Fallacy Files

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Fallacy Files

The “Fallacy Files” web site provides an important introduction to both formal and informal fallacies. I think their work on informal fallacies being the most important for our needs today. It is the informal fallacies that we must learn to recognize. The early settlers had to learn the sign and behavior of the wolf and bear but it is the informal fallacy that today’s citizen must learn. When not recognized the manipulative sophistication of those who wish to control our society will cause us similar damage.

Those members of our early American settlers were required to understand many things about their natural habitation in order to survive. These early frontier settlers had primarily natural conditions that threatened their existence. They worried about and learned to understand the signs of the wolf and the bear also the clouds and the weather in general. Their survival depended upon it.

Today our well being if not our very survival depends upon our ability to understand the society we live in and the fellow citizens that occupy our space with us. Our needs for understanding our environment especially that part of it that contains fellow citizens has become acute because our fellows have become expert at manipulating our environment. If we do not understand how these things are being manipulated we are the losers.

Many of us who were first introduced to the concept ‘fallacy’ when we took a college course on ‘Logic’ found the matter to be boring. It appears, from what I hear, that many students took away from those classes distaste for everything related to the concepts of ‘logic’ and the associated ‘fallacies’. That is unfortunate and is perhaps an indication of why it is so important for all individuals to become self-actualizing self-learners after their school daze are over.

This wonderful phrase “the ubiquity of ambiguity” I found on a web site that I think all individuals who understand the importance of CT (Critical Thinking) might wish to visit.
fallacyfiles.org/ambiguit.html

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Im not sure that the fallacy is as literal as it sounds maybe it is meant to be interpreted asthe early settlers had to learn these skills as a matter of life or death and we must also learn to live in our evnvironment the same as it is too often a matter of life or death, sink or swim.

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What I am trying to say is that the folks living in the early days had to know the habits of the wolf and the bear to survive. Today we have to know the habits of those who wish to manipulate us by using logical fallacies.

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That is entirely possible the general idea seems to be that ignorance and fear in the masses will make them easier to control but is it just a time bomb waiting to explode as does the frightened mass of animals ultimatly break free eventually. I find that if you look hard enough wisdom can be found in many unusual places it is up to the individual to interpret it as so.