“Control your emotions, or they will control you.”
“Pride is to the character as the attic is to the house: the highest point, and generally the most empty.” – Michael K. Williams
“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” – Ambrose Bierce
We define terms in order to make their meaning understood, of course. But we might ask, what does understanding the meaning of a term give us? Let’s dig a little deeper into this question.
There are at least six purposes for defining terms. Continue reading Why Define?
Lessons about genus and species charts often emphasize the capability of these charts to show relationships between terms (i.e. this is a kind of that). This is one benefit, but we should also note the benefit they provide in helping to develop arguments. Two classic examples should help to demonstrate this.
In C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Susan and Peter are concerned with Lucy, who insists that she has gotten into the land of Narnia through a magic wardrobe. The Professor proceeds to develop an argument based off of this genus and species chart: Continue reading Genus & Species Bonus
“Wit is a sword. It is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it” – G. K. Chesterton
“Wisdom is his guide, eloquence his attendant” – Augustine
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something” – Plato
From headlines:
“Iraqi Head Seeks Arms”
“Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group”
“Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout Counter”
The doctor said, “I can’t find the cause of your illness,” and then paused thoughtfully before continuing, “But I think it’s due to drinking.” “That’s okay, doctor,” the patient replied, “I’ll come back when you’re sober.”
A newly married man asked his wife, “Honey, would you still have married me if my father hadn’t left me a fortune?” “Darling,” his wife replied sweetly, “I’d have married you no matter who left you a fortune.”
While studying informal fallacies to prepare the next lesson in my upcoming rhetoric text Fitting Words, I observed something surprising about the ad populum fallacy. I have generally understood this fallacy to be simply an appeal to the masses, indeed to the mere mass of the masses” (Introductory Logic, Nance and Wilson) as in “Mom, all my friends are doing it!” (for which all mothers have learned the counterexample “If all your friends were jumping off of a cliff, should you?”)
But in all the standard college logic texts that I own (not a small sample), argumentum ad populum is taken to mean, quite broadly, an improper appeal to emotion. As a sample: Continue reading Ad Populum Mitosis?
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The purpose of logic is to help students to be “masters of words in their intellects,” as Dorothy Sayers wrote, rather than “prey to words in their emotions.”
To this end, Introductory Logic teaches and trains students in four key skills: defining terms, making accurate statements, constructing arguments, and detecting fallacies in argument, the central concept being validity.
In The Amazing Dr. Ransom’s Bestiary of Adorable Fallacies, Doug Wilson and son N.D. have given us a comprehensive book that makes learning about informal fallacies a hoot! To the familiar fallacies of ad hominem, circular reasoning, equivocation and their ilk, they have added a section on millennial fallacies with which we sorely need to be familiar: cool-shame, milquetoastery, ad imperium, pomo relativism, sensitivity shamming, and more!
In our day of muddled thinking, this guide to fifty popular ways to reason poorly is must read for anyone who recognizes the need for a field guide to thinking clearly!
Another helpful book for our times from Canon Press.
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