Homework 10a - Argument and logical fallacies

Homework 10 - Argument and logical fallacies

Due Wed Dec 2 08.00.

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."
Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers  (an example of ambipholy)

Read Walliman Ch 3, "The use of argument".
Read Chapter 1 of http://www.iep.utm.edu/argument/ Links to an external site.

And for Part 1 and Part 2 you also need to take a look at some classifications of logical fallacies.
Such a classification was first attempted by Aristotle in his Sophistical Refutations, Links to an external site. and later by John Locke in An Essay on Human Understanding. A well-known reference is also Ch. 4 of the book Links to an external site. by Irving Cobi et al.

There is no unique classification of fallacies. Some references that you can make use of in Part 1 and Part 2 are:

This list of 24 common fallacies.
and  if you find that some of the statements do not fit well into any of these categories,
you should also take a look at the chapter of the book by Cobi, and
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Links to an external site.
Links to an external site.and the long list in Wikipedia. Links to an external site.

Part 1 - Classifying fallacies

Here are 10 statements, most of which were intended as arguments. Please classify each
according to its type of logical fallacy. 

1. A warm beer is better than a cold beer. After all, nothing is better than a cold beer, and a warm beer is better than nothing.

2. With all of the jobs I am bringing back into the U.S., with all of the new auto plants coming back into our country and with the massive cost reductions I have negotiated on military purchases and more, I believe the people are seeing "big stuff."

3. It is absurd to claim that meat is unhealthy. My grandmother ate meat every day and lived till the age of 95.

4. I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy - yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1 in terror, no problem!

5. If a child gets a new toy he or she will want to play with it;
So, if a nation gets new weapons, it will want to use them.

6. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

7. North Korea can choose denuclearization or face fire and fury like the world has never seen.

8. The fact is this man has no idea what he’s talking about.

9. The core idea of Darwinism is selection. The Nazis believed that they must direct the process of selection to advance the German race.

10. The extension of the Darwinist theory into morality can lead to morally questionable consequences, such as fetal diagnostics aiming to eliminate the handicapped, abandoning handicapped people, or even to genocide as a part of the realization of natural selection.

Please classify these according to the type of fallacy they illustrate.

Motivations for your answers are in general not necessary, except where you believe them necessary
to interpret your answers. 

Out of these, six are quotations (possibly somewhat edited) from four politicians of different eras, two are
quotations from Finnish creationist writings, and two have no clear source that I know.

Part 2 - Creating your own fallacies

Create sentences of your own (do not quote others) illustrating 6 more logical fallacies that do not occur in the list of 10 above. Silliness is permitted. State both the sentence and the type of fallacy it illustrates. 

Handing in your solution

Please save your solution as a pdf file and hand it in in Canvas and on the Peergrade page. Do not forget to hand it in in Canvas, this is necessary for it to be graded. Do not write your name in the pdf file.

Peer grading

You will be asked to review the homework of three other students. Your own solution will also be checked in this way. Your teacher will read your submission and report the result in Canvas.