Answer "true" or "false" to the following statements. (6pts)
| 1.) All fallacies are unsound arguments. | ____F______ |
| 2.) Fallacies of relevance cannot also commit fallacies of presumption. | ____F______ |
| 3.) The motivation for posing a
theoretical definition is to make the terms more precise for some specific purpose. |
____F______ |
| 4.) The cognitive meaning of a sentence is just its extensional meaning. | ____F______ |
| 5.) False cause is just a special case of slippery slope. | ____F______ |
| 6.) The fallacy of composition and division both involve collective predications. | ____T______ |
Write down the type of definition offered in the passage below (4pts)
7.) By life, I mean what begins at conception.
Stipulative: writer is specifying the meaning of the word for the context of their discussion
8.) Pablum means trite, insipid, or simplistic writing, speech, or conceptualization.
Lexical: this is the ordinary meaning of the term
State which, if any, of the informal fallacies; accident, amphiboly, appeal to force, appeal to ignorance, appeal to the people (direct), appeal to the people (indirect) bandwagon, appeal to the people (indirect) snobbery, appeal to the people (indirect) vanity, appeal to pity, appeal to unqualified authority, argument against the person (abusive), argument against the person (circumstantial), argument against the person (tu quoque), begging the question, complex question, composition, division, equivocation, false cause, false dichotomy, hasty generalization, missing the point, red herring, slippery slope, straw man, suppressed evidence, or weak analogy that the passage most clearly commits. Explain why that fallacy is committed. If no fallacy is committed, write no fallacy. (20pts)
9.) Esp must be real. My doctor believes in it.
Appeal to unqualified authority: Being a medical
doctor does not necessarily qualify one as an authority on ESP.
10.) There should be prayer in schools. Over 80% of American people
want it.
Appeal to the people indirect Bandwagon: author
appeals to large number of people who say they favor prayer in schools instead
of relevant issues of constitutionality.
11.) Horses can reproduce. Therefore, Betsy the mule must be able to reproduce.
Fallacy of Accident: A general rule (horses can reproduce) is applied to
a case to which the rule does not apply, i.e., a mule.
12.) Jim Fixx the famous runner died of a heart attack while on a run.
So, exercise doesn't do so much for you as people claim.
Hasty Generalization: generalizing about the utility of exercise based upon a single instance.
I also allowed
False cause (oversimplified cause): ignores that exercise is only one risk factor for heart attacks.
13.) My computer is very fast. Therefore, my floppy drive
is very fast.
Fallacy of Division: arguer infers that property of
the whole (the computer) is also a property of the parts (the floppy drive).