Attacking The Conclusion
Before actually demolishing the conclusion you should try to make your audience realize that you have exposed cracks in the brittle structure offered by your opponent. So you should begin by offering a general characterization of your opponent's argument.
Summarize what you take to be the case of your opponent, but in order to clarify the case for the audience you should engage in a little translation so as to put that case in as bad a light as possible. Take the words used by your opponent and try to substitute those having a negative connotation in the mind of the audience.
Below are a few example of such translation.
discriminate = prejudice
alteration = radical innovation
existing order = antiquated prejudice
religious zeal = fanaticism
law and order = political repression
In addition, you should be a picayune as possible by picking on his actual words rather than his meaning. The task will be made especially easy for you if your opponent takes the trouble of trying to make his presentation a little stylized or literary.
Finally, in offering a general characterization of someone else's argument,you should dismiss it or categorize it emotively in terms of some generally know position that is rejected by your audience.
After a general characterization of the argument, you should attack the route taken by your opponent to his conclusion. Here you are criticizing the means he used to go from the evidence to the conclusion. Whether or not he is guilty of them, you can accuse him of certain traditional formal fallacies. Moreover, where possible, you should use the Latin names of the fallacies because this will make the audience believe you are skilled in identifying such fallacies and because the error sounds so much worse, just like a rare disease, when described in Latin.
Argumentum ad Baculum
(appeal to force)
Argumentum ad Hominem
(attack the man/person)
Argumentum ad Inorantiam
(argument from ignorance)
Argumentum ad Misericordiam
(appeal to pity)
Argumentum ad Populum
(appeal to the people)
Argumentum ad Verecumdiam
(appeal to authority)
Petito Principii
(begging the question)
Ignoratio Elenchi
(irrelevant conclusion)
Summarize what you take to be the case of your opponent, but in order to clarify the case for the audience you should engage in a little translation so as to put that case in as bad a light as possible. Take the words used by your opponent and try to substitute those having a negative connotation in the mind of the audience.
Below are a few example of such translation.
discriminate = prejudice
alteration = radical innovation
existing order = antiquated prejudice
religious zeal = fanaticism
law and order = political repression
In addition, you should be a picayune as possible by picking on his actual words rather than his meaning. The task will be made especially easy for you if your opponent takes the trouble of trying to make his presentation a little stylized or literary.
Finally, in offering a general characterization of someone else's argument,you should dismiss it or categorize it emotively in terms of some generally know position that is rejected by your audience.
After a general characterization of the argument, you should attack the route taken by your opponent to his conclusion. Here you are criticizing the means he used to go from the evidence to the conclusion. Whether or not he is guilty of them, you can accuse him of certain traditional formal fallacies. Moreover, where possible, you should use the Latin names of the fallacies because this will make the audience believe you are skilled in identifying such fallacies and because the error sounds so much worse, just like a rare disease, when described in Latin.
Argumentum ad Baculum
(appeal to force)
Argumentum ad Hominem
(attack the man/person)
Argumentum ad Inorantiam
(argument from ignorance)
Argumentum ad Misericordiam
(appeal to pity)
Argumentum ad Populum
(appeal to the people)
Argumentum ad Verecumdiam
(appeal to authority)
Petito Principii
(begging the question)
Ignoratio Elenchi
(irrelevant conclusion)
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