Critical Thinking: Fallacies 2 

what's missing in this series of lectures on fallacies is how to counter and destroy arguments based on fallacies

Thank you for your videos! I'm take this class online at another college and you make the information in the book more clear. If I was at FSU I would sign up for your classes Dr. Sadler.

A good video to find - reviewing for my test later today. - Much thanks from a University of Memphis student.

Thank you Dr. Sadler for helpingme get though my Critical Thinking class

LOL, I don't know if Trump is gonna get much traction (~14:00).

You're welcome

Thank you,you're a very good teacher.

I have been watching your presentations here about critical thinking skills. I enjoy them. I would assume you lean libertarian from the balance you strike. I have been noticing a trend in your tangents and examples. I could be way off, but it is always fun to take a guess at these sorts of things. Thanks again for the videos. It is a service that I think thousands of people will benefit from for many years to come.

Thanks for explaining to me just how fallacies work. It would have been really handy to have been able to consult you when I taught the class. Imagine me misleading my students about this all those years of teaching.

This is where logic seems to break down: If the majority of people think we should go to war in a situation where we may actually be going to war, then it is only logical to assume that we will go to war; even though the cause may not be justified or even logical. So it is like pitting logic vs logic. In a case like this, it is logical to assume we will go to war, even if the cause of going is illogical.

What a great teacher!! Mad respect 🫡

True. I had considered that a large percentage of people are ill informed, and often don't fully analyze the situation. But, those decisions should not rest on a single individual, no matter how well informed or well meaning he might be. For the simple reason that many people value things differently. Ultimately it's society who foots the bill, and the people who serve in the military, who die for it. If a war is truly justified, you should be able to make that case to the people.

I stand corrected. Thanks!

Very well thought out. Thank you. My original argument was that War is a bad example of 'Fallacy of Popularity' because of the moral ambiguity. In the sense that one of the determining factors is popular opinion of whether or not it is a moral act. So, glad to see i wasn't completely off-base.

No, I've not written any books so far on topics in Critical Thinking, though I'm planning on doing so in the next few years

Unfortunately, I don't have anything online about these lectures -- I'm now at Marist, rather than at FSU (whose channel these lectures are in)

You're very welcome

These are all terrific videos! Many thanks for uploading them here. Have you penned a book(s) on the subject of fallacies, similar to that by Madsen Pirie?

I did say I'm talking about a general principle in the response

You're welcome -- if you like these, come check out the 200+ philosophy videos on my personal RU-vid channel

Well explained! Thank you :)

Thanks for these videos, I am very much enjoying them. Just a question, are the in-class students just out of high school or are they mixed ages? Thanks again.

Great stuff

Hi, Gregory. Thank you so much for putting it up online. Is there any free online material about your lectures? Thanks!

I think it's probably the latter; or more commonly BOTH people want to believe their argument is justified, but neither of them has taken the time to form a complete connection between premises and conclusion. I've rarely seen a complete logical justification for any real-life event. This is especially true in morally ambiguous situations such as war. Laws can be helpful here, since they can specify a standard set of conditions that need to be met before war is considered "justified".

I agree with your last sentence, if only for the fact that the people who DO think critically and analyze the situation should be given the justification they deserve.

Not completely off-base, but morals themselves are wrought with opportunity for fallacy: appeals to popularity, tradition, authority are all common; so you should be willing to look both at whether popular morals are the right justification for an action; but also whether the moral construct itself is based in fallacy. Society-level decisions (like war) are especially tricky since we should consider not whether society agrees, but whether society came to agreement by a sound logical argument.

thank you so much

Well, I'm talking about a general principle. You're talking about a specific kind of cases, where some assumption is being made, right -- namely that, in this case the general rule does not apply, and what makes something right or wrong is that the majority chooses it? So, not really a counter-example to the general rule

David Blaine did his show where he held his breath for like 17 minutes and that took a lot of practice for him to get to that. that was actually not trickery that was somebody conditioned and trained a lot to be able to do that

@nadalily1 that's great! Not mine, though, actually. If you'd like to see me teaching my favorite one, check out my personal channel

my favorite subject

how to fix squeaky hinges.....

Thank you, sir. That actually makes more sense. But aren't there still cases, such as the one given in the video(war), in which different people will draw different conclusions based on the same true premises? Are these justified and just weak arguments, or do they just seem justified to one person and not the other?

Were you ever stationed at Ft. Bragg during your service?

An appeal to unpopularity can be covered with the same mechanics as an appeal to popularity .

I know. My response was just some constructive criticism with regards to the example given.. Having accurate examples is important for conveying your point. Essentially it's 'bad form' to have an example of a fallacy, that contains an additional implicit premise that is itself a fallacy(That moral justification is not subject to popular opinion)

Pretty sure justification is used here in a technical sense, with an implicit rigorous formal definition. A subjective sense of what is "justified" doesn't matter; what matters here are: 1) whether the premises are correct; 2) whether the premises support the conclusion. If the premises are not correct, or if they do not support the conclusion, then the conclusion is not justified.

18:35 What !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can't pick up what you said !

"If I wanted to become very popular, what I'd do is make a lot of promises to people. Whether they can be kept or not, and if they can't I'd just blame my opposition. I would say 'Yeah, I'm going to improve this, fix this, and punish these people' and I'd look to see who we'd don't like and I'd do some of the scapegoating we talked about." He wrongly predicted Trump not gaining traction but 100% predicted how he actually gained traction and became president.

just curious, at 10:14 you mention "If its justified it doesnt matter how many people are against it". Isnt that a fallacy: "If its legal it doesnt matter how many people disagree"? Because if the majority of americans would vote for something being illegal, the government would make it illegal right? Who decides whether wars can be justified? Is your point to say that the decision is not in the people's hands because they chose their government to do so?

Maybe you should teach a class on how to handle criticism. One would think you would welcome feedback to improve your lectures, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm in no way insulting your class, intelligence, insinuating that you're "misleading" anybody, or saying you dont understand how fallacies work. I have the utmost respect for you and other educators, and I quite enjoyed the lecture. I'm simply stating that it was a poorly chosen example, and providing an explanation of why i think thats the case.

What a door! :)

Yeah. . . you're not getting it. If you're going to turn even "justified" into something merely subjective, asking about "what justification means to you" is rather pointless. Here's the last thing I'm going to say, since I've already expended enough time and thought on this, and I've got a lot of other work to do -- try rereading this entire exchange while suspending your assumption that these are all matters of opinion, or subjective, etc. Then you might get the point I made

I think you need to actually reread what's been said. "If it's justified" -- if you want to think that "justification" means something subjective, you can. I don't, and generally, that's not how we actually use the term in the discipline. There's a difference between "seeming justified" and being justified. So, it's not actually "constructive" criticism (an old trope for those who get push-back after they give off-base "criticism"), nor really "feedback to improve [my] lectures".

I'm kinda with leon here. Justification/Right and wrong are largely subjective. For instance, removing a dictator from power to some people may be justification, while to other people a dictatorship isn't necessarily bad. The general principle that you're teaching is sound, i think you just need a better example. That said, I do like your videos and I wish more people were taught to think critically at a young age.

I have reread, and, i'm trying to understand where you're coming from. You say thats not how you use the term in the discipline. I'm just asking for the definition. If that's not how you use the term, then clearly we must be using different meanings for the word, right? To me justification means showing an action is reasonable. - but everyone value things differently, so actions like war are always subjective, because what seems reasonable to one person certainly won't to another.

Women were allowed to vote in France on the 21st of April 1944, not when stated here. The French indigenous women in French Algeria had to wait until July 3rd 1958. This is presumably what you were thinking of.

Hey, Dr Sadler. How is this Obama hope and change working out for you?

Well, that's the entire point. Something can seem justified without actually being justified. That's the very nature of subjectivity. Who decides whether something 'seems' justified or whether it actually 'Is' justified? If i'm wrong, then explain to me what justification means to you - how is it any different from 'your opinion' of what is justified, and what isn't?

You kind of remind me of Penn Jillette.

Naughty student!

Not so well, but I'm not and have not been an Obama supporter, so I'm not surprised

Barack is not a robot, lizards can't be robots. Also, robots aren't super spreaders.

14:30 MAGA 2020

Hurray for Trump

You're welcome