Further Discussion Ch. 6

A concept that I believe needs further discussion in our class is chapter six compound claims. The chapter had a lot more information than previous chapters we have read in our class. The text provides different types of information on compound claims. Each section has a lot of information along with excercises. I think that the chapter had too much information to be able to completely understand it. There are a lot of different claims that the chapter discusses. We need to spend more time going over the examples to help ourselves have more comprehension on the different types of claims. The claims can br difficult to understand and if we focus more on them and even create our own claims that way it can be easier to understand the significant differences. A website that I found and thought that it can help out with understanding compound claims is olemiss.edu/courses/logic/prop1.htm, the site has examples and explanations.

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Assignment 2

Both of our group assignments were useful for our class.  The second assignment we had to do was helpful because we had to research an organization and see how they conceal claims, what types of fallacies they use in their organization, and how they use emotion in reasoning.   Our organization was PETA.  I got to learn how they got started in 1980, and how their public service announcements use partial nudity to make a statement on the use of real fur in clothing and accessories.  It was interesting to learn that they are the only animal rights organization in the world and that their mission to stop animal abuse in the world.   PETA is known for its demonstrations against corporations and other places that are known for violating animal rights.   They get endorsement from celebrities and have them star in their public service announcements partially nude for their “I would rather be naked than wear fur” campaign.  The second assignment was easier to understand and helped incorporate concepts we learned from our book. 

Chapter 8 Concepts

In chapter eight the first concept I learned about general claims is general claims and their contradictories.  The book discusses that people need “to know how to reason using general claims that assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection.”  Some arguments that are made may sound valid but they are not because the words “all” and “some” have various meanings.  The book states that “all” means “every single one, no exceptions” and sometimes can mean “every single one, and there is at least one.” The word “some” is defined as “at least one” and sometimes can be defined as “at least one, but not all.”

An example: A contradictory for, “Some cats can swim” is “No cat can swim” or “Not even one cat can swim.”

A second concept that I learned was vague generalities, and that most do not fit into good arguments or claims.  In order to recognize if an argument is valid or not, we need to take the look at the words “all” and “some”.   The rest of the words that are in the sentence with “all” or “some” are too vague to determine if the argument is valid.

An example:  “Almost all teenagers listen to rock music.” – A lot of teenagers listen to rock music or many teenagers listen to rock music.

Interesting Concept

Chapter six contained a lot of useful information for compound claims, but one section I found really interesting is false dilemmas.   The textbook defines false dilemmas as “a bad use of excluding possibilities where the ‘or’ claim is false or implausible, and sometimes just the dubious ‘or’ claim is also a false dilemma.”   I also found the slippery slope argument helpful, which is an argument that is bad and uses conditional which one is either dubious or false.  The book gives an example of a slippery slope argument on page 133.  The argument is presented between two girls, where one would like to go out with a football player, but the other girl insists that she does not go out with one because she assured her friend she would sleep with him and end up pregnant, and live a regretful life.  Her friend then agrees with her and decides she should go out with a basketball player.   This is an example of slippery slope, because the argument was a bad one and it presented conditional claims that were only dubious, her friend cannot guarantee she would end up pregnant and live a regretful life and gave her false reasons.

Chapter 7

In chapter seven the main theme of the chapter was Counterarguments.  The chapter broke down into two topics, which I believe were interesting to learn.  The first topic is raising objections.   The book describes raising objections as “a standard way to show that an argument is bad.”  Objections are raised when a claim is put forth and one of our claims is either wrong or doubtful. 

The second topic in the chapter is “Refuting an Argument” which then breaks this topic into three different sections, the first, refuting directly, second; refuting indirectly, and third; attempts to refute that are bad arguments.

Refuting directly is when an argument “shows that at least one of the premises is dubious, the argument isn’t valid or strong, and that the conclusion is false.”  I also learned in this chapter that there are four specific ways that imitate reducing the absurd; “phony refutation, slippery slope arguments, ridicule, and straw man”

Chapter Six

Chapter six in our Critical Thinking textbook provided a lot of new information on compound claims.   It goes into detail about how there are two different kinds of compound claims which are: “or” claims and conditionals.   The book defines a compound claim as, “a compound claim is one composed of other claims, but which has to be viewed as just one claim”  So we have previously been introduced to compound claims, but now we are presented with “or” claims.  The word “or” can be used to connect two claims and turn it into a compound.  Another claim that the book presented are conditional claims, which are “if…then…” claims.  Our book shows examples of conditional claims, and example; “Bring me an ice cream cone and I’ll be happy.” It then is a “if…then…” claim because if you take your friend the ice cream, then they will be happy.  It takes awhile to understand these claims, but the textbook examples help out a lot to make sense of them.

Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises

A useful topic that I found in chapter five called “Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises” consists of five subtopics that are the mistakes and examples of each mistake.   The first one listed is arguing backwards.   The book lists arguing backwards as a mistake because if we have a strong/valid argument with a true conclusion, its premises is true.  The second mistake is confusing possibility with plausibility, and it suggests that it is usually good reason to investigate a claim to see if it’s true or not.  You need evidence before you can believe in what is stated. The third mistake listed is bad appeals to authority, which is when you believe the claim regardless if it’s true or not because of the person who said it.  The fourth mistake is mistaking the person for the claim, and that is when we reject a claim because of the person who said, regardless if their claim was true or not.  The fifth and final mistake is mistaking the person for the argument which is similar to the fourth mistake but instead you reject that person’s argument because of who they are, unlike the fourth which is when you reject their claim not their argument.  All these mistakes listed with details in the book is very useful to know, because it helps us realizes the mistakes we do when we evaluate premises.