Reflection: Your Reasoning in Practice

Prompts to consider

• Think of a belief you hold strongly, political, ethical, or personal. Try to reconstruct the argument for it: what are your premises, and is the inference from premises to conclusion valid? Are the premises actually true, or assumed to be? What would it take to make you revise the premises?
• The most common informal fallacy in political and online debate is arguably the straw man, attacking a distorted version of the opponent's position. Think of a recent debate or argument you observed or participated in. Was the straw man in play? Who deployed it, and did anyone notice?
• Aristotle recognized that emotional engagement (pathos) is a legitimate part of argumentation, not all appeals to feeling are fallacies. Where is the line between legitimate pathos and illegitimate emotional manipulation? Think of an argument you found moving, was it a logically better argument because it moved you, or just more effective?