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.