Logic and Critical Reasoning Applied
6 weeks · 0 milestones
Identify and formally document logical fallacies or reasoning errors in a real public argument — a named political speech, named media editorial, named policy document, or named public figure's published statement (named and dateable). For each reasoning error identified: name the fallacy or error type, quote the specific passage from the text, and explain why that passage commits the error and what a valid version of the argument would look like. Proof is your analysis plus a documented challenge from a logician or philosophy academic who contests at least one of your identifications — specifically, whether it is genuinely a fallacy or a rhetorical move that can be reconstructed as a valid argument. Your written defence of your classification is a required part of the proof.
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3 milestones
Collect three to five real arguments from public discourse — newspaper editorials, political speeches, advertiser claims, social media debates — and apply formal and informal logic analysis to each. For each: identify the logical form (deductive, inductive, abductive), identify any formal fallacies, identify any informal fallacies with explanations tied to the specific argument, and produce a validity/strength assessment. Use real publicly accessible sources.
Proof required
Logic analysis document (600+ words) covering three to five real arguments from cited public sources, each with: logical form identified, formal and informal fallacies identified (or explicitly stated as absent) with specific explanations, and a validity/strength assessment.
What gets checked
- Arguments are from real publicly accessible sources with citations
- Fallacy identifications are tied to the specific argument — not generic definitions
- Validity and strength assessments are made separately and appropriate to the argument type