken as the truth. This approach works best when media sources are limited and controlled by the propagator. Ex. Appeal to authority Appeals to authority; cite prominent figures to support a posi=on, idea, argument, or course of ac=on. Ex. “Even the President has smoked pot!” Appeal to fear Appeals to fear seek to build support by ins=lling anxie=es and panic in the general populaon. Ex. Joseph Goebbels exploited Theodore N. Kaufman's Germany Must Perish! to claim that the Allies sought the exterminaon of the German people. Appeal to prejudice • Using loaded or emo=ve terms to aach value or moral goodness to believing the proposion. • Ex: "Any hard-working taxpayer would have to agree that those who do not work, and who do not support the community do not deserve the community's support through social assistance." Bandwagon Bandwagon and "inevitable-victory" appeals aempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of ac=on that "everyone else is taking”. Black-and-White fallacy • Presen=ng only two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the be?er choice. -
Clear and Present Thinking
Clear and Present Thinking A handbook in logic and rationality. Clear and Present Thinking Project Director: Brendan Myers (CEGEP Heritage College) Authors: Brendan Myers Charlene Elsby (Queen’s University) Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray (University of Waterloo) Nola Semczyszyn (Franklin & Marshall College) Editor / Proofreader: Natalie Evans (University of Guelph - Humber) Layout and Design: Nathaniel Winter-Hébert, Lana Winter-Hébert www. winterhebert.com Version 1.1 (21st May 2013) Northwest Passage Books This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ For all other enquiries, please visit brendanmyers.net Clear and Present Thinking A handbook in logic and rationality. Version 1.1 Northwest Passage Books Contents Contents Acknowledgments 2.2.2 Self-Awareness 39 Introduction 7 2.2.3 Health 40 2.2.4 Courage 40 Chapter One: Questions, Problems, 2.2.5 Healthy Skepticism 41 and World Views 15 2.2.6 Autonomy 41 2.2.7 Simplicity 42 1.1 Intellectual Environments 15 2.2.8 Precision 42 1.2 World Views 17 2.2.9 Patience 43 1.3 Framing Language 19 2.2.10 Consistency 43 1.4 Problems 20 2.2.11 Open-ness and Open-Mindedness 43 1.5 Observation 21 2.2.12 Asking for help 44 1.6 Questions 23 2.3 A few summary remarks for Chapter Two 45 1.7 Differing World Views 25 2.4 Exercises for Chapter Two 45 1.8 Value Programs 26 1.9 World Views, Civilization, and Conflict 27 Chapter Three: Basics of 1.10 Exercise for Chapter One 28 Argumentation 47