Fallacies of reasoning. Something is missing

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From the course by University of Washington

Speaking to persuade: Motivating audiences with solid arguments and moving language

60 ratings

University of Washington

Speaking to persuade: Motivating audiences with solid arguments and moving language

60 ratings

Course 3 of 4 in the Specialization Dynamic Public Speaking

In the professional realm, we need to be able to argue without being argumentative. Whether you are fundraising for a nonprofit, pitching a business proposal, or suggesting a change to company policy, you are making arguments. In making the case for your topic, you often want to raise awareness, identify a pressing problem, discuss appropriate solutions, and outline specific steps for the audience. To be persuasive, you must be clear (the audience may have little to no existing knowledge), you must be convincing (you are trying to sway the audience that your argument is valid), and you must be compelling (you are trying to motivate the audience enough so that they want to take specific actions). Persuasive speaking thus requires clarity, strategy, topic mastery, plus a sense of style and presence. By the end of this course, you should be able to design persuasive speeches that address problems and solutions and that motivate audience members. You should be able to use rhetorical style strategically and deliver passionate and compelling speeches. Learners will record speeches, providing and receiving peer feedback.

From the lesson

Strategic and motivational language

In this module, we'll move from persuasive ideas to a completed argument and speech draft. I think everyone should take the time to become familiar with the fallacies discussed in this module. Globally, the quality of argumentation and reasoning would be better if everyone had a stronger grasp of these concepts. As you well know, persuasion isn't just argument - it's also the crafting of strategic and stylistic language. When people think about the most famous speeches in history, they tend to think of stylistically rich speeches. By the end of the week, you will have a list of strategies for avoiding fallacies and framing your case strategically and stylistically. If you want some feedback, you’ll be able to upload a persuasive speech outline for peer review and engage in some speech writing.

That doesn’t sound right! Avoiding fallacies.2:50

Fallacies of reasoning. Something is missing4:21

Fallacies of reasoning. Flawed causality.3:32

Fallacies of relevance. Bad evidence.3:17

Fallacies of relevance. Bad response.3:54

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Matt McGarrity
Principal Lecturer
UW Department of Communication

In Fallacies of Reasoning something is or

is perceived as deficient in the argument, in the reasoning.

This video will talk about fallacies of reasoning where the audience

perceives something to be missing or to be lacking.

So what are some of these?

Well, first there's begging the question.

Now, in contemporary talk this phrase has come to mean it raises the question.

Right? So people say like, oh,

since our car broke down it begs the question,

how will we get there?

That's fine. That's not historically what it meant though.

As a fallacy, begging the question means supporting a claim with

the claim itself and this is pretty similar to circular reasoning.

Hey, did you take the piece of pizza that I left in here?

No, you are quite literally holding a piece of pizza in your hand, right now.

I didn't take it.

OK, explain.

I'm telling the truth.

I'm trying to explain.

I'm not lying.

In that basic example, in that case,

the main claim is I'm not lying.

And in order to support that conclusion you would need evidence showing a lack of lie.

Simply saying, I'm telling the truth doesn't go outside of the claim for validation.

So what could you do instead?

Well, they could show that they don't have grease on their fingers,

they can talk about when they entered the room, etc.

but the idea is that the claim,

I didn't do it needs evidence showing not doing it.

So in that way begging the question lacks external validation.

Now a hasty generalization lacks enough validation,

it lacks enough evidence.

So we've had pretty good luck placing our Ph.D.s recently.

I would think it would be easy.

Well, you know, it's a pretty tight job market.

Well, like every university has a com department.

What makes you say that?

Well you don't have a com department.

I know they have one over at Western Washington.

I thought that all universities do, don't they?

There are universities that don't have communication departments, sad as that may be.

That claim is so quantitatively

large that you would need to show evidence of that breadth.

Simply ticking off, you know two or three cases,

doesn't satisfy the quantitative claim.

It's not a good enough sample size.

A claim that broad would need statistical evidence and/or testimony from an expert.

The stats were there, would show

breadth and expert testimony would validate the interpretation.

So begging the question and hasty generalization have a lack of

support but a false dilemma is a lack of options.

When talking about policy the choices are usually pretty complex.

A false dilemma occurs when a speaker forces

a complex situation down to

only two options and usually with one of those options being pretty bad.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks,

then President Bush addressed the joint session of Congress.

And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make.

Either you're with us or you are with the terrorists.

So I think there are a couple of ways to take

that statement but it's pretty black and white.

You might be sitting in San Marino, a small Republic,

and going like, mmm,

raise of hand, maybe there is a third option.

You might be in Andorra.

Andorra has no standing army and you might be thinking like OK,

well, what's our, commitment?

Andorra declared war on Germany in World War I but they never actually

engaged in fighting so maybe that's a new option that we can pursue.

All this is to say it demonstrates further that

fallacies are perceived as much as they are committed.

Bush there doesn't define exactly what "with us" means.

So there's a lot open to interpretation there.

Now, if you're trying to convince an audience that there are few legitimate options,

you need to explain why,

and that's because we want to avoid being heard as committing a fallacy of reasoning.

That means thinking closely about making your moves clear.

Are you showing your evidence?

Are you explaining your reasoning clearly?

We don't want our audiences to think that something's lacking.

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