Topic: Philosophy: Critical Thinking

Order Description

Students are required to find and analyse 3 published examples of arguments that are not logically sound. That is, each example should contain a fallacy or fallacies or other errors in reasoning, as described in the text. The analysis for each example should around 450 words, for a total of at least 1400 words: if some examples take more space to explain than others, it is alright for the analysis of some examples to be shorter than this, as long as the total is at least 1400 overall. In order to endure that you are on the right track, the 3 examples that you propose to use in your assignment should be submitted to dropbox set up for this purpose under Assignments. The dropbox is called ?Essay Assignment Argument Examples?. I will tell you whether or not your examples are, in fact, arguments. I will not, however, provide any other feedback. The purpose of this step is to ensure that you have found examples appropriate to the assignment. You can only submit 3 examples. It may, however, be a good idea to collect extra examples in case any of the examples you propose to analyze are not, in fact, arguments. The examples should be from a source that is edited and published. They can be taken from any published source that is not a textbook or website dedicated to instruction on critical thinking: you cannot use examples for which someone has already provided an analysis. Failure to respect this requirement may constitute Academic Misconduct. Students may draw no more than 2 (two) of their examples from magazines, newspapers, and online sources and must use at least 2 different sources (though all can be from the same kind of source.) At least 1 (one) must be from books or academic articles (which may be taken from the Ryerson University library?s online collection of ebooks and journals). The examples need not be lengthy. A two-premise argument that is unsound, along with a clear analysis of where the unsoundness lies, is sufficient. It?s important, though, to make sure that you have enough to discuss to meet the length requirement for the assignment. Students may select a part of a long argument for analysis, as long as the part selected has a clear conclusion; all premises that directly support the conclusion are included; the context is clearly and accurately explained; and the argument is clearly unsound. Students are reminded that examples must be arguments, not explanations or reports of arguments that are not intended as arguments. It?s important to keep in mind that longer arguments often are more difficult to diagram. For each unsound argument: 1)The premises and the conclusion must be labelled; 2)The premises, any missing premises and the conclusion must be written out clearly; 3)The argument must be diagrammed; 4)The unsoundness in the argument must be explained clearly and the claim that it is unsound defended. 5)The Principal of Charity must be respected in interpreting and analysing the argument. Assignment Format In most cases, it is expected that students will use only the source from which the argument is taken and the course text. All referencing to material in the assignment must conform to MLA format, including quotations from the course text. Assignments that fail to do so will be penalized. All material must be referenced with citations that include page numbers for all printed material. Papers that fail to cite using specific page numbers for every quotation and summarywill not be graded until the page numbers are added.