Slippery Slope Logical Fallacy

The slippery slope logical fallacy is the most interesting to me.


http://static.abcteach.com/content_preview/p/poster_fallacy_slipperyslope_p.png

People make assumptions and often exaggerate outcomes based on their beliefs. I feel like slippery slope fallacies are often born out of fear. People fear that a certain politician coming into power will lead to the country falling apart. People are afraid that going to war will turn into a nuclear winter.

Another slippery slope fallacy I thought about is people who research certain symptoms online to try and diagnose themselves. Someone will have a headache, go on Web M.D., and end up believing they have brain cancer and are going to die.

Slippery slope fallacies are dangerous because they often times end up believing the worst possible outcome will occur without any solid proof to back up their assumption.

Metaphors in Poetry

Metaphors are used a lot in poetry to provide an abstract description of something. I think metaphors are interesting because they show how two things that seem to be very different actually connect. Metaphors are also a way of expressing deeper meaning and they add an element of beauty to writing.

A found a great website about metaphors that states, “Because poems are meant to impart often complex images and feelings to a reader, metaphors often state the comparisons most poignantly.”

The website also provides great examples of metaphors and explains their meanings.

The website can be found here: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-metaphors-in-poems.html

I love metaphors because they are almost like puzzles - you have to work to decode their meaning since it is not obvious. I feel like philosophers would also like metaphors since they take analytic thought and make people question what the truth of the statement is.

The Fallacy of Amphiboly

The fallacy of amphiboly is, like the fallacy of equivocation, a fallacy of ambiguity, but here the ambiguity is due to indeterminate syntactic structure. In the argument:

The police were told to stop drinking on campus after midnight.
So, now they are able to respond to emergencies much better than before.

there are several interpretations that can be given to the premise because it is grammatically ambiguous. On one reading it can be taken to mean that it is the police who have been drinking and are now to stop it; this makes for a plausible argument. On another reading what was meant is that the police were told to stop others (e.g., students) from drinking after midnight. If that is the sense in which the premise is intended, then the argument can be said to be a fallacy because despite initial appearances, it affords no support for the conclusion.

Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/#CorFal

This was really interesting to me. I initially read and understood the passage as the police were the ones who needed to stop consuming the drinks after midnight, and therefore, they would be better able to respond to emergencies. I didn't realize that it could have been understood as the police needed to go patrolling and stop other people from drinking after midnight. So that instead of having to respond to a lot of incidents involving drunken people on campus, they can focus on other emergencies that may arise. Very interesting. How did yall interpret the passage?

Sabrina Oakes

The Fallacy of Equivocation

craigssenseofwonder.wordpress.com

The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a vague statement is used many times during an argument but has different meaning each time. For example, the fallacy above says that noisy children are a "headache", which is our vague statement. Our vague statement comes up again when it is said that aspirin will make a "headache" go away. It is fallacious to equate these two terms to each other because they were used in different contexts. The first context is metaphorical and uses the term headache to describe how difficult noisy children can be; the second is more literal, referring to a physical ache.

Hansen, Hans. "Fallacies." Stanford University. Stanford University, 29 May 2015. Web. 07 July 2016.

Slippery Slope Examples

The Slippery Slope is the idea that when something happens another event will occur due to the previous one. It is a chain reaction and really no explanation as to why it happens. The Nizkor Project has a good idea to the explanation of what the Slippery Slope equation looks like, "This "argument" has the following form: 
1. Event X has occurred (or will or might occur). 
2. Therefore event Y will inevitably happen."
It is interesting to think about how something happens because of something else. There are a lot of examples in life that can agree with this idea. Some of the examples I found it does not make sense as to why these events happen because of something else. I believe this comic is a good example because it shows how by doing one thing it prevents bad things from happening. The Slippery Slope can be thought of as something you do to avoid other things. A lot of the examples can be negative, but there can also be positive ideas as well.  

Links:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
http://pactiss.org/2008/09/09/slippery-slope-cartoon/ 

Slippery Slope

An example of a slippery slope fallacy is a supervisor at a company wants to let his employees personalize their work space, and be able to use the internet for certain research and on their breaks.  But, the owner of the company says, "no way."  She believes that if she lets them put up pictures of family then eventually inappropriate pictures will be hung on the wall and harassment lawsuits will be filed.  She also says that the company will fold if employees are allowed to have internet access because their productivity will go down and the company will suffer.  These are large leaps to take from the initial requests from the supervisor.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/slippery-slope-fallacy-definition-examples.html

Logical Fallacies in advertising

Through researching logical fallacies I realized that in today's society, logical fallacies are everywhere. I decided to research logical fallacies in advertisements because it shows how we are influenced by these logical fallacies on a daily basis.
Slippery slope:

 

Allstate teenage girl commercial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtP-S9OS0o0

This is slippery slope because the driver is a teenage girl it will inevitably lead to a car accident.
Appeal to celebrity:
 
Drake supporting sprite:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBxcMImubk
Commericals use celebrities constantly based on the logical fallacy that if a celebrity uses a product, you should too.

Commercials use a variety of logical fallacies which we as consumers can uncover to not get influenced in buying a product based on a fallacy.