The concept that caught my attention this week was refuting indirectly. In Critical Thinking text book by Richard L. Epstein it explains that a person can refute indirectly by reducing to the absurd. Reducing the absurd is “to show that at least one of the several claims is false or dubious, or collectively they are unacceptable, by drawing a false or unwanted conclusion from them” (150). In other words, it means that a new conclusion is made from the same claims to show that that at least one of the claims is wrong. For example, a type of reducing to absurd is called refuting by analogy, which is showing their conclusion false by pointing out that same argument could be done for multiple subject that do not make sense.
For instance, I could argue that recycling one plastic bottle would make no difference because there are billions out there not being recycled. A refuting analogy could say, sure recycling one plastic bottle makes no difference just like turning the light off in an empty room and the water facet when not being used.
That points out that the conclusion to not recycling one plastic bottle because it makes no difference is absurd.
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