Self-study
Hi All,
Does anyone have any advice or resources I can use to help me identify the flaw in an argument? I am really struggling with this.
1
Hi All,
Does anyone have any advice or resources I can use to help me identify the flaw in an argument? I am really struggling with this.
2 comments
Look for patterns. I generally say that flaws fall into one of two categories - a scope shift or a structure flaw. A scope shift is a change in terms - the evidence talks about dogs and the conclusion talks about cats, so we are assuming that what's true about dogs is true about cats. A structure flaw will have matched terms but a mismatched relationship - this is where you get your necessary/sufficient flaws, your correlation/causation flaws, etc. Also practice with abstract answers and going element by element to compare to the stimulus - if the a/c says "assumes that something is true merely because people believe it," your evidence has to say "people believe X" and your conclusion has to say "X is true." If you have a specific flaw question you are struggling with, feel free to post it and where you got stuck and I'm happy to help.
Ellen Cassidy's The Loophole has a pretty good section on this, but if you don't want to spend money, I'm sure there are YouTube videos out there that go over them. Maybe 7sage has a few lessons on it too! Once you have learned them, it could be a good idea to create flashcards. One side has the flaw definition/example, and the other side has the flaw name. Good luck!