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The use of the phrase "unconditional surrender" in World War II is a prime example of the importance of clarity. The phrase conveyed scary images to the Germans and the Japanese. Some experts proposed that the phrase would cause greater resistance against the allies because the term was not clearly conveyed to the target audience.
For example, in Plato's Gorgias, Callicles, trying to define what it means to say that some people are "better" than others, claims that those who are stronger are better. Socrates replies that, because of their strength of numbers, the class of common rabble is stronger than the propertied class of nobles, even though the masses are prima ...
Reductio ad absurdum, painting by John Pettie exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884. In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or apagogical argument, is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened.
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about ...?") is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view, whataboutism is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter ...
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent's argument may involve ...
In reasoning and argument mapping, a counterargument is an objection to an objection. A counterargument can be used to rebut an objection to a premise , a main contention or a lemma . Synonyms of counterargument may include rebuttal, reply, counterstatement, counterreason, comeback and response.
A typical example is the proof of the proposition "there is no smallest positive rational number": assume there is a smallest positive rational number q and derive a contradiction by observing that q / 2 is even smaller than q and still positive.