Title: Argumentation
Name: Rohit Nanavati
Roll No: 13110099
Word Count: 994 Communication has is an integral part of the activities that almost all living beings on this earth do. We as humans have the ability to speak. But speaking is no more just a mode of communication. It’s an art, a skill. Fallacies be the darker side of this art.
So what is a fallacy?! Dictionary defines fallacy as “A mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound arguments”. Fallacy has to do more with the reasoning. Although fallacy can be explained in numerous ways, it is a kind of error or lack of reasoning in an argument. Fallacies have been studied by many people starting from the ages of Aristotle, and has been classified into different types on different bases.
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. False Dichotomy, Mob appeal, Wishful Thinking are few of those weird names. Being illogical approaches, the fallacious arguments may or may not be true and they can be intentional or otherwise. Although fallacies are not entertained in communication, they are a part and parcel of our day-to-day life.
‘Twelve Angry Men’ is an American drama film from 1957. The story basically runs around a murder; a group of juries trying to convince each other if the accused is guilty or not based on logical reasoning. The movie effectively brings out the kind of fallacious arguments that can be seen around us and how the hero proves them false using logical reasoning.
Here are some of the arguments from the film ‘Twelve Angry Men’ that I feel are fallacious and the reasons for the same.
1. When the third jury asks as to why he thinks accused is not guilty, the eighth jury answer’s that he doesn’t know. This is a fallacy because he doesn’t has a reason to defend his thought at
Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose is one of the only literary pieces that reveals the dark truth of America post-WWII. This is a play depicting a jury of twelve white men deciding if a sixteen-year old defendant is guilty of the murder of his own father. In addition, knowledge versus ignorance is the strongest theme in Twelve Angry Men. Rose uses a set of character foils with static characters, a specific time and place, and the archetype of darkness versus light to convey this idea.
A fallacy, by definition, is an argument that uses poor reasoning. Before one uses a fallacy, it’s important to have full understanding or else you risk losing your whole ethos aspect of your argument. Heinrichs gives three important parts to detecting fallacies. “All you have to do is look for a bad proof, the wrong number of choices, or a disconnect between the proof and the conclusion.” (Heinrichs 146)
The setting of 12 Angry Men is a jury deliberation room where the jurors are and required to decide the guilt or innocence of an 18 year old that is accused of committing first-degree murder by stabbing his father with a switchblade knife. Witnesses were presented to give evidence of hearing a quarrel; hearing a threat to kill, and have seeing the boy run away. Another witness swore to having seen the boy stabbing his father from a window across from where the murder occurred. Eleven jurors were convinced the boy was guilty and deserved the death penalty. One raised questions he felt had not been asked or had not been pursued by the defense.
Twelve Angry Men, a play by Reginald Rose, was written in 1955 at a time when America was involved in a cold war with communist countries. It shows the strength of a deliberative process that enables individuals, who have “nothing to gain or lose,” to reach a verdict. In the American jury system “everybody deserves a fair trial” and in Twelve Angry Men the defendant gets a very fair trial. All the jurors have their own opinions on the case but in the end a decision is made. The jury, and the audience, never discovers if in fact the defendant did murder his father. His guilt or innocence seems to be almost
The term ‘fallacy’ is an ambiguous term. It can occur due to many reasons like, a false belief, the cause of any of the previous errors, kind of error in reasoning (including arguments, definitions, explanations, and so forth). There are 209 forms of fallacies. They can be created unintentionally or sometimes intentionally too. The movie ‘Twelve Angry Men’ describes the thoughts of twelve different men from different occupations in a jury room in around 1950s in United State. Their actions, behavior, thoughts and beliefs describe their characters. The movie initially describes the effect of majority in opinions in a group because when the foreman asked the jurors to vote for or against the kid, there were several who just raised their hands
The movie “12 Angry Men” examines the dynamics at play in a United States jury room in the 1950’s. It revolves around the opinions and mindsets of twelve diverse characters that are tasked with pronouncing the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of patricide. The extraordinary element is that their finding will determine his life or death. This play was made into a movie in 1957, produced by Henry Fonda who played the lead role, Juror #8, and Reginald Rose who wrote the original screenplay. This essay will explore some of the critical thinking elements found within the context of this movie, and will show that rational reason and logic when used effectively can overcome the mostly ineffective rush to judgment that can be prevalent in
Twelve Angry Men, is a play written by Reginald Rose. The play is about the process of individuals and a court case, which is determining the fate of a teenager. It presents the themes of justice, independence and ignorance. Rose emphasises these three themes through the characters and the dialogue. Justice is the principle of moral rightness or equity. This is shown through juror number eight who isn’t sure whether or not the boy is actually innocent or guilty, but he persists to ask questions and convinces the other jurors to think about the facts first. Independence is shown through both juror number three and ten. They both believe that the defendant is guilty until they both realise that they can not relate there past experiences with
In simplest form, Logical Fallacies are fallacious arguments, fallacious meaning logically unsound or misleading. However a more in depth understanding can be constructed from three definitions for Logical Fallacies. The first is
Although a lot of evidence was really convincing, he tried to prove it unconvincing and use sarcasm to convince other jurors otherwise. One example of #7 using sarcasm would be this quote: "Why don't we have them run the trial over..." I think this quote clearly shows that juror #7 is trying to convince other jurors, that court's evidence proves the young man is guilty without reasonable doubt. Also to break #8's spirit he used name calling, another kind of peer pressure. I believe this is a very good example: "The boy is guilty pal, like the nose on your face." The third and last juror I picked was #8, he was not using sarcasm, nor was he muscle flexing, he was using reasonable argument, which helped him convince all the jurors that the young man was innocent. He did not try to convince anybody by screaming at him, on the contrary he tried to go over all the evidence, and he was using intelligent thinking, like trying to calculate exact times, and figure out the correct position of the switch-blade in the chest of the father. He was also trying to recreate a situation to see if indeed one of the witnesses on the stand was lying.
Any jury trial is bound to have some sort of conflict involved when coming to a verdict. The portrayal of a murder case in the movie, 12 Angry Men, involves many different examples of conflict, as well as the approaches to conflict used by different characters. Almost every conversation in the film involves conflict, since the characters are all debating whether or not the boy being tried for murder is guilty or not, but there are a few scenes in which different types of conflict and different approaches to conflict seem to stand out.
The movie 12 Angry Men is about the murder mystery in which a nineteen year old son kills his father by putting knife in his chest. Then juries of 12 people discuss the case & decide the punishment for the son. A lot of fallacies are there in this movie.
Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, is a play about a jury trying to come to a verdict that will determine whether or not a teenage boy will be put on death row.
Summary: Reviews the film Twelve Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet. Discusses the director's use of cinematic techniques, including lighting, music,and set design, to reinforce the themes of the story.
The Jury is conformed of twelve men. Each man is in a different social status in society and are sworn to have no prior opinion towards this case. To find the accused unanimously guilty of a crime, all twelve Jurors have to agree with out reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime. If one Juror thinks there could be any doubt then all twelve have to agree the accused is innocent or it’s a hung Jury.
12 Angry Men (1957) is a gripping and an engrossing examination of 12 jurors who are deciding the fate of a young Puerto Rican boy in a murder trial. It is phenomenal that a movie with a running time of just 96 minutes and shot in just one room could be so impactful and so intellectually stimulating that it could be a source of immense learning for generations to come in the field of psychology, social psychology, Organizational Behavior anddecision making.