Class Test

 1.     Differentiate between ‘Probability’ and ‘Possibility’.

Ans: Probability is a theory which indicates the extent to which an event is likely to occur. It is a subset.  Probability thinking is considering the likelihood of something happening from past evidence. This can be described as something which has a great chance as well as a small chance of happening.

Possibility is derived from the Latin word “possibilitas” which means able to be done is the capability of an event taking place or being done. It is a universal set. This word is used when something has a lesser chance of occurring.

 

2.    2. Explain the types of fallacies.

Ans:

1.     AD HOMINEM FALLACY:

Under this the person who is making their point is targeted and not the statement.

 

EXAMPLE:

JACK: You should stop smoking- it’s bad for you.

 

JILL: Look who’s talking! You smoke three packs a day!

 

Jack’s reasoning is good, while Jill commits the fallacy.

 

 

 

2.     FALLACY OF FALSE CAUSE:

 

Two events are correlated if whenever one occurs, the other occurs. Two events are casually related if one’s occurring is sufficient to make the other event occur.

 

EXAMPLE:

There is an increase in the number of brides In June, as well as an increase in the number of flies in June. Both aren’t related but are correlated and not casually related.

 

3.     STRAW MAN FALLACY:

It occurs when the arguer misinterprets the opposite parties’ views, shows that the misinterpretation is mistake and concludes their opponents view is mistaken.

 

EXAMPLE:

What I object to most about those people who oppose capital punishment is that they believe that the lives of convicted murderers are more important than the lives of the police and prison guards who protect us. Since they protect our lives, one shouldn’t oppose capital punishment. The opponent’s view is that capital punishment is wrong. This view is misrepresented as bein the view that the lives of convicted murderers are more important than the lives of police and prison guards.

 

4.     APPEAL OF IGNORANCE:

Occurs when someone uses an opponent's inability to disprove a claim     as evidence of that claim's being true or false (or, acceptable or unacceptable).

 

Example:

You haven't been able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no God. Therefore, it is still reasonable for me to believe in God.

 

 

5.     APPEAL TO EMOTION:

This occurs when someone tries to use the opposite person’s emotions in order to influence their own statement.

 

EXAMPLE:

Statement by Carol Everett: “Then we had a death. 32-year-old women hemorrhaged to death as a result of cervical laceration. I finally realized; we weren’t helping women- we were destroying them.”

 

3.     3.. Describe Benedict Anderson’s concept of a nation.

Ans:

According to Anderson the nation is an “imagined community”. This is because it entails a sense of communion or “horizontal comradeship” between people who often do not know each other or have not met. Anderson further defined this imagined community as limited and sovereign limited, because even the largest nations recognize some boundaries and the existence of other nations beyond them; sovereign, because the nation replaced traditional kinship ties as the foundation of the state. On the contrary, Anderson argued, this imagined community creates a deep horizontal comradeship, for which countless people have willingly sacrificed themselves. The development of nationalism, he argued, was caused by the convergence of capitalism, and print media. 

 

 

4.    4.  Write a note on ‘Hegemony’.

Ans:

Hegemony means political, economic and military predominance of one state over other states. It was used to describe relations between city-states. Its use in political analysis was somewhat limited until its intensive discussion by the Italian politician and Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. This control can be exercised subtly rather than forcefully through cultural means and economic power, and rest on a mixture of consent and coercion. Hegemony is a practice of power that rests substantially on the consent of various strata achieved by groups possessing or seeking state power, whereas dominance relies primarily on coercion. One of the most extensive applications of Gramsci’s conception of hegemony has been to the analysis of international relations and international political economy, via the so-called transnational historical materialism.