Principle of Rational Discussion/ Repairing Arguments

         The Principle of Rational Discussion focuses on the assumption that other people:

         1. Knows about the subject under discussion

         2. Is able and willing to reason well.

         3. Is not lying.

The Principle of Rational Discussion is a guide to help asses and understand arguments.

The Concept of Repairing Arguments focuses on three main points:

1. The argument becomes stronger or valid.

2. The premises are plausible and would seem plausible to the other person.

3. The premise is more plausible than the conclusion.

Argument: Criminal Minds is a great show on television because it is suspenseful and action packed.

One should not dismiss this argument just because they are not interested in the television show or have not seen it before either. Criminal Minds involves a lot of action and it is incredibly suspenseful, but one might prefer CSI or Bones over Criminal Minds. The premise is plausible, but the premise needs to be more plausible than the conclusion. This argument is valid because throughout the show there is a lot of action and suspense due to the story line. It involves criminal and the BAU. We could make this argument stronger by providing facts that Criminal Minds won an Emmy Award to prove that it is a great show on television.

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

Ridicule: Making someone or something the butt of a joke in order to convince.

         A fallacy is a misleading notion and sometimes people can be confused during a discussion and be misled. Also, an argument might not even be present if a fallacy is used. Ridicule is a fallacy in which mockery is used for evidence in an argument. Ridicule is a violation of the Principle of Rational Discussion and many people ridicule others to get their point across. I don’t ridicule others because I don’t feel as if one should put someone or something down to argue their point.

         An example of ridicule that I have heard in the past is “you’re a girl, so you belong in the kitchen”. One of my guy friends always jokes around with girls and tells them that women belong in the kitchen and that’s all were good for. He always ridicules my girlfriends and me and tells us to go make him a sandwich or clean up after him. He needs to understand we aren’t his maid or slaves!  

Exercises on the Structure of Arguments

Exercise #1:

“1. My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard. 2. People do not like living next door to such a mess. He never drives any of them. 3. They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place. 4. It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values.”

Argument: Yes.

Conclusion: The neighbor should clean up his cars in his yard because it creates an unsafe environment and also makes the neighborhood look trashy.

Additional Premises needed?: I believe that the writer should be more stern on his argument. 

Identify any subargument: All of the information is independent and supports the conclusion.

Good Argument?: All the premises look plausible, and the information is valid.

The writer stated enough information to make a solid conclusion, but I believe that he could have been more authoritative behind his voice. He stated that the cars look trashy in the neighborhood, but he could be more critical and state that the oil could be a health risk as well instead of it being “bad for the neighborhood”. He could also state that people are tired of looking at the clutter of cars in their neighborhood and it makes the neighborhood look very unclean. Going into further detail will help support the conclusion instead of just being vague and saying “people do not like living next door to such a mess”.  Premises 1, 2, and 3 support number 4. Overall, it is a good argument, it just needs a little more information for support. 

Weak Arguments

          I found a lot of information on what makes a strong argument and what consists of a weak argument. Earlier this week we discussed strong and valid arguments in detail, but I continued on to read what makes a weak argument.

         Weak arguments usually have little or no factual information and no established conclusion. One can go on a tangent about a topic and have no knowledge of what they are speaking about as well. Usually they have no sense or authority behind their facts and are not willing to be challenged.

         An example of a weak argument is “ I am employed.” This is a bad argument because there is not enough information given in the sentence. For one, we don’t know what type of job the person has. He could have any profession, so it is very vague. We also do not know the location of where the person works as well.

Strong vs Valid Arguments

Strong arguments can be either true or false, but the audience may be convinced more by the speaker’s knowledge and details of their argument. Strong arguments can be flawed interpretations of the truth and can be matters of opinions. An example of a strong argument is that “Santa Clause does not exist”. A young child and adult could argue about this topic for hours, but it would most likely end with the child in tears. A child would argue that Santa Clause comes down the chimney every year and that he is real because they take pictures with the man in the red suit at the mall. But an adult would explain that the man in the red suit is just a random stranger and that the parents actually put the presents under the tree and eat the cookies on the fireplace.

A valid argument has to be true unlike a strong argument. The conclusion usually follows the premise. Some valid arguments are not always good because they can have a premise that is not unlikely. A valid argument is that “tanning beds are bad for you”. There is no way to prove that this is false because the UV rays from the tanning beds can cause immense damage to one’s skin. 

The Tests for an Argument to Be Good

For an argument to pass as well written statement, there are three tests that need to be conducted. First off, the given information needs to be reasonable. One can’t be interested in whether an argument has strong points if they are uncertain if it is true or false. For the second test, the argument has to be more reasonable than the conclusion. Lastly, the argument needs to be strong and suitable for it to pass as a good argument.

The Saberkittens are cheerleaders. My best friends is a Saberkitten. Therefore, she is a cheerleader. This argument is valid because Saberkittens are cheerleaders for the San Jose Arena Football Team the Sabercats. My best friend has danced ever since she was little and she has cheered for the Sabercats for over a year. (Arena football games are also a lot of fun! I definitely recommend for everyone to try it out once when the season starts back up again!) This argument is also more plausible than the conclusion because the Saberkittens are a professional cheer team. This argument is strong and I believe it passes because it gives factual information. If you don’t believe me you can always look at the Saberkitten roster!

Intersubjective claim

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, inter-subjective is defined as involving two separate thoughts and establishing more than two themes. Some minds think alike, while others have different thoughts and opinions. For example, if one person believes that God exists and two other people are atheist, this becomes an inter-subjective claim because there are different thoughts at hand.

As we learned earlier from one of the prompts assigned, a subjective claim will convey one’s feelings and there is no way of telling if the claim can be proven true or false. Inter-subjective claims can’t always be certain as well because they are biased off of two different minds.

Intersubjective claims can coincide with one another and they happen to share some characteristics, but they will mostly contrast. 

Vague/ Ambiguous Sentences

 A vague sentence is not clearly expressed and it is also referred to as imprecise. One can give a vague sentence with out expressing oneself clearly and it can be short of an obvious meaning or character.  An ambiguous statement can have more than one meaning.  It is open to one or more interpretations and lacks clarity of the meaning.

On my first day of my sophomore year, I asked one of my friends where one of the buildings was on campus. She laughed and said it was “over there by the Olympic statues”. Being a sophomore, I should have known, but it was a long summer and I needed some refreshing of where all the buildings were on campus! Her statement did not really help me out because there are quite a few buildings near the Olympic statues. This was a vague sentence and it forced me to pull out my planner and look at the map of the campus.

An ambiguous statement that my friend said the other day was “the guy was so sick!”. An adult in our society would assume that the guy had the flu and had a serious health related problem. But our generation now a days refers to “sick” as awesome or cool.