Rule #10: Beware of Argument by slogans or epigrams
[Slogans or epigrams] are often colorful and pithy, and make a perfectly valid point. But in the context of reasonable argumentation they should server as no more than attention getters.
(Allen then goes on to illustrate his point by examing the slogan, Better dead than red.)
"It is a waste of time to walk into the trap suggested by such a limited choice of alternatives. Instead one should consult the relevant contextual realities....the facts to be considered literally number in the hundreds. TO limit oneself to a consideration of only two of them - deadness and redness is to short-circuit, at the outset, any hope of thinking rationally about so perplexing an issue."
No comments:
Post a Comment