This claim will be inspected using Language as a Way of Knowing and History as an Area of Knowledge, with relationship to the documentary Holocaust on Trial. The question also touches upon Emotion as a WoK and directly Ethics as an AoK, more specifically duty ethics, "an ethical responsibility". I would like to argue that David Irving proves this statement to be true with his "possession of knowledge", which is highly fallacious, and thus illustrates the various issues of studying History as a AoK.
Irving manipulates the evidence to fit his personal bias. He is indeed a Holocaust Denier which is a powerful label and stereotype with negative connotations, and recognizes this as such, stating from the start that "it's like being called a pedophile" amongst others. In the Holocaust Trial, David Irving stands alone as the prosecutor as he believes it is his right and moral responsibility to shed light on the issue, "fundamentally a matter of doing your duty and fulfilling your obligations", duty ethics. According to the TOK textbook, "it is worth noting that rights and duties are two different sides of the same coin."
Irving presents three main arguments:
- No systematic plan to eliminate the jews
- No proof Hitler ordered this
- No jews were killed at gas chambers
He uses these as premises to come to come to a seemingly correct conclusion that the Holocaust, as we know it, did not exit.
Irving supports his third premise that no jews were killed at gas chambers, including Auschwitz, using Fred Leuchter, an engineer from Boston and an authority on his field. However, after Leuchter's chemical analysis, his methods and conclusions have been totally discredited, Irving accepts the fact, yet persists in using it as valuable Historical evidence; a fallacy knows as a Prison of Consistency. Moreover, it is Historically proven by the defense that there was an intended huge scale mass murder of the jew race to the point that it was impossible Adolf Hitler, the most influential man in Nazi Germany, could not know of it. Even so, the Holocaust is on trial, not Hitler, and Irving uses a straw man or red hearing when claiming the defense has failed to show the relationship of the killings to Hitler, as a Historian of Hitler, in order to keep his second and last standing claim, hoping to prevent his conclusion from being discredited.
David Irving, an admitted racist and anti-semitist, brings his powerful emotions into a Circular Reasoning. These have given him a biased perception on the nature of the Holocaust leading him to fallacious reasoning, misinterpretations of Historical evidence, and follow with emotive language which is in fact the only creditable aspect Irving has brought to the trial, however, the cycle inevitably repeats as David Irving believes he carries an ethical responsibility to share this knowledge he posses.
Irving manipulates the evidence to fit his personal bias. He is indeed a Holocaust Denier which is a powerful label and stereotype with negative connotations, and recognizes this as such, stating from the start that "it's like being called a pedophile" amongst others. In the Holocaust Trial, David Irving stands alone as the prosecutor as he believes it is his right and moral responsibility to shed light on the issue, "fundamentally a matter of doing your duty and fulfilling your obligations", duty ethics. According to the TOK textbook, "it is worth noting that rights and duties are two different sides of the same coin."
Irving presents three main arguments:
- No systematic plan to eliminate the jews
- No proof Hitler ordered this
- No jews were killed at gas chambers
He uses these as premises to come to come to a seemingly correct conclusion that the Holocaust, as we know it, did not exit.
Irving supports his third premise that no jews were killed at gas chambers, including Auschwitz, using Fred Leuchter, an engineer from Boston and an authority on his field. However, after Leuchter's chemical analysis, his methods and conclusions have been totally discredited, Irving accepts the fact, yet persists in using it as valuable Historical evidence; a fallacy knows as a Prison of Consistency. Moreover, it is Historically proven by the defense that there was an intended huge scale mass murder of the jew race to the point that it was impossible Adolf Hitler, the most influential man in Nazi Germany, could not know of it. Even so, the Holocaust is on trial, not Hitler, and Irving uses a straw man or red hearing when claiming the defense has failed to show the relationship of the killings to Hitler, as a Historian of Hitler, in order to keep his second and last standing claim, hoping to prevent his conclusion from being discredited.
David Irving, an admitted racist and anti-semitist, brings his powerful emotions into a Circular Reasoning. These have given him a biased perception on the nature of the Holocaust leading him to fallacious reasoning, misinterpretations of Historical evidence, and follow with emotive language which is in fact the only creditable aspect Irving has brought to the trial, however, the cycle inevitably repeats as David Irving believes he carries an ethical responsibility to share this knowledge he posses.
No comments:
Post a Comment