Saturday, October 2, 2010

Common Mistakes

When you are evaluating premises of an argument, there are many different types of common mistakes which can be made. The first is arguing backwards, which according to Epstein is "a mistake to reason that because we have a strong or valid argument with a true conclusion, its premises must be true."
For example, Bryan went out to dinner to eat and was unaware of the ingredients in a certain sauce. Bryan is allergic to seafood. So Bryan has been swelling up in the throat. This is backwards because it is arguing from the truth of the conclusion back to the truth of the premises, meaning that Bryan might just have a cold.

Another common mistake is bad appeal to authority. This is when we tend to believe a claim just because of who said it. For example, when President Obama says that "our economy is improving everyday," and people instantly believe so because that is what the President said, it is a bad appeal to authority. Other mistakes are the confusion of plausibility with possibility, mistaking the person for a claim or for the argument.

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