Cause and Effect

I found the Cause and Effect website to be helpful and very useful. Causation is very important to the concept of inductive reasoning. I liked the example that the website gives regarding the case of a car accident. Upon first reading the example, I felt that it was the illegally parked truck that ultimately caused the car accident. With an inductive argument, it “carries as part of its second premise the implication that there is otherwise no significant difference, these causal arguments carry the implication that there is only one significant difference.” I learned that there are two rules when dealing with causation.

The first rule is that, “The cause must precede the event in time. On one hand, arguments that have the effect before the cause are examples of the relatively rare fallacy of reverse causation. One the other, arguments whose only proof of causation is that the effect followed the cause are examples of fallacious post hoc reasoning.”

The second rule is that, “Even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation. Other possible explanations for such a strong correlation include coincidence, reversed causation, and missing something that is the cause of both the original "cause" and and its purported "effect."

Vague Generalities

One concept from our readings that I found useful and interesting was vague generalities. This concept was discussed in Chapter 8 of our “Critical Thinking” textbook. Vague generalities are made when a precise number is not specified. Certain key words used in vague generalities are; all, many, most, a lot, some, a few, and very few. Our textbook points out that it is possible for us to analyze whether arguments using the ambiguous words, “all” and “some” are valid. There are two vague generalities that we can use in strong arguments, “almost all” and “very few”. An example would be; “Almost all tigers have a lifespan of 10-15 years in the wild.” “Very few tigers live longer than 25 years.” There is a direct way of reasoning with “almost all” and you can also argue backwards with “almost all.”

An example of direct reasoning would be; “Almost all tigers have a lifespan of 10-15 years in the wild. Manny is a tiger. So Manny will have a lifespan of 10-15 years in the wild.

An example of arguing backwards would be; “Almost all tigers have a lifespan of 10-15 years in the wild. Manny has lived 14 years in the wild. Manny is a tiger.”

Reasoning By Analogy

The type of reasoning that I found most difficult to understand was reasoning by analogy. According to our “Critical Thinking” textbook, “a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: On one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same.” When I first read this, I wasn’t too sure what it meant. A site that I found that helped me out was;

http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e13.htm

On the page, analogical reasoning is discussed and an example is provided. The example given mentions the idea of buying a car and having 3 friends who bought the same car from the same person and were delighted. The conclusion you could draw is that if you were to buy the same car as your 3 friends from the same person, then you would be delighted as well.

Here is my example: “Three of my friends have the same type of Hummer vehicle and all complain that they get poor gas mileage. If I buy the same type of Hummer as them, I will have poor gas mileage as well.”

The website also gives you some criteria for evaluating analogies.

Types of Reasoning

1) An example of Reasoning by Analogy is; “Reading a book will give you knowledge. A book is a form of literature. A newspaper is a form of literature. Therefore a newspaper will give you knowledge.”

2) An example of Sign Reasoning is; “Leaves turning brown is a sign that the season of autumn is starting.”

3) An example of Causal Reasoning is; “Consuming excessive amounts of sugar filled products on a regular basis raises your blood glucose levels and can lead to the development of diabetes over time.”

4) An example of Reasoning by Criteria is; “How will we win? Defense will be the key. Winning is scoring on the offense.”

5) An example of Reasoning by Example is; “I had a laptop just that would always overheat like yours. I bought a cooling fan to go underneath it and keep it cool.”

6) An example of Inductive Reasoning is; “I always get stopped by the train on my way to work during the week. Tomorrow I will be stopped by the train on my way to work.”

7) An example of Deductive Reasoning is; “All the houses in this neighborhood have a swimming pool. Malcolm lives in this neighborhood. Malcolm’s house has a swimming pool.”

3.

3. “Appealing to fear is a way politicians and advertisers manipulate people. An advertisement that uses an appeal to fear that I found was a 2010 campaign ad in which a a lady by the name of Rebecca Kleefisch attacks her running mates opponent. Rebecca Kleefisch is the running-mate for Scott Walker who is running for governor of Wisconsin. In the campaign ad, Rebecca Kleefisch states that her running-mates opponent Tom Barrett “supports a government takeover of our health care. Rebecca Kleefisch, herself is a colon cancer survivor and disagrees with the views of Tom Barrett. This is not a good argument in my opinion. What Rebecca Kleefisch has said has actually been seen as a lie. Tom Barrett has never supported a government takeover. The fear that is seen here is, “If you vote for Tom Barrett, then you will be asking for a government ran healthcare system.”

Appeal to Emotion

According to the “Critical Thinking” textbook by Richard L. Epstein, “An appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way.” The type of appeal to emotion that strikes me is the appeal to pity. Appeal to pity is a premise that seeks to make an agreement with people by the use of sympathy. An example of this type of fallacy is; “That commercially on TV was so sad. It almost made me cry seeing all those poor, abandoned animals. That place said they only offer a temporary home more the animals. We should go to that place and get a dog.” The unstated premise is that “If we feel sorry for the abandoned animals, then we should help them out by getting an animal from there or help spread the word and influence others to get animals from this organization.” I have taken notice to this type of appeal to emotion more recently since I have learned more about it.