Critical Thinking Academy
Leading an examined life The dictator's weapons of mass deception - persuasive rhetorical devices
Throughout history, dictators have skillfully employed rhetoric as a tool to capture and consolidate power, as well as to perpetrate horrific acts of genocide. By leveraging rhetorical devices, these leaders have effectively manipulated emotions, suppressed dissent, and maintained control over their nations. In this article, we will explore the cul...
GRE Analytical Writing are a test of Critical Thinking. Analytical Thinking and Critical Thinking are synonymous. So what is Critical Thinking? Leaving alone the definitions which are useful from an academic point of view, Critical Thinking essentially is the process of considering and evaluating all dimensions of a situation...
Is the customer persuaded by logical reasoning, or by emotional persuasion? When it comes to B2C sales, it is a combination of emotive factors and logical reasoning. However in a B2B environment, the decisions are largely made based on logical reasoning. Weeding out superficial factors and other influences (such as pricing) to the decision making p...
Believing that if "everybody" or "many" believes it, it must be true. This is a fallacious argument that concludes that the proposition is true because many people believe it. This fallacy is also known by other names: appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, c...
Poisoning the well may be thought of as an Ad Hominem fallacy in advance. If poison is dumped into your well, you don't drink from it. Similarly if someone poisons your mind about X, by telling you something unfavorable about B, you may be inclined to reject anything that X says to you. This is a rhetorical device where adverse information about a ...
Hasty generalization is one of the most common logical fallacies we encounter at work, study and home. Many racial prejudices we carry have their roots in hasty generalizations subsequently strengthened and perpetuated by a confirmation bias. The Hasty Generalization fallacy is also known by many other names: Fallacy of insufficient st...
The genetic fallacy is also known as the fallacy of origins. A claim is accepted to be true or false based purely on its origin or history. The origin of a Claim is presented The Claim is declared true (or false) Examples X is a politician He is corrupt Here we conclude he is corrupt because his origins are In politics He is from India He do...
The Line Drawing Fallacy, also known as the Continuum Fallacy, is a type of logical fallacy in which the alternatives are presented as either having a precise line to be drawn or having no line to be drawn at all, resulting in a false dilemma. This fallacy suggests that there is no middle ground or gray area between two extremes. The Line Drawing F...
This is a variation of the False Dilemma Fallacy, also called the Continuum Fallacy. It goes something like this: If Policy X does not meet all the objectives as well as we want it to (ie perfectly), then Policy X should b rejected. This principle downgrades X simply because it isn't perfect. It says in effect " Either the policy is perfect. else w...
Ad hominem : In Latin "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person." A theory or claim is discarded not because of any evidence against it or lack of evidence for it, but because of the person who argues for it. is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the person , making the claim or argument...
Begging the question means assuming the conclusion. In this type of argument, the conclusion that is sought to be proved is included in the initial premises/reason of the argument. Begging the question or assuming the answer is a logical fallacy that occurs when the conclusion of an argument is used as a premise of that same argument; i.e., ...
In this type of arguments, you are Presented with a limited set of alternatives when there are actually other choices that are worth considering in the context. Example: "Every person is either my enemy or my friend. If he is my enemy I should hate him. If he is my friend I should love him. So I should either love him or hate him." Ob...
Arguing that if an opponent were to accept some claim C1, then he or she has to accept some other closely related claim C2, which in turn commits the opponent to a still further claim C3, eventually leading to the conclusion that the opponent is committed to something absurd or obviously unacceptable. This style of argumentation const...