A fallacy is a way of thinking or reasoning that has a proven track record of frustrating and personal and inter- personal happiness, (Cohen11) or as Dr. Nall would like to classify it as an error in reasoning. Two main fallacies that constantly occur in my life have to deal with my mom. Every time I ask her “Why?” I always get the two answers “because I said so” and “because I am the mother. This essay demonstrates why I consider these two “reasons” as fallacies.
Fallacy number 1, “because I said so”. I’m sure everyone has come across this reason at least once in their life time, whether it be in English or another language. We have all asked a parent, guardian, or an adult figure in our lives the question “why?” and their reason is mostly “because I said so”. To me that is just a bullshit reason. What am I learning from doing what you told me to do? Most of the time the people that use this fallacy is an authoritative figure in a younger person’s life. I believe that this fallacy is specifically used because often the discipliner does not
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exactly know the reasoning themselves. The discipliner just knows that whatever they have told the disciplinee to do is the right thing to do. Fallacy number 2, “because I am the mother”. This is my mom’s best reason yet! Again I could be asking why? And my mom would automatically say “because I am the mother” okay so yes, you are the mom. But why? Yet again what the hell am I learning? When I was younger there was a rule in the house where I always had to ask to paint my nails. Now, during the week, my mom would usually say no because I had to go to school. I knew that reason very good and well, but never did my mom ever once tell me herself. She would always say “no” with my usual reply of “why?” and her slick unreasonable reply “because I’m the mom”. Sometimes I feel as though parents can often be lazy and just are tired of hearing their children. Being a daughter (obviously), I am one of those kids who love to bug their parent. And I do realize that once I ask why for the same question I once asked before they stop telling me the real reasonable reason. Fallacies are used all the time.
I think that fallacies are often just brushed off the shoulder. In all honesty, if you or anyone else wanted a real reasonable reason they would persist and find out. I feel as if the fallacies that are used around me are usually sarcastic. In my house and in my family in general we were raised we a lot of sense. I am not saying that anyone else was raised without sense but, growing up we would get in trouble for asking why. Our parents would give a fake answer to throw us off, mostly because they knew we knew the real reason. The affect I believe that a fallacy has on me is that it makes me think twice before I ask why. If I can figure something out without asking why then I can avoid a dumb reason. In essence when I get a dumb reason and I know it is just unreasonable I will more than likely get frustrated. Frustration from me causes an attitude. Fallacies just shouldn’t be allowed to
exist! To wrap up a fallacy is just a poor reason for an argument. My favorite argument as you can tell is the question “why?” That question in my opinion is one of the biggest reasons fallacies are used. People just hate to be asked why. Fallacies are also misused because people often do not know the real reasons to why they do things themselves.
No matter what actions or words a mother chooses, to a child his or her mother is on the highest pedestal. A mother is very important to a child because of the nourishing and love the child receives from his or her mother but not every child experiences the mother’s love or even having a mother. Bragg’s mother was something out of the ordinary because of all that she did for her children growing up, but no one is perfect in this world. Bragg’s mother’s flaw was always taking back her drunken husband and thinking that he could have changed since the last time he...
The children also argue with their mother often. The children think that their mother, with no doubt, will be perfect. They idealize their mothers as angel who will save them from all their problems, which the mothers actually never do. The children get angry at their false hopes and realize that their mothers aren’t going to...
An example is “For instance, swine and humans are similar enough that they can share many diseases” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). The authors create a Hasty Generalization fallacy by concluding that because humans and swine are similar, they share diseases. Furthermore, this makes the audience feel lost because the authors do not provide evidence of how “swine and humans are similar” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Similarly, the author says that “Because insects are so different from us, such risks are accordingly lowered” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Again, the author fails to provide a connection between how the risk of getting an infection is lowered because humans and insects are different. The authors also create a Hasty Generalization fallacy because they conclude that the risk of humans getting infected is lowered just because insects and humans are different. In summary, the use of fallacies without providing evidence and makes the readers feel
Throughout a person’s lifetime, an individual will have encountered an array of people with different qualities that make up their personalities. In general, people who are characterized as strong-willed are the one who have the initiative and they are risk takers. Also, they deviate from normalcy by looking for something new, different, or other ways of doing things because of the tedious situations they wound up in. As once Philosopher David Hume stated two hundred and fifty years ago that unlike those who deviate from the world of normalcy and clichés, most of the people go on with their lives in a “dogmatic slumber… so ensnared in conventional notions of just about everything that we don’t see anything; we just rehearse what we’ve been told is there” (Rosenwasser 4). In the anecdotal piece “Terwilliger Bunts One”, Annie Dillard has expressed her feelings and emotions towards her mother. Writing from the first person point of view, Annie Dillard also explains to her audience the attitude her mother took through many different circumstances and anecdotes that Dillard revealed thus admiring the personality of her mother as a child. By mentioning the qualities that her mother possesses, she is putting the spotlight on the impact her mother has made on her life using her parenting philosophy. The first parenting philosophy Dillard’s mother has taught her is to be very expressive in everything using surprising and strange-sounding words as part of the observation to other people. As Dillard recalls in her story, it happened when her mother heard the announcer on the radio cried out “Terwilliger Bunts one” and she started using this phrase as part of her “surprising string of syllables… for the next seven or eight years” (Dillard). ...
...h conclusion about my struggles with my mother. Mothers (and fathers) do what they can with what they know. That is all. They believe that they are doing the right thing, and we as children must learn to appreciate that.
Donald Trump posted a YouTube video offering President Obama $5 million dollars to produce his collegiate records and individual passport application (O’Connor, C., 2012). When contacted by Forbes magazine in response to this offer, Trump professed that the offer was extended due to the voters knowing so very little about the president’s personal background. Further stating, his motives were in the best interest of President Obama based on the current state of suspicion surrounding his presidency and this would all questions to rest (O’Connor, C., 2012). This is an example of the ad hominem reasoning fallacy and how the persuader focuses on personally attacking the individual (Larson, C., 2013, p. 245). The statements called president’s background and character into question. The objective of persuader was to further discredit the president in the upcoming 2012 presidential election. The response of the president and White House was predictable based on the oppositional views and past responses to other similar claims and requests (Larson, C., 2013, p. 245). Donald Trump committed an ad hominem when he launched a character assassination of President Obama by introducing meaningless perceptions of character flaws in an attempt to divert votes as well as bring attention to his upcoming show (O’Connor, C., 2012).
Children brought up by authoritarian parents are not encouraged to think independently. These parents don’t trust their kids in making life choices even when kids are in a position to make healthy choices. Consequently, you will find children who think they can’t do something because their parent said so, as opposed to not doing something because it’s morally wrong or unsafe.
During the first week of class, we discussed informal fallacies. An informal fallacy is defined as a logical mistake. Five of the informal fallacies discussed were equivocation, ad hominem, straw man, appeal to authority, and secundum. Each of these fallacies is comparable to what happens in everyday life conversations. Through analyzing, one should be able to determine how these logical mistakes connect with our everyday lives.
A fallacy is defined as a failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid, faulty reasoning, or a misleading or unsound argument. There are many kinds of fallacies and even websites devoted to describing the various kinds of logical fallacies. Fallacies, though, are slippery little fiends, which do not hesitate to creep in even where they are unwanted. No one wants their argument proved false, but careful, critical readers can spot these shifty deceivers. On the website of the Center for American Progress, there is an article – authored by Catherine Brown and Ulrich Boser – called “The DeVos Family Dynasty.” This article is a poor example of persuasive communication because there are many cases of ad hominem fallacy, the authors repeatedly
When I was little my mother was with my brothers’ dad and she wasn 't the best mother. I think that I am the way I am today because of how she was and I knew I did not want to be like that. A lot of my
Children do not know any better than to follow the actions of what they see other people doing.
A fallacy that we experience on a daily basis is “everyone is doing this and that’s why I do the same” that’s a very common fallacy that we don’t only experience, we usually are the abusers too. A final example to illustrate more on fallacies is not getting to the point in a discussion or avoiding the point by changing the subject. Fallacies can be categorized into several types and under each type comes several different kinds of fallacies. Next are the Fallacies of Unclear Language, its obvious from the name what these fallacies are about. One of these fallacies is Vagueness where the wording is not clear enough or could be interpreted in different ways.
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is a concept within social psychology that assumes when someone is aggressive, it is due to a flaw in their personality as opposed to a reaction to their personal circumstances (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2015). However, there is typically a situational reason for the other person’s behavior that is not taken into account through the FAE (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2015). I have been guilty of making the FAE myself; for example, I can think of two situations where my frustration led me to believe that there were flaws in my antagonists’ characters. Recently, my mother wanted me to assist my brother in scheduling classes for the semester. Since I was annoyed that my mother was insisting that I assist him when
When I was born, my mother breast fed me for two weeks, I stayed in the hospital room with her instead of going to the nursery, and she was home with me for the first five years of my life. My father worked and my mother tended to the home, with the help of her mother and grandmother. I ate Gerber baby jarred food and my mother read to me every night. My family did not adhere to many other cultural norms however. It was culturally expected that a husband and wife would have a home, with stable jobs and an established relationship before having children. My father was eight years my mother’s senior, and my mother was only 18 when I was born. My mother never earned her high school diploma. My parents were married the month before I was born. My father worked in construction and had a criminal record. Every single one of these descriptions violates the cultural norms of where I grew up in North Carolina. Although my story starts to sound a lot like a Lifetime movie, my mother defied all odds to provide a safe and secure haven for me. “When they sense that a parent is consistent and dependable, they develop a sense of basic trust in the parent” (Crain, 283). I could rely on my parents and trust that they would be there to take care of me which lead to my development of “the core ego strength of this period: hope” which emerges from the child developing a favorable balance of trust over mistrust. “Hope is the expectation that despite frustrations, rages, and disappointments, good things will happen in the future” (Crain, 285). My mother is the living embodiment of that sentiment. As early as I can remember, I can remember her insistence that as long as we were together, we were
When I left my room, my mother knew that I had gone through a rough time, and I did not want to talk to her about it. Even though there was only a month left in my school year, I promised myself that I would be completely truthful to my friends, my family, my heritage, and myself. I expected all my friends to leave me, but I was fully prepared for this. However, none of this ever happened. My friends didn’t leave me, I wasn’t alone at the lunch table, I wasn’t even seem differently by those around me. I had failed my family by doing this, and I wished I had stopped acting like someone I wasn’t sooner. This is one of the only mistakes I have made which I consider a failure because it had taken me close to a year to fix, and this is why I consider it my most successful failure.