Hopefully someone other than myself will eventually find this useful. On this page I’ll post the words I read a lot on the blogosphere which could reasonably be confusing to people, and/or on which I have gotten my concepts mixed up, and just definitions I think we should all check ourselves on occasionally. Vocabulary tests were always my favorite. I will also post links to advice/instructions I've found helpful re blogging, commenting, writing, etc.
Words are in the order I find it most helpful to have them in, rather than alphabetical. Links go to the source I based and/or copied my definition from. If there's no link, I went to a variety of sources and wound up explaining it in my own words.
feminist: “anyone who favors political, economic and social equality for women and men.”
conflate: "to combine or mix (two variant readings into a single text, etc.)" I've seen this word used a lot in the blogosphere - here are some good critiques / examples from some of the blogs I read regularly.
deductive: reasoning from the general to the particular.
strawman: argument based on a misrepresentation of your opponent's position.
framing/reframing:
essentialism: “the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there are a set of characteristics all of which any entity of that kind must have ... Essentialist positions on gender, race, or other group characteristics, consider these to be fixed traits, while not allowing for variations among individuals or over time ... Contemporary proponents of identity politics, including feminism, gay rights, and/or anti-racist activists, generally take constructionist viewpoints.”
nihilism: “a philosophical position which argues that the world, especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value ... often more of a charge leveled against a particular idea, movement, or group, than it is an actual philosophical position to which someone overtly subscribes.”
sex: “the property or quality by which organisms are classified as female or male on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions.”
gender:
irony:
sarcasm:
satire:
parody:
Friday, June 20, 2008
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2 comments:
along the lines to fallacious logic: appeal to authority or naming names. If president Bush says so it must be so because he is an authority. Thus this argument is finished. Also the use of syllogism as a means of producing an argument that is logically true, but ultimately is false. IE All girls with red balloons fly, Susan has a red balloon, therefor she flies. While it is a sound logical argument, the premises are false.
and also, have I told you lately that I think you're brilliant?
*blush* I know you are, but what am I?
I learned about syllogisms in a Symbolic Logic class years ago. I wish I hadn't forgotten so much of that class. I took it to fulfill some general ed requirement, but it ended up being one of my funnest classes. Easy math, but with words!
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