Once Again Heinrichs Proved Me Wrong

After reading Chapter 13 of Jay Heinrichs book, Thank You For Arguing, I now have for certain that I’ve always had an erroneous idea of how “bad logic” really works. According to Heinrichs parents usually respond with bad logic such as, “If your friends told you to go jump in a lake…” To be honest, this has always worked with me, I thought to myself that this argument made all the sense in the world. Oh what a fool I used to be. I believed this was perhaps the best logic one could use in an argument, but once again this book proved me wrong.

Leaving bad logic to a side, let’s focus on how logos really are used correctly, and where it really shines. For example in defense, logos can be the easiest way to back up your argument, and just burn your opponent. After all the person you are arguing against is not going to “fact-check every argument” (122). Who knows maybe everything Mr. Tangen tells us in class is a lie, but we as student trust him enough not to go look it up in the internet and if with did not trust him we would not get the time to “fact-check” ever single thing he tells us. After all, its all a lie.

Persuasion ALERT

Hyperbole: an exaggeration. This is by far one of the types of rhetoric I use more often than I should.  Say something like, "I've been to this movies a thousand times, it's the best movie ever made." Let me tell you something I would trust the guy above a million times more than someone that has seen it a hundred times (no punintended). Hyperboles (exaggerations), are often used in commercials that are trying to sell a product. Lets take this Cover Girl commercial: other than using ethos, it is also using hyperboles. For example, when Sofia Vergara says, “one pump covers… wrinkles,” she is exaggerating. Because let’s face if you are one-hundred years old, not even god can cover does wrinkles and much less a Cover Girl product.

In this Chapter, Heinrichs introduced us to other terms such as enthymeme that I already knew...NOT. If you know what it means, congrats, if you don't, here is my home-made definition (actually the book's with a little help from his pal, Wikipedia).

Enthymeme: it is an argument  or a "logic sandwich" in which the premise is not expressed (125). "In an enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it is assumed" (wikipedia).

"We should [choice], because [commonplace]" (133).

Almost forgot the two types of logic, but here they are: deductive and inductive logic.

Inductive Logic: give information and apply formula.

Deductive Logic: starts with a common place - and applies it to reach a conclusion.

Last but not least, what we've all been waiting for... paradigm. Paradigm is "a rule that you apply to the choice you want your audience to make" (131). Almost missed, but thanks to the side note titled Meanings I now completed the task of this blog.

I have nothing else to say, so see you next entry ;)!