Philosophy 1200 Study Guide - Ad Hominem, False Dilemma, Tu Quoque

• School: Western University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: Philosophy 1200
• Professor: Eric Desjardins

Document Summary

Welcome to lecture #15! (cid:73) review (cid:73) assessing the relevance of premises. How should the acceptability of premises? (cid:73) there is no general rule! Tips for assessing empirical claims (cid:73) be careful when someone says it is common knowledge that (cid:73) that something has been written does not make it true. (cid:73) universal claims are very hard to prove. Fallacies involving unacceptable premises (cid:73) begging the question (seen already) (cid:73) inconsistency (cid:73) equivocation (cid:73) false dichotomy. Equivocation (cid:73) fallacy of equivocation: when a premise is open to two di erent interpretations, and the interpretation that is required to support the conclusion makes it false. (cid:73) example: drug dependency is a serious problem in our society. Just look at how many people can"t function without co ee. (cid:73) the implicit premise that co ee is a drug is only true in a weak sense of drug that does not support the conclusion.