PHIL-125 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Informal Fallacy, Inductive Reasoning, Pinchas Zukerman
30 Jan 2020
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Informal fallacies: fallacy: defect of reasoning making an argument unsound or uncogent, either based on an erroneous inference: invalid for deductive arguments and weak for inductive. Either way, the fallacy is the unreliability of the conclusion. A fallacy of any kind is unsound or uncogent, meaning it has one or more false premises or it contains a fallacy (or both): only occur in deductive arguments. Example (hypothetical syllogism): if apes are intelligent, then apes can solve puzzles. Example (categorical syllogism): all bullfights are grotesque rituals. Premises are true but the conclusion is not true. It is formal because of the confusion of the meaning. Example: "renowned violinist pinchas zukerman has said, "when it comes to vodka, Smirnoff plays a second fiddle to none. " we must therefore conclude that smirnoff is the best vodka avaliable. " Based on authority and "play second fiddle" is an idiom. Still, it does not make him an authority on vodka.
