Mission Critical

For this discussion question, we had to visit a website called Mission Critical. I didnt really know what this website was going to be about so i was interested to check it out and see what i was in for. It turns out that this website was very much about breaking down different parts of arguments. First , it talked about the basics of an argument. It then discussed the different parts of an argument. Then, it gave an examples of all these different arguments and then they also analyzed all of the arguments to help explain whether the argument was a good one or not. After that, there was a different section that talked about fallacies and non fallacies as well as persuasion. This website was very descriptive in all aspects. It described everything very well and made everything much easier to understand. I thought it was a good website and it really helped me to understand these concepts better

Cause and Effect Website

The website that we had to go to was the cause and effect website. At first, i thought it was going to be really long and boring so i was not looking forward to it. It turns out that it wasnt really that bad at all. It was actually very interesting and i thought it really helped me understand the concepts even more. And it wasnt just reading, we got to do some excercises that were even more helpful. I wasnt too clear on the subject of cause and effect but this website definitely did a good job of helping me understand the concept. The examples they used were also good at testing us on whether or not we understood the topic. It was very useful because i got a few of them wrong on my first guess but it let me go back and correct myself so i could get the right answer and understand the reasons why i got the question wrong in the first place. It was very helpful

Appeal to Spite

I was trying hard to figure out which topic from the reading that i would talk about for this post because there were quite a few that i enjoyed that i could have chosen from. The one i chose to talk about can be found in chapter ten of the epstein text. It is appeal to spite. I found this topic very interesting to read about. I was a little lost at first but i read over it and it ended up being easier to understand. The book describes it as the hope of revenge. Basically, it is trying to explain how doing something bad to somebody is what you are supposed to do if they have done something bad to you in the past. I had never really thought of this as an argument but the book does a very good job describing how it can be an argument. It was a very interesting thing to learn about now that i understand it.

Question #2

For this blog post, we were asked to work with one of the excercises presented to us on page one hundred ninety five in the Epstein book. There were a few examples to choose from but i am choosing to work with number six. This example says to give an example of an appeal to spite that invokes what someone believes and is it a good argument? The only real example i can think of for this question would be the people in politics. I will use the presidential election as my example for this blog post. Presidential candidates always state what they believe and what they stand for when they are campaigning for election. Then, the other candidate gets his turn and before he even states what he is all about, he will usually rip what the other candidate had said and try to make him look stupid. That is just the way things work in politics. You are trying to make your opponent lose more than you are trying to win. Usually those arguments are good arguments

Appeal to Emotion

There is a very interesting section in chapter ten in the Epstein book. It has to do with Appeals to emotion. It talks about how we should use our emotions and that they should play some kind of role in our reasoning. This may be true but then the next question would be, "Can we use too much emotion?". That is a very interesting thing to think about. We may act to quickly at times because of our emotions. I think that it is very important to keep a level head and not act solely on your emotions, but actually think before you make a decision on your reasoning. By definition, an appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way. Then the book goes on to give an example. It says that Suzy saw an advertisement that was trying to collect money for children in need. Suzy says the ad was very sad and she wanted to give money. in my opinion, she was acting only on emotion when she should really take her time and think about it before she goes and spends her money. Her emotions were the only reason she felt that way. Overall, it was an interesting concept to learn about.