Further Discussion on the Concept Personal Experience

One of the concepts that we learned about this semester that caught my eye the most was the idea of how personal experience is used for accepting and rejecting claims.  Epstein explained personal experience as, “our most reliable source of information about that world is our own experience”. Before this class I never really thought about what made me make the decisions I make every day. But now after reading the section about personal experience, now I can truly see how much personal experience effects my decisions.  It’s like that common saying “you learn from your mistakes”.  If you have done something personally in the past that didn’t turn out good for you then if you are put in the same situation you will probably not put yourself in the situation.  It’s same for the opposite idea if something worked out for you then you will probably do it again so you can have the same good results.  So all in all, even though this wasn't a huge concept in the text, I think to me this is a very important one for everyone to know since I see most people use it in every day life.

What I Have Learned This Semester

Over this semester I have learned the many different aspects of an argument and claim.  I have learned about the different fallacies that affect people’s judgment of the validity of claims.  I have also learned about other aspects of critical thinking that also affects people’s judgment other than fallacies such as personal experience and appeal to authority. I have learned how to analyze a claim to see if it is valid, invalid, weak, or strong.

In this semester, I have also learned how to create examples for each of these concepts.   And from these examples I am not able to find and evaluate if a claim or argument is valid, invalid, weak or, strong. Overall, this class has allowed me to see the variety of concepts, if they are extremely simple or more focused and complex, that are used all together to form the idea of critical thinking. Before this class I never knew how many factors were truly involved in the area of critical thinking.

Class Analysis

My favorite thing about this class is the way we learn each chapter’s material. The three blogs are really useful because they really make you learn the material you are covering because you are forced to explain a topic in your own words. You can do this without reading it thoroughly and teaching it to yourself first.

My least favorite thing was the group projects and papers.  I think the thing I hate the most about classes is when we have group projects. I know they are meant to help you learn how to work with others but this can only be achieved if everyone is willing to give effort and 99% of the time there is at least one group member who is not willing to do so. I don’t think it is fair that people who really care about their academics have their grades end up in jeopardy because they are stuck nagging people who don’t care as much as you do.

          A way this segment of the class can be improved is if you make group project optional. So instead giving three group projects you can make it possible for people to do it by themselves. The first day of class you can take a survey of what they would rather do giving them the option to take their own grade in their own hands. Other than that I can’t think of any other improvements.

Mission Critical Website

When I first went on the mission critical website it looked very overwhelming and I didn’t even really get what information the website was trying to supply us with. But then I started reading the different links that was on the main page and then I realized why it was called the mission “critical” website cause it was a brief guide to most of the ideas we have learned so fall in critical thinking.  T has the main sections of: The Basics, Part of an Argument and Basic Relations, Analysis of Arguments, Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion, and Other Common Fallacies. After looking at a few of the different sections I found that they were very helpful. The section that I liked the most was Emotional Appeals section.  It explained all the six differ appeals, fear, loyalty, pity, prejudice, spite, and vanity, it was going to be covering and helped explain them by using the same example but change it to work for each different appeal. The way they used those example and the way they described each appeal before made me have to chance to really understand each appeal. Overall, I really like the Mission Critical Website and I found it very useful.

Criteria for Cause and Effect Claims

Epstein gave us necessary criteria we could use to evaluate if a claim is a cause and effect claim.

Necessary criteria for cause and effect claims.

-The cause happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The effect happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The cause precedes the effect

-It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal conditions

-The cause makes a difference—if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true)

-There is no common cause

I decided to use these criteria to see if my example claim is indeed a cause and effect claim. My example claim was:

“Fear of being late to work causes me to leave early enough every morning to be on time”

Evaluation: The cause: fear of being late to work, the effect: leaving the house on time. In this claim the cause does precede the effect.  The effect of me getting up early enough for work is almost solely because of the cause of the fear of being late.  The cause does make a difference. Fear is a common cause but over all I would still consider this to be a cause and effect claim.

Cause and Effect Website

The Cause and Effect readings were very helpful. It gave a lot of useful information and gave you a many different ways to understand the idea of cause and effect. They gave you examples in which they walked you through step by step so you could see what the cause was and the effect was. The website also showed you how to evaluate how strong a cause and effect claim is:

The strength of a causal argument, then, relies on three factors:

1. how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is (for example, do we think that there is a basic similarlity in most respects between the circumstances of this accident and those of the many other times bicycles and cars have traveled on this street safely;
2. how likely the case for causation seems to be (for example, do we think that a bicycle swerving into an car's lane can cause an accident?);
3. how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is (for example, do we believe that the illegally parked truck is the only significant difference between this case and the many other times bicycles and cars went down that street without an accident?).

The used the example of a bike swerving because of a illegally parked car. I was helpful because it not only showed you how to write a cause and effect agreement but it also showed you how to make it strong.
            I was indifferent about the exercises portion of the website. Even though it was helpful to practice cause and effect problems to see if I understand the material, the website had a very confusing set up of the answers. I think there are many different ways they could have set up the answers to make the website more efficient and useful.

Different Types of Reasoning

This week we are learning about different types of reasoning.  This week we learned about seven different types of reasoning: reasoning by analogy, sign reasoning, causal reasoning, reasoning by criteria, reasoning by example, inductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning. Here is a few examples of each type of reasoning.

àReasoning by Analogy: Reasoning using analogy is a way to appeal to the reader by comparing two similar thoughts and ideas to form a logical statement that the reader can relate to. An example of reasoning by analogy is: “A boss of a company is like the Coach of a football team”. Even though they may not be in the game personally or always in the thick of things at work, without either the coach or boss, the team or company has a very good chance or falling apart.

à Sign Reasoning: This type of reasoning is used when something is stated using implied or obvious statements. An example of sign reasoning is: “Every class, my teacher always comes at least 5 minutes early. Since it is 15 minutes into the class and she is still not here, we conclude that she will not be showing up and that we don’t have class today”.

à Causal Reasoning: The act of casual reasoning is when you argue a claim through cause and effect. An example of casual reasoning is: “I am very low on gas but I am also running very late for work. But if I don’t stop for gas and my car breaks down, I will be extremely late or may not make it to work at all. So I am going to stop for gas before I go to work”.

à Reasoning by Criteria: When reasoning by criteria, you establish criteria that you can use to interpret your claim. An example of reasoning by criteria is: “Mandy’s favorite color is purple, so I got her a purple shirt for her birthday.”

à Reasoning by Example: Reasoning by example is when one uses examples such as story or a comparison that may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person. An example of example by reasoning is: “When I took my HTRM class I only took it as a GE requirement, but she grades as if all of us are planning to be HTRM majors which made it very hard for to get a grade higher than a B on any of my papers. So unless you are an HTRM major, I wouldn’t take that class.”  

à Inductive Reasoning: Inductive reasoning is a form of inference producing propositions about unobserved objects or types, either specifically or generally, based on previous observations.  An example of inductive reasoning is: “The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now. The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow.”

à Deductive Reasoning:  In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. An example of deductive reasoning is: “All Biology majors like science. Ashley is a biology major. So Ashley likes science.”

Judging Analogies

Analogies are really hard to analyze because unless the analogy is very clearly stated, we have to look at the similarities and guess the important ones in order to find a general principle that applies to both sides. These kinds of analogies are where you would say that one side of the analogy is like the other is too vague to use a premise.  Epstein gave us a set of question we could use to analyze and figure out analogies:

Questions you can use to help you when evaluating an analogy:

1. Is this an argument? What is a conclusion?

2. What is the comparison?

3. What are the premises? (one or both sides of the comparison)

4. What are the similarities?

5. Can we state that a similarity as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides?

6. Does the general principle really apply to both sides? Do the differences matter?

7. Is the argument strong or valid? Is it good?

Now I am going to use the set of questions to evaluate an example analogy. An example of an analogy that Epstein gave us to analyze and understand is:

“Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming fireman for fires”.

For this analogy its argument is that neither soldiers start a war nor firemen start the fires. Its conclusion is that we should not be taking out our anger on the soldiers who are just there supporting our country in war but put it towards the people who actually initiated the war. The comparison is between fireman and soldiers job roles.  The premise is that we should not blame soldiers for the war. The similarities are that they both work to save people’s lives while putting themselves in danger to keep our country safe. The general principle of this analogy is that we should not judge people for their jobs just because you don’t agree with what there seem to be supporting. The general principle does apply to both sides the only difference is that firemen’s jobs of putting out fires don’t have the same controversy as the war does.  I would say that the argument is valid and strong because it makes people really stop and think about treat soldiers better and redirecting their complaints to higher powers. Overall I think this is a good argument.

Reasoning by example

Reasoning by example is when one uses examples such as story or a comparison that may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person.  Now that I know the definition of reasoning by example, I’ve realized how much I use it in everyday life. An example that probably most college students can relate to is the example of when talking about different classes and their difficulty. When the time comes around again to choose classes for the next semester, and you ask other people how hard a class is or how hard the teachers teaching styles is.  Responses to these questions are usually reasoning by example.  This semester someone asked me if I liked the biology class I am taking this semester and if they should take it or if it is too hard. My response was that, “I really like the class because I have an amazing teacher who is really good at explaining things. But at the same time there is a crazy amount of information you have to know, because you have to turn in 10 papers over the semester and you have 3 exams and a final whose study guides end up being 30 to 40 pages long that take you about a week to do along with other little things, and the class overall is very time consuming. So my advice would be if you need the class and are willing to put in the effort I would take it.” This would be reasoning by example because I gave an example of my previous experiences and explained how for me it was time consuming because of all of the exams and theirs study guides along with all the other work in the class.    

#7

Appeal to patriotism is when people ask for support of a cause based on your love of your country.  An example of an appeal to patriotism is when there is an attack on our country or a war is going on army recruiters use the argument that “the best way you can help your country is by defending it and join the army”. Even though joining the army is a very obvious way to represent and help support your country, there are also many others ways one can help their country without joining the army.  Every time a person buys something that is made by their country, they are in turn supporting their country financially by giving money back through their purchase.  The reason that joining the army seems like a good option is because not only is the argument appealing to patriotism but it is also appeal to emotion. When a country gets attacked or war is occurring, it stirs up a lot of emotions which makes people sometimes change their mind to do something that they normally would not consider to do, which in this case would include joining the army.  So over all, I believe it is a good argument because no matter how people react to the claim it will still make people stop and think about their country and the situation it is in and how they could help, which after all, what the whole point of the claim in the first place.

Appeal to Pity

Appeal to pity is a fallacy in which someone tries to win support for an argument or idea by exploiting his or her opponent's feelings of pity or guilt.  Guilt and pity can be very strong emotions in used correctly. 

An example that probably a lot of people who watch a lot of TV have seen is the ASPCA Sarah Maclachlan commercial.  They use clips of abandoned and abused animals to get there organization heard. They use these clips to appeal to people by making them feel guilty if they don’t help the poor puppies and kitties. If the organization just had a speaker that said “we have a lot of abused and abandoned animals that need your help” without the clips and pictures, that would still be an example of appeal to pity, but a not as strong one.  For most of the organizations who ask you to devote your money or time, they usually physically show you who they are fighting for, because physically seeing who has been harmed or affected is a way stronger tactic of appealing to pity.

Appeal to Emotion

Epstein describes appeal to emotion by saying, “an appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way”.  When it comes appealing to emotion, there are many different aspects. Some of these aspects are: appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, two wrongs make a right, apple polishing, and appear to vanity. 

When looking at the different types of appeal to emotion, the one that strikes me the most is the appeal to fear.  It made me realize how often this type of fallacy is used in all aspects of life.  The form of this fallacy is:

Either P or Q is true.

Q is frightening.

Therefore, P is true.

An example of appeal to fear is, “If you don’t stop smoking, you will get lung cancer and die.”  In this example of appeal to emotion, I am scaring you quit smoking because it makes you consider if smoking is really worth killing yourself.  And if I am correct, most people don’t want to die, so the idea of not smoking maybe be very appealing after reading that claim.

Checking for Validity with Diagrams

One way to check validity of a claim is using a diagram.  The way you create the validity checking diagram is you choose a claim. My example claim is:

All true sports fans own jerseys of their favorite players. Matt has a Patrick Marleau San Jose Sharks Jersey. So Matt is a true sports fan.

To create the Diagram, you first you see which statements follow under the others. So "all true sports fans" would go under the statement of "fans who own sports jerseys".  So "all true sports fans would be put in a small circle.  Then around that circle you would draw a larger circle and write "Fans who own sports jerseys" inside it.  The in same circle you would "a. Matt" to show that Matt is a both a true sports fan and he is a fan who owns a jersey. 

After making your diagram, draw the areas to represent the premises as true while trying to represent the conclusion as false.  If you can, then the argument is invalid. If there is no way to represent the premises as true and the conclusion as false, then the argument is valid.

So going back to our example we conclude it is false because the claim says matt has a sports jersey but it doesn't mean it is his so we can't know for sure if he is a true sports fan or not.

Understanding General Claims

I think so far in the class, the topic that was least clear to be was the idea of vague and general claims.  I never really knew what parameters they were judged by or how I would know how to identifiy them.  But in chapter 8, Epstein introduced us again to the idea of general claims.  Epstein describes general claims as, “claims that assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection”. He explained that for us to be able to understand if the general claims made are valid, we first have to understand a few key words used in general claims. These words are:

-All means “Every single one, no exception. ”Sometimes all is meant as “Every single one, and there is at least one.” Which reading is best may depend on the argument.

-Some means “At least one”. Sometimes some is meant as “At least one, but not all”. Which reading is best may depend on the argument.

-No means “not even one” “every single one is not”.

-Only  “Only S and P” means “All P and S”.

To put this idea in a real life situations, I made an examples of my own:

-All students study.

(This is a weak argument because not all students are motivated enough to study so this claim is false).

-Some teachers have good teaching methods.

(This argument is also weak because there isn’t a very good way to prove that only “some” teacher have good teaching methods because different teaching methods are good for different people.)

-No cats bark.

(Even though this is a true statement it is a weak claim because this is already a well-known facts and would not be very useful in any argument.)

-Only alcoholics like the taste of alcohol.

(This is a weak claim because there is a good possibilities that there is an alcoholic out there who doesn’t like the taste of some kind of alcohol or there is a non-alcohalic who likes the taste of an alcohol.)

The Usefulness of Assignment #1: Critical Thinking in News and Politics

The reason I found the first group assignment we had, assignment #1: Critical Thinking in News and Politics, very useful was because this paper allowed me to see the ideas we were learning in the class used in a way other than blogging and it also let me see topics that I had learned and perceived in one way in other people’s point of views.

            When doing our weekly posts I always explain a topic in a way that makes sense to me and then think on an example off the topic of my head, using the easiest example I can think of. But with this assignment it made me force myself to understand a topic, infuse it into a topic we had already chosen (for this assignment we had to do it on an article and I never tried this idea before), and write it so it would work fit in to a paper that was being composed of four other people’s ideas and points of view.  I also liked this assignment because when I read our final paper that was composed of all our ideas and view on particular parts of the assignment it made me realize how many different ways these topics could be used in a written assignment.

            An example of this is when I read one of my group-mates individual responses and compared it to my own. In theirs they described that after using all the ideas we learned, they decided the writer of the article we read used very weak claims and arguments and after reading it, it changed their perspective negatively against the view point given.  But in my personal response, I explained completely different reasons of why I thought the articles argument was weak and even though I thought the authors claims were bad my perspective of the issue still didn’t change. So It was cool to see our two different ideas and outcomes from this assignment.  

Refuting Arguemnts Directly versus Indirectly (Chapter 7)

 In Chapter 7, I learned how to refute arguments both directly and indirectly.

First Epstein explained how to refute and argument directly by explaining three direct ways of refuting and argument:

Direct ways of refuting an argument:

-show that at least one of the premises is dubious

-show that the argument isn’t valid or strong

-show that the conclusion is false

Knowing how to refute and argument is useful because after seeing all the ways we can refute an argument may lead us to see that an argument is unrepairable.

To refute an argument indirectly means that you may not be able to find one single premise that is false or dubious but you notice that the premises overall to the conclusion may be false or dubious. A way to refute indirectly is using the idea of reducing the absurd, meaning, to reduce to 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. One thing to remember when refuting indirectly is that you have to be sure the argument you use to refute the dubious and false conclusion argument is strong or valid and that it doesn’t use any other dubious claims or your refutation will be as useless as the argument you are refuting.

Reasoning with “or” Claims

In chapter 6, Epstein describes how we can often determine that an argument is valid or weak by if we look at what role the compound claim plays in it.  There are two different main sequences for compound claim arguments. The first is, sometimes called the disjunctive syllogism that consists of A or B, not A, So B is valid or A or B + not A= B valid. An example is:

“Either my roommate took my book on mistake (A) or I lost it (B). My roommate said she doesn’t have my book (not A), so I must have lost it (B=valid).”

This form can also be extended to more claims such as A or B or C, not A, not B, therefore C.

Another type of sequence for compound claim arguments is: where you can only reduce the possibilities, not exclude all but one. Meaning: A or B or C or D, not A. not C, therefore B or D. An example Epstein gave is:

Either all criminals should be locked up forever (A), or we should put more money into rehabilitating criminals (B), or we should accept that our streets will never be safe (C), or we should have some system for monitoring ex-convicts (D). We can’t lock up criminals forever (A), because it is too expensive. We definitely won’t except our streets will never be safe (C). So either we should put more money in rehabilitating criminals (B), or we should have some system for monitoring ex-convicts (D).

Coumpound Claims and the Contradictory of a Claim

In Chapter 6 of the Epstein text, I learned what a compound claim is and what the contradictory of a claim is.

            To understand what a compound claim is, you first need to know the definition.  Epstein defines compound claims as: A compound claim is one composed of other claims, but which has to be view as just one claim. An example of a compound claim is: “I’ll return your hairbrush or ill buy you a new one.” In this claim, he promises to do one or the other, either return the hair brush or buy a new one, not do both which makes it just one claim.

            To understand the idea of contradictory claims, you first need to know what “contradictory of a claim” means.  Epstein described contradictory of claims as: the contradictory of a claim is one that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances.  Sometimes a contradictory is called the negation of a claim. An example of a contradictory claim is:

Claim: Daisy is barking.

Contradictory: Daisy is not barking.

            To be able to connect the two ideas I have learned this chapter, Epstein described "the contradictory of an or claims", which means that A or B has contradictory not A and Not B. So the contradictory to my first example would be. “I will not return your hairbrush and I will not buy you a new one”.

The Principle of Rational Discussion

 So far in the semester we have discussed the idea of violating the principle of rational discussion but we have never discussed the idea rational discussion. Epstein described rational discussion as:

The Principle of Rational Discussion

We assume that the other person who is discussing with us or whose arguments we are reading:

1.    Knows about the subject under discussion.

2.    Is able and winning to reason well.

3.    Is not lying.

So the main thing you consider when evaluating a discussion a rational or irrational is if the person actually know what they are talking about, if their argument is in reason, and also if you think they are telling the truth. One other idea Epstein mentioned was the idea of irrationality. He described it as:

The mark of irrationality:

If you recognize that an argument is good, then it is irrational not to accept the conclusion. 

So when it comes to rational discussion, also remember that you need to be thinking rationally, like the idea he gave above that if argument is good than that most likely means the conclusion and premises are good too.

Concept of Repairing Arguments

In chapter 5, Epstein gives us a guide to repaing arguments which is provided below:

Given an (implicit) argument that is apparently defective, we are justified in adding a premise or conclusion if it satisfies all three of the following:
1.  the argument becomes stronger or valid
2.  the premise is plausible and would seem plausible to the other person
3.  the premise is more plausible than the conclusion
If the argument is  then valid or strong, we may delete a premise if doing so does not make the argument worse.

If we go back to Chapter 11, Epstein describes what it means to violate the principle of rational discussion.  He describes how sometimes it seems the other person does not understand what is invloved in rational discussion or is intending to mislead and sometimes there is not even an argument. Some ways one can violate the principle of rational discussion is to beg the principle, using a strawman, shifting the burden of proof, irrelevant premises, slanters (concealing claims that are dubious by misuse of language), and ridicule (making someone or something the butt of a joke in order to convince). Now let put both ideas to work in an example.

Example:  Mrs. Geary is  my professor.  Therefore Mrs. Geary is a good teacher.
Analysis: "Mrs. Geary is good at explaining topics in a way that everyone can related to and remember" is the only premise that will make the argument valid or strong. So I added it. Than, since that is true and the argument doesnt violate the principle of rational discussion, the argument is now good.

Advertising on the Internet

In chapter 5 of Epstein, we cover how to evaluate if the advertisement on the internet is true or false.  The two ways chapter 5 tells us to do this is by evaluating the premises and seeing the advertisements argument has the criteria for it to be accepted or rejected.

In the beginning of the chapter, Epstein reminds us of the tests you should use to see if an argument is good. (Remember that to be good the argument has to pass all three tests.)  The tests are:

There is good reason to believe the premises.

            The premises are more plausible than the conclusion

            The argument is valid or strong.

We have already discussed how to see if the premises are more plausible than the conclusion and determine is the argument is strong or valid but we have not covered how to determine if we have good reason to believe the premises. Epstein gives you three choices that we can make about whether to believe a claim:

-accept the claim

-reject the claim as false

-suspend judgment

 To practice this test we will evaluate the article a posted below:

The article says, “Accelerate and beat the faint growl from the 270 kW turbo. Relax back into leather and watch the world pass past like a silent film. Feel THE GRACEFUL RIDE from a seamless 6-speed gearbox and new sports/luxury suspension. At your fingertips, all the vehicle’s settings, including an iPod dock, satellite navigation and climax control. Step inside and be taken away in the NEW FORD G SERIES."

After reading the caption of the advertisement, I have come to the decision that I will suspend my judgment about the claim because some of the descriptions like “Relax back into leather and watch the world pass past like a silent film” seem a little over exaggerate and may be a biased description.

In chapter 5, they also describe how our most reliable source of information about the whole world in our own experience to accept or reject a claim. When you read a comment you are more likely to judge it from your personal opinions and experience.   

So if we keep analyzing the advertisement, we would realize that I came to the conclusion of suspending my judgment because I realized that I was using my own opinion of what should be true to make the correct conclusion. My opinion is that I believe they are just using descriptive language to bribe us into buying their cars.

Bad Arguments

Over the last few weeks we have been learning what a claim is, what an argument is, what makes a good argument good or bad/weak or strong.  In the end of Chapter 11 in the Epstein text, there is a section called “So it’s bad, So what?”.  In this section it tells you what to do if your argument is bad. The best way to learn how to make an argument is good is to know how to judge ones that are bad.

There are some arguments that are so bad you realize they are beyond help and it is just better to start over.  Other arguments are made in the way that they are meant to mislead the listener which violates the principle of rational discussion in the way that they are most likely trying to mislead you to believing their argument is strong because they don’t have any real premises that can strongly support the argument. But most often people make bad arguments because they unintentionally bring in emotions that don’t belong or they get off subject when trying to find supportive premises.

So next time when you are formulating an argument, just remember the bad argument scenarios I listed above and then look at your own argument and see if it fits into any of the scenarios and if it doesn’t then most likely your argument is good.

Begging the Question

When Epstein was discussing the idea of violating the principle of rational discussion he explains how people sometimes try to argue irrationally by trying to mislead the listener which in turn actually can make their argument worse and can even mess it up enough to where there is no argument anymore.

The idea I am going to explain that Epstein mentioned is “begging the question”. Epstein stated that “The point of an argument is to convince that a claim is true.  So the premises of an argument need to be more plausible than the conclusion“.  What he is trying to say is that if all your premises are just statements that are just pretty much repeating themselves and they all have the same idea that contributes to the conclusion then it can make your argument sound wordy and repetitive which usually leads to the listener to seeing that there is not much of an argument.

An example argument is:

-The teacher is always right.

-How do you know?

-Because she know everything.

-But why do you think that is true?

-Because she is the teacher.

As you can see in the example, the argument is begging the question because it just stated very dubious and vague premises.  Also they set themselves up with a hard argument because they used the word always in their conclusion.  If they wanted to prove how teachers are always right then they are going to need better premises than the “because I said so” premises the arguer gave.  Another reason this argument is begging the question is that the premises are not stronger than the conclusion and all of the argument points they gave we very weak and vague.

Structure of Arguments

To effectively analyze a structure, you should answer the following questions:

-Argument? (yes or no) If an argument, number each part the might be a claim.

-Conclusion:

-Additional premises needed?

-Identify any subargument:

-Good argument? 

Chosen exercise: 2. I’m on my way to school. I left 5 minutes late. Traffic is heavy.  Therefore, I’ll be late for class.  So I might as well stop and get breakfast.

It is an argument because the premises validate the conclusion, but it is a bad argument because there are many different scenarios where the premises can be found false. The conclusion is “Therefore, I’ll be late for class. So I might as well stop and get breakfast". A subargument is if there was any important material that was presented in class, for example a test, quiz, or material need for homework, that she could have possibly missed because she went to breakfast. Without knowing this information, she should not miss class.  So after answering the questions Epstein provided, we are able to come to the conclusion that exercise two is an argument but it is has a very weak structured argument.

Good Reason

When talking about arguments, the term “good reason” is being referred to as having good reason to believe the premise, which, in turn, should lead us to have good reason to believe the conclusion.  There are multiple ways to judge good reason.  One way is, one should judge the plausibility of the claims and if they lead us with good reason for them to be true or if they have plausibility that is weak or dubious, meaning we have no reason to believe it is true.   Another way is to see if the argument is begging the question.  Begging the question means that at least of one its premises is no more plausible than the conclusion. 

An example argument is:

-The teacher is always right.

-How do you know?

-Because she know everything.

-But why do you think that is true?

-Because she is the teacher.

This is an example of an argument that does not have good reason and is begging the question because the premises in the argument were extremely vague and they gave us no reason to back up their argument.  This argument is also being argued in a circle meaning each of is premises are just leading back to the others but each of them are no more helpful than the first.

Tests for a Good Argument

The three tests that Epstein stated for an argument to be good are

-The premises are plausible.

-The premises are more plausible than the conclusion.

-The argument is valid or strong.

What he meant by the first test is, that the premises, or the supporting details that lead to the conclusion, are valid. For the second test, the idea is to see if your premises are valid enough to make the claim strong enough to make your conclusion almost undisputedly true.  And the last test to see if you argument is just good enough to be a valid argument or if it is actually a strong claim.   

Here is an example we can use our tests on to see if it is a good argument: Dumb blondes are stupid. All my sisters have blonde hair. So, all my sisters are stupid.

 So if I were to analyze this text according to the tests, I would come to the conclusion that this is not a good argument because it is not strong and not more plausible than the conclusion.  The argument is not strong because the argument is all based off of a stereotype that people have many different beliefs about, most of them being that it is not true because there is no way to prove people with blonde hair and more dumb or smarter than people with any other colored hair. And this also tells us that the premises are not plausible because they have no way of being proved true but have so many ways to prove them false.

Strong vs. Valid Arguments

A valid argument is an argument that has both a valid premise, which is kind of like a hypothesis, and a conclusion that supports that premise. Valid arguments do not have to be good they just have to have no possible way of determining the premise true and the conclusion false at the same time. A strong argument is an argument that is valid with a very small possibility that the premise would be true and the conclusion false at the same time. A valid argument is not always a strong argument. 

An example of a strong and valid argument is: It was stated in my contract when I was hired to my job that, if I worked over 40 hours a week I would then receive time and a half for the for all the extra time I worked. Over the last month have worked at least 40 hours per week along with a total of 15 hours extra during the last pay period, so I deserve my current paycheck I was given plus 22.5 hours of extra pay for my overtime hours. This is a valid argument because it is not possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion false.  This is also a strong argument because the premise has a good chance of being true since it is backed by a legal document. When making a strong argument a person always needs to look at every supporting detail or premise to make sure that the only way someone can question your claim is to come up with a very unlikely scenario. In the example above, a way to question my premise would be if someone said I was not supposed to get overtime because I was given a document that was not supposed to be given to me but that is a very unlikely scenario.  

An example of a valid but weak argument is:  The sky is blue outside.  Therefore the sky must be blue everywhere.  It is possible that the sky is blue everywhere but not very likely.  Most likely it is cloudy and raining or it is night time somewhere in the world.  This is a very weak argument because it can easily be proved wrong.

Introduction

Hi! My name is Kelly Beroza and I am going into my 3rd year here at San Jose State.  I am a biology major with a chem minor because my goal is to go to medical school and become a doctor someday. I titled my blog Castastro-Phi because I am a very klutzy person and I am also in a soroity which is why I used the greek letter "phi" in my display name.