Ch 14 DQ #3

As with any class there are always concepts that are harder to understand than others, and for each person this is different. For me this semester the hardest thing to understand was how to map an argument. This is something that I still do not understand completely. When we went over mapping you sent us to a website that had tests for us to complete after doing the reading. I did the exercises and answered all the questions but the concept just never really clicked for me. I know that each argument is supposed to get its own bubble and each counterargument is as well but I feel that when you map out an argument it is very hard to understand. I feel that this is something that could use a little more class time on because I do not think that I am the only person who had trouble with this concept.

Ch 14 DQ #2

My favorite part about this class was the way that it was set up for an online class. I have taken online classes before where it has been very complicated to turn in homework and even talk to the teacher. The way this class was set up on the blogger was perfect and you were also always available and would reply to emails very quickly which made it easy to get questions answered. The one thing that I didn’t like about this class was how big the groups were fro the group projects. Because it was an online class it fits perfectly into everyone's schedule but when you have to find a time during the week for 6 people to all find time to meet it was very complicated. Everybody had work and school to deal with so it made it very hard to do group projects. I think one way this class could be improved was by finding a way for the first two projects to be done on their own and then for the final project make the groups smaller so that it is easier for people to find a time to meet.

ch 14 DQ #1

I have learned so much in this class this semester but the most useful thing that I learned was what makes a strong valid argument and what doesn’t. Throughout a person's daily life there are so many times when people argue with each other. The arguments may be work related or they may just be about personal things, but no matter what people always find something to argue about. Before this class I used to always argue back no matter how good or bad their argument was, but now I know that if an argument is not valid than there is no point in arguing about the matter. When a person starts an argument I now stop and think critically about their claims and their conclusions and see if they are making a valid argument. Then if the argument is valid I think about it logically and make my own argument back. If their argument is not valid then I do not even bother to argue with them.

ch15 dq3

The Chapter 15 reading and the causal argument reading that we did go, hand in hand with each other. They both explain how a causal argument works and gave step by step examples that went along with their explanations. The one thing that the book talks about a little more in detail about is the necessary criteria for cause and effect. There are six things that must happen/be true in order for a causal argument to be produced. The six things are the cause happened, the effect happened, the cause precedes the effect, it is nearly impossible for the cause to happen and the effect not to happen, the cause makes a difference, and lastly that there is no common cause. Although the other reading stated these as well I think that the book did a better job of explaining each of them and why you must have these things in order to have a causal argument.

ch 15 dq2

The Mission: Critical website was way less helpful to me than the Causal Argument website. The way that this website is set up is very hard for me to understand and it was very hard for me to peruse the website for explanations on how to have a good argument. After I looked at the website for a while and began to understand it the one thing that I did find extremely useful and helpful was how it broke an argument down into a bullet point list. It shows very well the process and steps of an argument but it was still hard for me because the explanations were not on the same page. Since you had to click on each one as you were going through, I did not retain as much information for some reason. This website has a lot of good information but I think that it needs to be designed in a different way.

ch15 dq 1

I found the cause and effect website really helpful because of the way they broke everything down. Not only did they explain what a causal argument is but they did it while going through an example of one step by step. And if there was ever a place where two or three different things could be argued then they would stop and explain how each of those situations would work before moving on in the causal argument example. I also really liked how they used a real life situation as their example and how you would have to argue the case with the one significant difference that was the actual cause of the accident. Bicyclists do not stay in the bike lane at all times and in many cases they are the cause of an accident but according to the law if you rear-end someone then it is your fault for being too close to that person.

Ch 12 DQ #2

Reasoning by analogy was the hardest type of reasoning for me to understand. At first I read all of the different types of reasoning, then I went back and wrote examples for each of them but I had a very hard time writing an example for reasoning by analogy because I didn’t understand it very well. I read up a little more on the subject and I now fully understand how to reason by analogy. Reasoning by analogy not only has to do with reasoning with similar things, like in arguing by sign, but it has to do with reasoning with two things that you are trying to compare to one another. One of the websites that I looked at to help define this type of reasoning used an example of how to argue what an orange is by saying that it is similar to an apple. it was this example that really helped me to understand how to reason by analogy, and not just reasoning by using random examples.

Ch 12 DQ #1

Analogical reasoning is based solely on inductive reasoning. One example of analogical reasoning is: Premise 1: Males are humans. Premise 2: Daniel is a male. Conclusion: Daniel is human.

            Sign reasoning is another way of reasoning that deals with the relationship between two things. The thing about sign reasoning that is different from any other reasoning is that the two things are very closely related and they go hand in hand. You then have to decide if the relationship between the two things is strong or not. One thing that many people have to deal with in the winter is rain and an example of sign reasoning is "where it rains, you use your windshield wipers."

            Causal reasoning is another variety of inductive reasoning but in order to have causal reasoning you must have a cause and effect. You must use inductive reasoning in order to determine that from the cause, the effect will occur. Many students deal with lots of homework and sometimes they must turn in late work so an example of causal reasoning is that "if you turn your homework in late, you will not receive full credit."

            Criteria reasoning is a type of reasoning used in a situation that is not very logical and you state your criteria in a way that can be assumed as true. An example of this that many people deal with is with peer pressure and trying to get your friend to do something. Instead of saying "ask her out" you would say "you should go ask her if she would go to dinner with you because I heard that she think g you are really cute and really likes you."

            Reasoning by example is when a person gives an example in the favor of their argument in order to convince the other person that their argument is correct. An example of this type of reasoning is telling your buddy that he should ask her to dinner because once he had a friend who didn’t go after the girl that he liked and he regretted for years after.

            Deductive reasoning is when the conclusion cannot be false based on the premises. An example being, "everybody over the age of 16 can have their license, Sarah has her license, therefore Sarah is over 16."

            Inductive reasoning is when the conclusion can be inferred from the premise. An example of this being, "Ever since I was born a green light meant go and a red light meant stop." From this premise a person can assume that if they come to a stoplight a red light means stop and a green light means go"

Ch.10 DQ#2

When I read through this chapter and was told to give an example of an appeal to spite one moment that I remember vividly popped into my head. My dad owns his own architecture company and he is also a volunteer firefighter on the local team so he is a well known guy around our home and neighborhood. A few years back one of my dads acquaintances came to him and asked if he would design a remodel for their bathroom for free. My dad apologized and said that he couldn’t do it for free because he had been so swamped with jobs and work so if he was going to design it he would have to charge him. The other man got very mad at my dad and reminded him of how he had once helped my dad take down a tree that was dying in our backyard, and told my dad that he should return the favor. My dad wasn’t very happy with the man's approach to the situation to say the least so my dad again apologized and said no to the man. This argument was horrible and it was not strong or valid. The man just tried to guilt my dad into doing the job for him with no real reasoning behind it. When I was reading this chapter this was the first thing to pop into my head.

Chapter 10 DQ1

I don’t watch television very often but when I do I see commercials and ads trying to get my money out of me for one reason or another and they all use the appeal to emotion. One aspect of Appeal to Emotion that really caught my attention was the appeal to pity, because there is one add, that plays way quite often on all channels, which uses this aspect. The commercials about the abused and homeless animals show continuous pictures and short video clips of animals in cages, malnourished animals, and animals roaming in the streets for food. The ads say that these animals need help our help and that we can provide them with food and a good home by sending money.  The ads makes you feel pity and sorry for the animals, and the commercials make you feel this way in order to get you to send your money to them. This aspect of the Appeal to Emotion is used on television very regularly whether it is for poor kids, poor animals, or poor needy people; they all thrive on you feeling pity.

chapter 8 DQ#3

One concept from this week's reading that I found incredible helpful was the part about how to diagram an argument in order to find out if it is valid or not. I am a very visual person and this was something that just really clicked in my mind. Diagramming arguments are just like word problems in math. You read the words, and then put the information from the problem into math equations that are understandable, and then you solve the problem. You use this same line of thinking when taking and argument, taking the information and putting it into an understandable picture, and then solving the problem of the argument being valid or not. This concept of diagramming has made analyzing arguments much easier for me because I am actually able to see the argument as a picture which is much clearer to me and I do not have to analyze the argument just from reading it.

chapter 8 DQ #2

The first major course assignment was very useful because it involved many of the things that we has studied in the first few chapters of our book. Our first paper made us focus on the major claims that were either stated or unstated, the premises and claims that supported the main claim, the evidence that was used and what type of evidence it was, the effectiveness of the argument, and lastly it made us judge if the overall argument was valid and strong. These aspects of the paper were all things that had been discussed in our homework for the few chapters that we studied prior to this assignment. In doing this paper I had to re-read the descriptions of these things many times and had to actually identify them in a real life situation. throughout the continuous re-reading and critical thinking of these concepts I became very familiar with them and I became much more confident in knowing what they mean and how to identify them in my everyday life.

Discussion Question 1 chapter 8

One concept in chapter eight that I found very interesting was about general claims. in many arguments words can be very misleading and had make an invalid or false claim seem true just because of one word. Words like all, some, none, and only are all words that can have many different meanings depending on the person who is reading the claim. I grew up with an older brother and we were once arguing about who ate all the chocolate covered raisins. He stated that he only ate some of them. To me this meant that he only ate a few of them and that someone else ate the rest of the bag. But in reality he ate most of the bag but he used the word some in order to mislead me in the argument. It was nice to read about general claims because it gave the real meanings of these words so when I am judging a claim with these words in it I will not be mislead anymore.   

Conditionals

While reading chapter 6 I learned about conditionals and how they come about. Claims that can be made into an "if…then.." statement are known as conditionals. This is only true if the re-written claim has the same truth value as before. In conditional claims the "if" part is known as the antecedent and the "then" part is known and the consequent. An example of a conditional claim would be something like "If you promise to rake then leaves then I will let you go out with your friends. "promise to rake the leaves" is the antecedent, and "go out with your friends" is the consequent. Another example of a conditional claim is "I'll meet you at the drive in, if it doesn’t rain." In this example the antecedent is "doesn’t rain" and it comes as the second part. "I'll meet you at the drive in" is the consequent and it comes first.

Chapter 7

In chapter 7 I learned about refuting an argument that you do not believe yourself. There are three direct ways to refute and argument and these are to show that at least one of the premises is dubious, to show that the argument isn't valid or strong, or to show that the conclusion is false. If you complete one of these three things, then you have successfully refuted the argument. An example would be:  Andrew states that, "Everybody should drive prius' instead of trucks because they don’t pollute the earth and they don’t harm our ozone layer. They go just as fast as any other car and they look good too. They also get really amazing gas mileage." Phil does not agree with Andrew's argument so in order to refute it he states that," Although pruis' are good for the environment they are not able to do a lot of the jobs that a truck can such as pulling a horse trailer with two horses in it." Phil refuted Andrew's argument by showing that at least one of the premises is dubious.

Chapter 6

In chapter 6 I learned about compound claims, how they are made, and also how they are contradicted. A compound claim is two claims, which are also known as alternatives, combined together using the words like or or and, and it is then considered one single claim. The best way to describe and think about these types of claims is by thinking about compound words. If you take the words can and not and combine them, you get the word cannot. The word cannot is then considered one word, not two; compound claims work the same way. The validity and strength of compound claims is dependent on the strength and validity of the two alternatives. In order to contradict a compound claim you must contradict each alternative but keep the contradiction combined as one claim using words such as nor, not, or neither. You would contradict the claim "Daniel will take out the trash or he won't be receiving his allowance" by stating that "Daniel will not take the trash out and he will be receiving his allowance."

When discussing Chapter five section A "Is that true?" There are only three decisions a person can make when deciding whether or not to believe a claim. A person can either accept the claim as true, reject the claim as false, or suspend judgment. I believe that many people make these decision based on many others contributing factors. Many times people make the decision based on a person looks or etiquette. If a person covered in tattoos, with a cigarette in their mouth, and a beer in the other hand told me that one of the leading causes of deaths of children aged 15-24 was accidental death I may not have a very easy time believing them. But if a well dressed, clean shaven man told me the same claim I would have a much easier time believing the claim. Although a claim can only be accepted, rejected, or suspended there are many different things the help a person decide on which decision to make about a claim.

Discussion Question #1

Argument: "John Smith is not going to have to have a cast put on his ankle. Only people with broken ankles need casts."

Explanation: Although this argument has good premises and it is also a valid argument it still needs to be repaired. It does not have a conclusion to go along with and connect to the premises. In order to repair this argument you must add a conclusion such as "John Smith does not have a broken ankle." Adding this conclusion would repair the argument and would connect the two premises. It would also make the argument much stronger.

DQ #2 Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion consists of four different examples. The first one is begging the question, the second is strawman, the third is shifting the burden of proof, and the last is relevance. The strawman violation is one that I feel many people can relate to and deal with on a regular basis whether it be at work or at school. In many situations when someone is trying to prove their argument is correct and that someone else's argument is incorrect, the only way for them to make their argument good is by making the others person's argument bad. In order to do this the person will change what the other person has said about their argument in order to make it sound like a bad argument. The person will basically make up lies about what the other person is arguing to make himself look better. It is better known as putting words in someone else's mouth.

Discussion Question 3

One other interesting thing that I learned in this Chapter was that an
argument cannot be rated as good or bad on the fact that it convinces a person
or not. There are many different situations that would cause a person not to be
persuaded by an argument so that is why you can’t judge the strength of an
argument on whether or not it convinced someone to change their mind. There is
no real exact scale to judge to strength of an argument. The only way to
judge an argument is by how plausible and likely the premises offered in the
argument are. This is something that I never knew was true because whenever
someone won a debate I always assumed it was because they had a strong argument
but this is not the case. Whether the argument is won or not has nothing to do
with the strength of the argument. This was a very interesting concept to me
that I had never really thought of before that I am very glad I learned the
truth behind.

DQ1 Three tests

There are three tests that are designed to help you decide if an argument is a good argument or a bad one. The first test is: are the premises plausible? This means that you must see if there is no way for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. The second test is if the premises are more plausible than the conclusion? This means that you must test to see if the premises are more likely than the conclusion itself. The third test is if the argument is valid or strong. I am going to use the example of having a temperature and being sick. Bob has a temperature. People who have temperatures are sick. So Bob is sick. First we must test to see if the premises are plausible. We have good reason to believe that if people have a temperature than they are sick so this claim is plausible. The second test is to see if the premises are more plausible than the conclusion. The conclusion follows the premises perfectly and could not be false if the premises are true. This also proves that the argument is valid which leads us into the third test. The third test is to see if the argument is valid or strong. We have already stated that the argument is valid so the last test is to see if it is a strong argument. There is no way for the conclusion to be false and the premises be true except for some very unlikely and very implausible reasons. This means that the argument is a strong argument.

Strong and Valid Arguments

Strong arguments are arguments where the conclusion made is very hard to prove false or wrong. An example of a strong argument than many people deal with on a very regular basis either with themselves, their kids, or their families is being sick with a fever. The premises and the conclusion are always stated like the following argument; if someone has a temperature than they are sick. Albert has a temperature. Therefore, Albert is sick. This is an argument that is stated time and time again by parents and many others. This is an example of a strong argument because almost everyone knows and believes that if you have a temperature than you are sick. It is very hard to come up with reasons for this not to be true. The only way that someone can come up with a way to prove this conclusion false is by using a very implausible and unlikely situation such as: Someone can have a temperature if they had surgery on their brain and the doctors messed up and now their temperature is always high. Although this is a way to prove the conclusion wrong it is a highly unlikely situation. A valid argument is one where there is no way for the premise to be true and the conclusion false. An example of a valid argument is: you must be 16 years of age or older to receive a driver’s license. Therefore I am 16 years or older because I have a drivers license. This is an example of a valid argument because there is no way for it to be false.

Prescriptive and Descriptive Claims

Prescriptive and descriptive claims are very similar to subjective and objective
claims in the definitions. The difference is that prescriptive and descriptive
claims is that they are judgments. A claim is descriptive if it is true and if
it states a fact. The claim "the sun is bright" is a descriptive claim because
it is stating a true fact about the sun. A prescriptive claim, on the other
hand, is making a statement about something the should be true or should be
happening. The statement "you should wear sunglasses" is a prescriptive claim
because it is stating something that should be happening and that should be
true. Just because you believe something to be true does not make it a
descriptive claim. "Cursing is bad" is a prescriptive claim because even though
someone may believe that statement to be true, it is not a true fact. Value judgments are made very commonly using prescriptive claims. If something should be "better" or if something is "worse"
than these are prescriptive claims that are value judgments.

Vague Sentences

One of my jobs is a nanny for many different families. One family that I work for has two kids and I watch them Monday through Friday in the mornings from 5:30 until 8:30. Some mornings for breakfast the kids ask for cereal. They are a healthy family that in general buys organic foods and they always buy their cereal from Trader Joes. One the front of one of the boxes of cereal it says "Organic Cereal" in big letters across the top of the box. Below that lettering if says "lowers cholesterol" Both o these statements are vague statements. "Organic Cereal"  is a vague claim because what qualifies as organic? Is every ingredient used in the cereal organic? The company puts this label on their cereal because many people believe that if it says organic it is healthy. The statement "lowers cholesterol" is also a vague claim because not every person that eats this cereal has reduces levels of cholesterol. This cereal may help people with high cholesterol reduce their levels but it is not a guarantee. The company that makes this cereal puts this on their cereal because people who have high cholesterol see this claim on the box and buy it because they believe this claim to be true.

Discussion Question #1

The other night I went to hang out with some friends at one their houses.
While we were there one of my girlfriends and I turned on the movie Sweet Home
Alabama. While we were sitting there watching the movie our other friend Daniel
walked over and started to tell us how much the movie sucked. He stated that
"this is the worst movie ever made." This is a subjective claim. The
reason this is a subjective claim is because this is Daniel's personal opinion
of the movie. It is not a true claim so it is subjective. Although Daniel does
not think the movies is good. I think that it is an amazing movie. I heard an
objective claim last week when I was at the veterinarian’s office. I had to
take my dog to the vet for his yearly check up and to buy another box of
heartworm medication. While we were there the vet put my dog on the scale and
turned to me and told me that my dog weighed 238 pounds and that he had lost
five pounds since they last weighed him. This was an objective claim. This statement
was a true fact and because it was a true claim it is an objective claim and
not a subjective claim.

Introductory post

Hello all,
 My name is Sydni Denues and the reason I am taking this class is to increase my decision making skills obviously. I have never been very good at making decision and I would love to become better at it. I have taken a few online classes before and I have had good experiences and horrible experiences. As long you you stay up on the material and make sure that you dont start to fall behind it is usually pretty easy to do well in the class as long as you are doing the reading.

 Sydni Denues