Critical Thinking Paper 2 Revision

Revision notes on flaws and appeals in the Evaluating arguments section of paper 2 of the OCR Critical Thinking course.

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  • Created by: Sarah
  • Created on: 05-06-11 17:20

Flaws

1. Unrelated Conclusion: when reasons and conclusion arent relevant to each other because they arent about the same aspect of a topic.

2. Conflation: using 2 different words as if they mean the same thing.

3. Confusion between necessary and sufficient conditions

4. Slippery Slope: where one small event is described as leading to an extreme result.

5. Circular Argument: where the conclusion simply repeats a reason so there is nothing to persuade us.

6. Tu Quoqe: saying its right/wrong to do something just because someone else does or doesnt do it too.

7. Two wrongs dont make a right: saying that a wrong action is reason for you to also do a wrong action.

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Flaws continued

8. Hasty Generalisations: where a claim about a few things supports a conclusion about many things or everything.

9. Sweeping Generalisations: using claims about many things to support a conclusion about one thing.

10. The Straw person: the counter argument is misrepresented or distorted so its easier to dismiss.

11. Ad Hominem: attacking the person arguing rather than the argument itself.

12. Restricting the options: where conclusions are the best option because we are only shown a few choices.

13. Post Hoc: A caused B because A happened first.

14: Simplifying casual relations: saying one thing is entirely responsible for something when there are other factors.

15. Confusing Cause and effect: getting the two the wrong way around.

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Appeals

1. Appeals to emotion: people's feelings used to persuade them

2. Appeals to authority: people with authority are mentioned.

3. Appeals to tradition: saying that just because something has happened in the past means it should happen in the future.

4. Appeals to history: assuming that something will happen just because it usually happends.

5. Appeals to popularity: saying a conclusion is true just because lots of people believe it.

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