Dear fpeters:
Thank you for your question. What you are referring to in describing
that art of "asking a question that has an obvious wrong answer" as
called the "rhetorical question." Here is a definition of the
rhetorical question:
"The rhetorical question is usually defined as any question asked for
a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks."
Source: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/R/rhetorical%20questions.htm
Also: "A rhetorical question implies that the answer is obvious--the
kind of question that does not need actually to be answered. It is
used for rhetorically persuading someone of a truth without argument,
or to give emphasis to a supposed truth by stating its opposite
ironically."
Source: http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/RhetRhetQuestion.html
There are good uses of the rhetorical question. The most common of
which is the method of "reductio ad absurdum." It is defined in
logical terms as "If P, then Q. But not-Q. So not-P." For example, the
following situation:
"A computer scientist announces that he's constructed a computer
program that can play the perfect game of chess: he claims that this
program is guaranteed to win every game it plays, whether it plays
black or white, with never a loss or a draw, and against any opponent
whatsoever. The computer scientist claims to have a mathematical proof
that his program will always win, but the proof runs to 500 pages of
dense mathematical symbols, and no one has yet been able to verify it.
Still, the program has just played 20 games against Gary Kasparov and
it won every game, 10 as white and 10 as black. Should you believe the
computer scientist's claim that the program is so designed that it
will always win against every opponent?"
Source: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jpryor/general/vocab/goodbad.html
A good rhetorical question would then be "What happens if the computer
program plays itself?"
However, there are many more bad ways to phrase a rhetorical question,
and these you may want to avoid. However, in casual conversation or
debate, they maybe be very effective (but still very fallacious!)
These bad ways usually consist of a logical fallacy, such as "When did
you murder your wife?" (begging the question) or "Why don't you IRS
people just take my family too?" (argument by extreme). You can read
more on these fallacies here:
http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/rgass/fallacy3211.htm
Additional Resources:
Questioning Techniques
http://www.nexus.edu.au/teachstud/gat/painter.htm
Rhetorical Questions
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/R/rhetorical%20questions.htm
Fallacies
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index
Philsophical Terms and Methods
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jpryor/general/vocab/goodbad.html
Logic and Fallacies
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html
Google Search Strategy:
"rhetorical question" fallacy
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22rhetorical+question%22+fallacy
If you need any clarifications on any of the above information, please
don't hesitate to ask. I would be more than happy to assist you
further.
Best Regards,
blader-ga |
