Argumentation: Pedestrian Rules
Fairly soon, we're going to be discussing informal fallacies in my first-year composition class. We've touched upon them already, but I want to set aside a day just for talking about them. I'm toying with the idea of adding a list of mostly tacit debate commonplaces to supplement our study of fallacies of ethos, pathos, and logos. Here are the ones I have so far; they have already come up in class obliquely, but it doesn't hurt to spell them out:
- The first person to get mad loses the debate. (Inspired by one of the Tutor's comments here.)
- Anecdotes about "my black friends," "my gay friends," etc. don't hold up as evidence to support your points. (Inspired by one of Harrison's comments here in response to this post.)
- Comparing those who disagree with you to Hitler or the Nazis really hurts your ethos. (Inspired by countless arguments on various message boards.)
Got any to add? Ought I to chuck the idea altogether? I'm not particularly attached to it and am open to suggestions.
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Godwin's Law
The Hitler/Nazi thing is known as "Godwin's Law".
--elijah
Godwin's Law
Elijah beat me to it.
See this wikipedia entry for details.
Liz Lawley
mhm.
Nothing to add on my part, but, seeing as how my class is also approaching the topic of fallacies, this list seems like a great sidenote. Good thoughts...
-pma
Duh...
#2 is really just an example of the "hasty generalization" fallacy, albeit a special signal of ignorance on the part of whites who discuss race,* so that's how I'll present it.
*Also the use of the term "the black community."