You’ll find mention of the “fact” that Ted Cruz was a championship debater in post-debate analyses, talk shows and political commentaries. But let’s examine the fact a little more closely. True, Cruz debated while at Princeton. It’s also true he and his partner won some championships. But here’s the key point that’s often overlooked or [...]
Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump have all been able to capitalize on voters’ discontent with status quo politicians by portraying themselves as “outsiders” who aren’t tainted by the political culture of lobbying and special interests. I'm focusing on Republicans for the most part, since they refer to themselves as "outsiders." Jeb Bush was [...]
Remember that one of Aristotle’s “available means of persuasion was logic, or what I refer to as “argument” in blog postings. To better understand how to judge the strength of an argument, it helps to have some tools at hand, so in this post I look at the structure and constituent parts. To effectively analyze [...]
I once had a colleague, who when she heard something she found difficult to believe, would exclaim: “Oh, tell the truth!” How I now wish she was asking the candidates questions, trying to weed through their fallacies. A fallacy is a mistake or deliberate misuse of one of the parts of argument. Fallacies often seem persuasive [...]
The post on the DNA of Argument introduced the role reasoning played in argument. I wrote that reasoning connected the evidence someone presents to the assertion someone makes. You could also think of reasoning as a bridge or a link. In this post, we take a closer look at some different types of reasoning and [...]
I begin with a caveat: If you ever read a book on argumentation or take a course in argument, you’ll likely see more distinctions among the different types of evidence than what I’m about to present. I’ve condensed the many different types into three general categories: 1) examples 2) statistics and 3) expertise. I chose [...]
So far, the primary debates have contained lots of assertions, but very little argument Most have conveyed little evidence, confused the nature of facts and conflated the different types of assertions. Before we delve any deeper into the rhetorical toolbox and look at the role assertions play in a logical argument, let me offer three general [...]