Reasoning by Analogy

Out of all the different types of reasoning given to us this week, I thought reasoning by analogy was a little difficult to get a grasp on. To solve this problem, I typed in "reasoning by analogy" into google, and found a great website that explained it fairly well. They define reasoning by analogy as "A is like B" or "X is similiar to Y". Seeing how reasoning by analogy can be broken into such simple parts really helped me to understand the concept. The site also stated that reasoning by analogy was simply another form of inductive reasoning, which also made it easier to grasp the concept because all I had to do was look at some inductive reasoning examples to really understand it better. I was glad this discussion question pushed us to do a little more research because now I feel I have a much better understanding of reasoning by analogy. All I have to do is fill in the blanks, like in the "A is like B" example!

Different Types of Reasoning (Real world examples)

Reasoning by analogy- You have to pay a toll to cross the bridge in a car. Bob is planning on driving across the bridge. He will have to pay a toll.

Sign Reasoning- Green means go, red means stop!

Casual Reasoning- I was late for my interview. This made me look like an irresponsible worker. Therefore I was not hired.

Reasoning by Criteria- Bob wants a new, flashy sports car. Will this BMW do?

Reasoning by Example- You want a well balance and quick sports car that still offers some levels of class and comfort? You should try a BMW M3! Alan has one and said that its the best car he's ever driven!

Inductive- Wow that liquor store is great! It's open 24/7 every day, even holidays! Anytime I stop by to buy something, I know it'll be open!

Deductive Reasoning- These finger prints belong to Bob. Bob's finger prints were found on the murder weapon. Bob is the killer!

3. Number 4 on Chapter 10 Exercises

4. Make an appeal to emotion for the next time a traffic officer stops you.

This really caught my eye as I was reading through the section because of how funny and true the fact is that many people will try to appeal to a police officer's emotion in order to get out of a ticket. I know if I got pulled over I would say pretty much anything to possibly make him more lenient, and hopefully out of a ticket. For example, If I got pulled over for speeding, and I knew I was definitely at fault, then I would probably say something along the lines of: "Sorry officer! I had to rush home because of a family emergency!" My hope in saying this is that the officer probably was in the same situation before and would understand my need to drive slightly faster. Either this or he would feel sorry for me and let me be on my way home to attend to my "emergency."

Appeal to Emotion

An appeal to emotion is basically an argument that affects you emotionally, meaning that it tries to influence you to think a certain way based on what they think you should feel. These kinds of arguments can be bad sometimes, but appealing to your emotion really makes you think its for a good cause.

Appeal to pity is a type of appeal to emotion and is the one that strikes me the most in my opinion. This applies when it is a situation in which you feel bad or sorry for someone. A common example I always see is TV commercials in which an organization or foundation shows that hardships of little kids in poverty. They usually ask for help or donations, which they say will all go to helping the kids. This kind of appeal to emotion actually affect me a lot because every time I see one of those commercials, I'll feel like donating some money, which I have in a few occasions.

Second Major Course Assignment

Out of the two assignments that we have worked on so far, I can definitely say that the second one was the most useful to me. Social organizations are quite common nowadays, and come in many different shapes, sizes, and all hold different purposes. This assignment really helped by allowing us to see what kind of questions we should be asking to really break down what a social organization is all about. My group for example did our paper on M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), which was really easy to go indepth with what they had to say after applying the questions the assignment asks us to answer. M.A.D.D. uses a lot of emotion to appeal because they are a group created by mothers who have lost loved ones due to drunk driving. Any loss, especially that of a loved one is very emotionally draining, and their stories are what drive the organization to do whatever they can to prevent drunk driving, especially in teens. Overall though, this assignment has made me much more aware of what social organizations can do to be more appealing to us.

What I Learned in Chapter 8

In chapter 8, I learned the exact definition of "some", which means "at least one" or "at least one, but not all." This really caught my attention because the examples they gave in the book showed just how vague using the word "some" is. The funny thing is, it is a word we all use frequently when we are unsure of our answer or if you want to be purposely vague. Take me for example, whenenver my Mom asks me if I've finished my homework, I'll simply reply, "Yeah, some of it..." To her, "some" means at least half, to me, its writing down the first sentence of my essay!


I also learned the direct way of reasoning with all.

All S are P
A is S
So A is P

Reasoning directly with all produces valid arguments, so its no wonder its something I frequently used myself, but didn't have a clear definition for, it was just something that I knew worked. For example, a discussion I had with my friend.

Jimmy: Hey is a 98 3-series rear-wheel drive?
Alan: Well, all BMWs up until recently are rear-wheel drive. That car is a 98 3-series, so I'm going to have to say yes, it is rear-wheel drive.

Contrapositives

A contrapositive is basically the equivalent to the original argument. The book uses "A" and "B" to explain this. "If A then B" and "If  not B then not A". It is a pretty concept overall and is something we run into all the time in our daily lives. Being able to identify the contrapositive sometime makes it easier to understand the original argument. It was kind of hard to grasps at first, but the example of getting a drivers licenses really cleared things up. That is, to be able to recieve a license, one must first pass the driving test. If you do not pass the driving test, then you do not have a license. As you can see, it is simply broken down using the "A" and "B". From this I was able to easily draw onto other examples such as "If the street light is green, you go" and "If you do not go then the light is not green".