Informal logic

Saul Kripke's highly influential “Identity and Necessity” challenges a number of prevalent assumptions made by his contemporaries regarding the classification of identity statements as either contingent or necessary. (Heide, 26 Feb.) Firstly, he renounces the common habit of speaking of necessary truths, those that could not have possibly have been false, as being equivalent to a priori truths, or those knowable without the aid of sensory experience. (Kripke 130) Secondly, he argues for a theory…

Three Bases for Evaluating Essay Writing The three bases for evaluating writing are unity, coherence and support. These fundamentals must be present for effective writing. Unity is parallel structure and overall flow. Coherence is clarity throughout the essay, and support/evidence provide the specific details that support and validate the main idea of an essay. These fundamentals of writing must all be present in any genre of writing. Unity in writing ensures effective and cohesive structure…

A Politician’s Best Friend: Fallacies Fallacies are claims used to support an argument without proper logic or evidence. They occur in a multitude of fashions such as broad, or “sweeping,” generalizations and using a lack of evidence to support claims (appeal to ignorance.) While it is true that fallacies weaken the validity of an argument, their use is not necessarily ineffective. Politicians, journalists, even academics, at times, are subject to use fallacies to persuade an audience, often…

Although Bonner and Faludi make similar arguments, the two would most likely clash if seated in a room together. They would respect each other's work for the most part but there are a few topics the pair would disagree upon entirely. For starters, Bonner could argue that Faludi does not console the right audience. He feels strong sympathy for the victims who were wrongly accused and tortured because of the extreme fear leaders had post September 11th. “A book could be written about the lives…

The most important thing that I have learned from these chapters is how to engage in civil political discord on the issues that we are facing today. In a time when there is very little positive discord in Washington among politicians there. Using the Heie's approach means that we can begin to look for ways to communicate with those we disagree with in a more polite fashion. We must realize that truth telling is a very important part of winning over those we seek to influence. One of the…

Next, the survey design has to have good wording and formatting, in order for it to be a successful survey. I think considering some of the existing literature would be best in deciphering what the problems with past surveys has been, and how to overcome those problems in this survey design. First, I believe it is important to have questions that are not worded vaguely, or that provide for different emotions to be evoked based on a certain connotation of a word. For instance, Tom Smith (1987)…

Kant defines objectification as mentioned above, as ‘the reducing of a person, a being with humanity, to the position of an object’. The idea of humanity for Kant was the personal lucid nature and capability for rational choice it is about determining what is valuable, and furthermore finding ways to enhance and develop these particular values. Kant’s holds a large weight of significance over the respect for humanity to one’s self and to others around them, he states ‘Humanity must never be…

The goal of this paper is to present a map of the argument in the article “Dude” by Scott F. Kiesling. This argument mapping will do the following things. First, it will present what I believe are the main claims of the article. While doing this I will also explain any important terms or concepts needed to understand the Kiesling’s argument. I will then link the claims to the kinds of evidence that Kiesling uses in order to support them. Finally, I will close my argument mapping with an overview…

Math is key to a successful career because if you don't know math you will not accomplish the task you are trying to complete. If you do not learn math while you go to school and are faced with something in life that requires math you will not be prepared for it. In the movie hidden figures, they show how math is very important not only in the everyday lifestyle but in the workplace. In the movie hidden figures, they not only showed that math is a very important skill to learn, they showed women…

Rhetorical Situation In the reading, the author says rhetoric is about presenting a character that an audience will trust and it’s about saying the right things at the right time. The rhetoric is also used to persuade something or someone. The author’s discuss the way tone and voice changes in different rhetorical situations, and gave an example about this with the costume that we wear. Many people wear different costumes for their many other different social roles and different levels of…