Informal logic

Blinks In the book Blink, Gladwell describes a phenomenon he refers to as “blinks”. These are instances where your unconscious takes in information and processes it, so you react to the situation without having to take the time to consciously think. Throughout his book Gladwell provides a variety of situations where these are helpful or harmful, however he does not touch on how this process occurs or how it relates to attention. While we still are not sure exactly how attention selection works,…

Ashutosh Jogalekar's post is a response to a previous article, by Alex Berezow. The original article argues that psychology is a not a "real" science. While Jogalekar agrees with Berezow to an extent, he explains in further detail his contrasting views why psychology may not be a "real" science but why it is still a science. Berezow claims that in order to be considered a field of science it must have five certain qualities: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled…

To grasp the concept of personal identity, one has to address the problems it arises. “Who am I?”, “Personhood”, “Persistence”, “Evidence”,“Population”, “What am I?”, and “What matters in identity” are the questions that need to be faced in order to create a more elevated understanding of self (). In this essay, I will discuss the effects of cosmopolitanism on personal identity, analyze Locke’s position of what constitutes identity, and identify what is Hume’s perspective on “I.” Explain…

One should not have to feel obligated to write an article on a topic quite obvious as it is. However, within the article titled, "Capture this: It's wrong to play Pokémon at Auschwitz" the author, Leonard Pitts addresses what should be an unnecessary global issue that involves people who are playing the mobile game "Pokémon GO" on sacred grounds. Within the piece, he uses tone changes and anecdotes to appeal to ethos, logos and pathos. Pitts’s article consists of anecdotes and various tones to…

The dialogue between Socrates and Meno revolve around a fundamental issue: whether virtue can be taught. However, Socrates indicates that it is unfeasible to answer this question without knowing what virtue really is. He is interested in knowing the intrinsic nature of a virtue and what makes all instances of virtue, virtuous. In other words, the reason why something is a virtue. Although Meno produces his first faulty definition when he says, “If you want the virtue of man, it is easy to say…

way that allows you to persuade an audience. In rhetoric, pathos is referred as strong emotions or feelings, such as anger, fear, or sympathy, etc. Logos is another way that you can persuade your audience. The rhetoric meaning of logos is the use of logic and reasoning. Now with that said ethos, pathos, and logos will be divided and interpreted in each of the videos that…

This literature review will discuss the alternate points of view on dialect and character by Thornborrow, Edwards, Weber and Horner, and their perspectives. The idea is to study, examine and demonstrate the distinctions and similitudes as spoken about by these author's, and state whether I concur or differ their work. Similarly, I will express why Tabouret– Keller's work varies in a way to deal with dialect and character. Dialect and personality is for the most part recognized as who and what…

Utilitarianism is slowly gaining popularity in the world of philosophy as a normative theory and has been stirring up a lot of debate amongst people from all walks of life. Normative theories of ethics work by presenting one key principle as the main criterion on the basis of which a human being's actions are judged to be good or bad. That limits its overall view because it is never that easy to distinguish between the two in a world where all lines are slowly blurring. The principle itself can…

The Sorites Paradox, or the Paradox of the Heap is a paradox which comes in two forms; the many-premise version, and the two-premise version. Both versions lead to the same conclusions but offer different ways to reach that conclusion. This essay will focus on the workings of the two-premise version. The paradox arises as a result of vague predicates (Barker, 2009); demonstrating a problem with human language. This is the idea of human language being excessively vague, and that measurements we…

Rhetorical appeals in writing are important they allow the piece to target an audience. The article I chose was “Engaged or Detached” by David Brooks. In this piece of writing by David Brooks says that authors need to keep a separated viewpoint so as to sincerely educate their readers. Brooks characterizes the contrasts between an engaged writer and a detached writer as the distinction between truth chasing and activism. The objectives of an engaged writer are to have a constrained "prompt…