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 [...]
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 [...]