Slippery Slope and Bandwagon Appeal.
In my com class there have been a couple things I have disagreed...make that many, but none rubbed me quite like these two. The claim that slippery slope and bandwagon appeal are not valid reasoning tools is ridiculous. Sure, no argument can stand on these alone, but to say that they are not a valid part of one's repertoire is absurd.
The slippery slope is the single most prominent pattern in history. The order in which governments come and go in Socrates and Aristotle is just a progression of slippery slopes, one after the other. Every time it is a case of one event setting off a whole slide of them. The slippery slope has a huge place in the Socratic method and is used throughout the republic.
Patterns are powerful predictive tools, so why would you rule out the most regular pattern in history as a legitimate tool?
And what is bandwagon appeal if it is not social acceptability? Since when does the approval of society count for nothing in the actions and beliefs of the individual? She keeps telling us how much of what we find to be right or wrong is influenced by society. So why is the opinion of society not a valid tool in argument?
The above are not flat errors like false causality. One is a pattern. The other is a measure of what is acceptable to one's peoples. To brand them as fallacy is idiotic. Thrasymachus has an opening through which he could have turned Socrates counterargument to his claim that justice was the advantage of the stronger. To win, Thrasymachus would have needed to denounce Greek societal values and embraced hedonism, but he cannot because he is a politician and must hold to "bandwagon appeal" if he is to maintain standing. His argument was curbed by the same technique which I am told has no place in argument today.
Slippery slope, as a little historian, bugs me more. There is always a slippery slope.
The slippery slope is the single most prominent pattern in history. The order in which governments come and go in Socrates and Aristotle is just a progression of slippery slopes, one after the other. Every time it is a case of one event setting off a whole slide of them. The slippery slope has a huge place in the Socratic method and is used throughout the republic.
Patterns are powerful predictive tools, so why would you rule out the most regular pattern in history as a legitimate tool?
And what is bandwagon appeal if it is not social acceptability? Since when does the approval of society count for nothing in the actions and beliefs of the individual? She keeps telling us how much of what we find to be right or wrong is influenced by society. So why is the opinion of society not a valid tool in argument?
The above are not flat errors like false causality. One is a pattern. The other is a measure of what is acceptable to one's peoples. To brand them as fallacy is idiotic. Thrasymachus has an opening through which he could have turned Socrates counterargument to his claim that justice was the advantage of the stronger. To win, Thrasymachus would have needed to denounce Greek societal values and embraced hedonism, but he cannot because he is a politician and must hold to "bandwagon appeal" if he is to maintain standing. His argument was curbed by the same technique which I am told has no place in argument today.
Slippery slope, as a little historian, bugs me more. There is always a slippery slope.
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