Social Science and Philosophy

SSP 123
No. Lesson CODE
Basic Principles and Concept of Social
1. SSP 123 -1
Science
Terminologies and theories prevalent SSP 123 - 2
2. within each disciplines and across
disciplines
Historical Foundations of the Social SSP 123 -3
3.
Sciences
Nature, Meaning and History of SSP 123 -4
4.
Philosophy
5. The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry SSP 123 -5
History and Development of Oriental SSP 123 -6
6.
and Western Philosophy
Logic, Meaning , fallacies and good SSP 123-7
7.
arguments
Ethics, Meaning, Division, SSP 123 -8
8.
Classification
9. Metaphysics SSP 123-9
10. Epistemology SSP 123-10
 Lesson 7

Logic Fallacies
And
Good Arguments
Specific Learning Objectives
After the end of this module, you MUST be able to:

1. Understand the nature of reasoning

2. Recognize fallacies and incorrect reasoning

Sub-Topic:
7.1 Logic
7.2 Fallacies
7.3 Good Arguments

ASSESSMENT METHOD/S:
1. Recitation
2. Quizzes
3. Midterm Examination

REFERENCES:
1. Almeida, Adelaida B. Social Philosophy 2: Manila: Rex Book Store, 2005
2. Haurio, Maurice and Gray, Christopher Berry. Tradition in Social
Science.Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers, 2011
.
 Information Sheet SSP 123 - 7
Logic, Meaning , fallacies and good arguments

Learning Objectives:

After reading this INFORMATION SHEET, you must be able to:

1. Understand the nature of reasoning

2. Recognize fallacies and incorrect reasoning

Introduction:

Logic (from the Greek "logos", which has a variety of meanings including word,
thought, idea, argument, account, reason or principle) is the study of reasoning, or the
study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. It attempts to
distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning.

Logic is the study of reasoning --- the nature of good (correct) reasoning and of bad
(incorrect) reasoning. Its focus is the method or process by which an argument
unfolds, not whether any arbitrary statement or series of statements is "true" or
accurate. Logicians study and analyze arguments, premises, inferences, propositions,
conditional statements, and symbolic forms.

A fallacy is an invalid form of argument, an instance of incorrect reasoning

List of Fallacies:

Affirming the consequent -- A fallacy of the form "if A, then B; B, therefore A".
Example: "If Smith testifies against Jones in court, Jones will be found guilty. Jones
was found guilty. Therefore, Smith must have testified against him." {Jones could
have been found guilty without Smith's testimony.

Argumentum Ad Verecundiam -. An appeal to authority is ordinarily one good

way to buttress a line of thought. The practice becomes fallacious when one of the
following happens: the authority is not an expert in the field in which one is
speaking; the allusion to authority masks the fact that experts may be divided down
the middle on the subject; no explicit reference is made to the authority.

Argumentum ad baculinum -- Fallacy that occurs when threat of force is made,

either implicitly or explicitly. Example: "I'm willing to discuss this in even more
depth, but if you don't come around soon, there may be dire
consequences." (Baculum from the Latin means "stick".)

Argumentum ad crumenam -- The fallacy of

supposing that a conclusion must be valid
because the person making the argument is
wealthy. (Crumena from the Latin means
"purse".) An instance of this fallacy is when
someone turns to another and says, "Well, if
you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" One
can be both smart and poor, as indeed
numerous philosophers throughout history
were (e.g., Lao-Tzu, Socrates, Spinoza).

Argumentum ad hominem ("argument against the person") -- A common fallacy in

which someone argues against a position or claim by assailing the proponent of it.
The truth or falsehood of a position doesn't depend on who does (or doesn't)
espouse it. e.g. "You can't trust Jones' theory of electromagnetic particles because he's
a communist." (The theory is good or bad because it comports (or doesn't comport)
with certain facts and evidence, not because the man propounding it holds a political
affiliation.)
 Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam ("arguing from
ignorance") -- A fallacy that occurs when someone
argues that because we don't know something is true,
it must be false, or because we lack proof that a
statement is false, it must be true. Ignorance or lack of
evidence doesn't necessarily mean a position or claim
is true or false.

Argumentum Ad Lazarum -- The fallacy of supposing a conclusion is valid because

the argument is made by a poor person. It is the opposite of the ad crumenam fallacy.

Argumentum Ad Misericordiam -- Occurs when

an appeal is made to pity or to one's sympathetic
nature. Example: "Augusto Pinochet is an old,
dying man. It is wrong to make him stand trial for
alleged offenses."

Argumentum Ad Populum -- This fallacy

occurs when an argument panders to popular
passion or sentiment. When, for instance, a
politician exclaims in a debate that his
opponent "is out of step with the beliefs of
everyone in the audience," he/she is
committing the fallacy. The legitimacy of a
statement depends not on its popularity, but
on its truth credentials.

Argumentum Ex Silentio -- The fallacy of supposing that someone's silence is

necessarily proof of ignorance.
Example: Two people, for instance, may be debating a political issue on a cable news
program. One may be in the studio with the host, the other appearing via satellite.
Their time on air reaches the point when each only has a few seconds left to make a
closing comment. One of the debaters asks his opponent a very technical, complex
question, and the opponent is speechless for a few seconds. "Go ahead," the debater
screams. "Answer my question! See? He can't answer." A viewer may be left with the
impression that the person's speechlessness is tantamount to ignorance, when in fact
any number of things could have happened: 1) the satellite connection could've been
lost or experiencing problems; 2) the debater was thinking about how best to answer
a difficult question under such an immediate time constraint; 3) the debater might
not have even heard the whole question. There may be reasons for temporary silence
other than ignorance.

What is a good argument?

In this topic we shall discuss what a

good argument is. The concept of a
good argument is of course quite
vague. So what we are trying to do
here is to give it a somewhat more
precise definition.

Criterion #1 : A good argument must have true premises

This means that if we have an argument with one or more false premises, then
it is not a good argument. The reason for this condition is that we want a good
argument to be one that can convince us to accept the conclusion.

Criterion #2 : A good argument must be either valid or strong

Is validity a necessary condition for a good argument? Certainly many good

arguments are valid.
Example:
All cats are mammals.
All mammals are warm-blooded.
So all cats are warm-blooded.

But it is not true that good arguments must be valid. We often accept arguments
as good, even though they are not valid.
Example:
No baby in the past has ever been able to understand quantum physics.
Mary is going to have a baby soon.
So Mary's baby is not going to be able to understand quantum physics.
 This is surely a good argument, but it is not valid. While it is true that no baby
in the past has ever been able to understand quantum physics. But it does not follow
logically that Kitty's baby will not be able to do so. To see that the argument is
not valid, note that it is not logically impossible
for Mary’s baby to have exceptional brain
development so that the baby can talk and learn
and understand quantum physics while still being
a baby. . Extremely unlikely to be sure, but not
logically impossible, and this is enough to show that
the argument is not valid.
But because such possibilities are rather unlikely, we still think that the true premises
strongly support the conclusion and so we still think that the argument is a good one.
In other words, a good argument need not be valid. But presumably if it is
not valid it must be inductively strong. If an argument is inductively weak, then it
cannot be a good argument since the premises do not provide good reasons for
accepting the conclusion.
So, here is our final definition of a good argument :
A good argument is an argument that is either valid or strong, and with plausible
premises that are true