One of the most recent times that I tried to persuade someone actually happened on facebook about a very controversial topic. One of the first reasoning types that I used was an analogy, comparing a point that he had made to an exact same situation (that he agreed with me on) to show that his point was not reasonable. The analogy type of reasoning was one of the reasoning types that I used the most, but I also used the inductive reasoning in a few situations. One example was that he pointed to someone else (scientists) saying that those people believe the same way he did, so he must be right. I then pointed out that on another issue that he believed in, those same people have "proved" that his side of the issue is wrong, so either he was wrong on the second issue or there was a possibility that those scientists are wrong on the first issue, just as he believes that they were wrong on the second issue.
We were both strongly set in our opinions, and even though my family and friends said my reasoning and persuading techniques were very good, the guy that I was debating with would not be persuaded in any way.
I can relate to that kind of situation. Sometimes it does not matter how strong your reasoning and argument is there are people that are just set on their point of view and won't listening to anything that contradicts that. I do agree that analogies are probably the type of reasoning most used by people in general. Sometimes is hard to put on words the comparison you are trying to make, so analogies definitely help with that. You also did a great job on pointing out the guy's fallacy. Sometimes the best way to refute someone's argument is not point out their "lack" of reasoning or fallacies.
ReplyDeleteI can relate too. First of all, arguing or trying to get your point across on facebook is a problem in itself. There are so many people on there that blogging persuasively would be kind of hard. Did he give you any reasoning or any background on what he was saying? That is good that you were able to sift through what you were saying to know that was what you were trying to persuade him to understand. That is good that your family and friends were able to understand your techniques as well. I am glad that you were able to show the things that we are learning in this class. Good luck on you persuasive speech.
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