Fallacies of Vacuity

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Do curso por Duke University

Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies

126 classificações

Duke University

Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies

126 classificações

How to Avoid Fallacies Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Reasoning is important. This series of four short courses will teach you how to do it well. You will learn simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you. Courses at a Glance: All four courses in this series are offered through sessions which run every four weeks. We suggest sticking to the weekly schedule to the best of your ability. If for whatever reason you fall behind, feel free to re-enroll in the next session.We also suggest that you start each course close to the beginning of a month in order to increase the number of peers in the discussion forums who are working on the same material as you are. While each course can be taken independently, we suggest you take the four courses in order. Course 1 - Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Course 2 - Think Again II: How to Reason Deductively Course 3 - Think Again III: How to Reason Inductively Course 4 - Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies About This Course in the Series: We encounter fallacies almost everywhere we look. Politicians, salespeople, and children commonly use fallacies in order to get us to think what they want us to think. Think Again: Fallacies will show how to identify and avoid many of the fallacies that people use to get us to think the way they want us to think. In this course, you will learn about fallacies. Fallacies are arguments that suffer from one or more common but avoidable defects: equivocation, circularity, vagueness, etc. It’s important to learn about fallacies so that you can recognize them when you see them, and not be fooled by them. It’s also important to learn about fallacies so that you avoid making fallacious arguments yourself. Suggested Readings Students who want more detailed explanations or additional exercises or who want to explore these topics in more depth should consult Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, Ninth Edition, Concise, Chapters 13-17, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin. Course Format Each week will be divided into multiple video segments that can be viewed separately or in groups. There will be short ungraded quizzes after each segment (to check comprehension) and a longer graded quiz at the end of the course.

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Fallacies of Vacuity and Circularity

CONTENT: Now we will describe another common set of fallacies: fallacies that occur when an argument makes no progress from its premises to its conclusion. Sometimes, arguments make no progress because the conclusion is already contained in the premises. Sometimes, arguments make no progress because the conclusion is presupposed by the premises. And sometimes, arguments make no progress because the premises don’t make any claim at all, even if they might sound like they do. When you know how to identify such fallacies, you will find that they are more common than you think! LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of this section you will be able to: identify various kinds of circularity or vacuity where they occur OPTIONAL READING: If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of these topics, we recommend Understanding Arguments,Ninth Edition, Chapter 16.

Fallacies of Vacuity4:13

Circularity and Begging the Question4:50

Self-Sealers8:11

Conheça os instrutores

Dr. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Professor
Philosophy
Dr. Ram Neta
Professor
Philosophy

We've devoted this week so far to talking about fallacies

or relevance but today we're going to talk about fallacies of vacuity.

Let me begin by defining what a fallacy of vacuity is.

A fallacy of vacuity is a fallacy that results.

When, roughly speaking, an argument starts

by assuming what it's supposed to establish.

You could think of it this way.

A fallacy of vacuity is an argument

that doesn't go anywhere.

its starting points presuppose what it is that the argument is supposed to prove.

Okay, so there are different kinds of fallacies of vacuity.

And in this lecture and the next we are going to

be talking about three different kinds of fallacies of vacuity.

The first is something called circularity. A circular argument.

A fallacy

of circularity occurs when, an argument's

conclusion is contained among its premises.

Eh, you write out the premises of the argument and one

of the premises just is the conclusion, that's a circular argument.

And that fallacy is called circularity.

another broader kind of fallacy of vacuity when

I say broader kind of fallacy of vacuity.

I mean this kind of fallacy

of vacuity includes circularity as a sub

species is what's called begging the question.

Begging the question is when an argument has the following feature.

In order to be reasonable in believing the premises of that argument,

you already have to have a good reason for believing the conclusion.

So, unless you already

have a good reason for believing the conclusion independently of the premises.

The argument can't go anywhere because you won't

have a good reason for believing the premises.

And so, if you don't have a good reason for believing the premises,

then the argument can't give you a good reason for believing the conclusion.

So roughly, an argument begs the question when you need

to have a good reason for believing the conclusion already in

order for you to have an reason to believe the premises of the argument.

That's begging the question, right?

That includes circularity.

Because notice, in a circular argument, you have to have a good reason for

believing the conclusion in order to have a good reason for believing the premises.

Because the conclusion is one of the premises.

But begging the question can happen even

without circularity, and we'll talk about examples

of that next time.

The last kind of fallacy of vacuity that

I wanted to describe is something called self-sealing.

Now a self-sealer can be either a proposition or an argument.

But roughly, a self-sealer is when a proposition or an

argument is irrefutable by any possible consideration, no matter what.

And so it doesn't rule out anything.

So, if I make some claim to the effect

that at a certain point in time, you will

then be doing exactly what you will be doing.

You might think, well yeah, so what does that tell me?

What possible situations are ruled out by that statement?

The answer is none.

And so that statement is empty, it's vacuious.

It's a

self-sealer in the sense that there's no possible situation that it rules out.

And so there's no possible consideration or

evidence that could be brought forth against it.

A self-sealing argument is one that commits a fallacy of acuity.

Because it does assume what it's intended to establish.

Unfortunately, in a self-sealing argument.

What it's intended to establish is nothing of any significance.

It's nothing that

rules out any possibility.

And so, it does tend to assume what it's supposed to establish.

So, those are three kinds of vacuity that I wanted to distinguish.

In the next lecture, we'll talk a

bit more about circularity and begging the question.

And in the lecture after that, we'll talk a bit more about self sealing.

See you next time.

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