I employ a segment from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart titled “From Russia with Gov” (2011 season) in my critical thinking class to illustrate validity, soundness, and enthymematic arguments.
You can find the video clip here: FROM RUSSIA WITH GOV
The clip begins with the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin making a cryptic critical remark about President Obama’s speech. Stewart seizes on this seeming slip of the tongue to construct an elaborate theory aimed to show that Sarah Palin is actually a Russian spy. Complete with a montage of Palin making more curious claims, Stewart constructs two arguments (one invalid and one valid—yet both unsound) to establish his outlandish conclusion. The clip is relatively short, which is why I usually play it in its entirety in the class.
The first argument that Stewart makes is useful for illustrating the fallacy of affirming the consequent:
P1: If Sarah Palin were a Soviet agent, she would have made some reference favoring a totalitarian state.
P2: Sarah Palin has made a reference favoring a totalitarian state.
C: Therefore, Sarah Palin is a Soviet agent.
Setting aside the fact that Stewart vacillates between ‘Soviet’ and ‘Russian’, the argument he comes up with is fallacious. The students can easily show how the premises can be true, yet they can provide counterexamples that render the conclusion false.
The second, more elaborate argument, is an enthymematic argument—it is missing a key premise that is never explicitly stated. Yet the premise is implied, and it is necessary for the conclusion of the argument to be established. Stewart provides another montage of the premises that seem to implicate Palin:
P1: Sarah Palin is most comfortable in long, Northern winters.
P2: Sarah Palin’s favorite color is red.
P3: Sarah Palin has an affinity to bears, which is the mascot of Russia.
C: Therefore, Sarah Palin is a Russian spy, like Natasha from Bullwinkle.
As stated, the argument doesn’t quite go through as stated. As is, the connection between the premises and the conclusion is heavily implied, but it is not made explicit. The missing premise can be stated as follows:
P4 (implied): Only Russian spies are most comfortable in long, Northern winters, have red as their favorite color, and have an affinity to bears.
Now, with the premise P4 included, the conclusion does follow: premises P1 through P4 do support the conclusion, C. The students are given the chance to provide the premise P4 as an exercise, and they have no trouble in filling in a premise which renders the argument valid. However, once the missing premise is supplied, it becomes obvious that it is false, which renders the argument unsound.
The falsity of the missing premise is easily established by soliciting counterexamples to the conjunction.
The clip in its entirety fits nicely with the materials from Lewis Vaughn’s The Power of Critical Thinking (6th edition). Chapter three of Vaughn’s textbook covers argument basics, including the notions of validity and soundness. Moreover, the chapter discusses how to deal with arguments that are missing parts (enthymematic arguments). Given how these topics are covered in most critical thinking textbooks, the usefulness of the clip transcends a particular textbook. These central ideas are well represented in the Daily Show clip, which provides a memorable illustration beyond the textbook definitions.
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Tuomas W. Manninen
Tuomas W. Manninen is Senior Lecturer at the Arizona State University – West Campus. His research and teaching interests include critical thinking and social/political philosophy, particularly the intersection of these areas.
