Theodore Gracyk
Philosophy 110: Practical Reasoning


Sample Portfolio Page: Fallacy of Inconsistency

This page has all four elements of a correct page:

  1. At the top, it labels the category of argument. 
  2. It documents the source. (Provide the same sort of documentation that would be used for a citation in a college research paper.)
  3. It identifies the issue in the form of a question. 
  4. It evaluates its soundness. (For the fallacies, we skip the standard form reconstruction but explain how the fallacy occurs in the example.) It explicitly states whether the argument is sound or unsound.

          

  Fallacy of Inconsistency  

 

 

"Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical." 
--Yankee catcher Yogi Berra

Source: Maxim Magazine, December 2001, page 91.

   

Issue: Is baseball a mental activity?

 

This is an example of the fallacy of inconsistency because Berra contradicts himself. 
Baseball can't be "half" physical if it is 90 percent mental.

Because of the fallacy,  proposal is unsound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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    Last updated January 8, 2003