Critical Thinking - Fallacies

The significance of fallacies in critical thinking is important to understand so that clear and concise arguments can be made on a logical, factual level instead of one that is proliferated with emotions and illogical reasoning. The basis of these fallacies are dependent

on critical thinking according to discussions in which the parties may not agree on a situation or one element is attempting to convince another of making a decision. The point of this type of disagreement is to give reasons in support of some conclusion. An argument commits a fallacy when the reasons offered do not logically support the conclusion. In many cases these fallacies are disguised in such a way that a normally rationale person is convinced to side with an opinion or argument. An argument, as defined by American Heritage dictionary "A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate" (www.dictionary.com). In the discussion of fallacies we will cover the effects they have on arguments and the force and persuasion they have on individuals.

In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand the influence they have on critical thinking. (Basshmans)

"Critical thinking is the general term given to a wide range of cognitive skills and

intellectual dispositions needed to efficiently identify, analyze, and evaluate

arguments and truth claims, to discover and overcome personal prejudices and

biases to formulate and present convincing reasons in support of conclusions,

and make reasonable, intelligent decisions about what you believe and what to

do."

The usage of critical thinking, with respect to arguments, involves two type of logic; deductive and inductive. A deductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) complete support for the conclusion. An inductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) some degree of support (but less than complete support) for the conclusion. This is where the usage of fallacies comes in. A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. A deductive fallacy is a deductive argument that is invalid (it is such that it could have all true premises and still have a false conclusion). An inductive fallacy is less formal than a deductive fallacy. They are simply "arguments" which appear to be inductive arguments, but the premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true. Scholars and layman alike have identified numerous different fallacies. Arguably the three most commonly used are; Appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, and ad hominem or attacking the person. From mass media commercials to the presidential campaign debates, these fallacies are used, and are often an affective tool of persuasion.

The appeal to authority fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if a person is not qualified to make reliable claims in a subject area, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert.

An extreme example of this type of fallacy is within the marketing and sales of sports equipment. LeBron James, according to smh.com "landed a sponsorship contract with Nike that will earn him $US100 million over the next seven years - and that is on top of his four-year, $US16.8m contract with Cleveland, before his first NBA appearance. Three years before he can legally purchase alcohol in his state" LeBron is one of the major marketing strategies of Nike in an attempt to keep the attraction of youth (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/27/1067233100661.html?from=storyrhs&oneclick=true). When a person falls prey to this fallacy, they are accepting any claim LeBron makes as true without there being adequate evidence to do so. More specifically, the person is accepting the claim because they erroneously believe that the person making the claim is a legitimate expert and hence that the claim is reasonable to accept.

The Appeal to Emotion fallacy is committed when someone manipulates peoples' emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as being true. More formally, this sort of "reasoning" involves the substitution of various means of producing strong emotions in place