IDENTIFYING ARGUMENTS

Critical Thinking: Chapter 1SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

COURSE BUSINESS

Quiz # 1:

I did not set you up for success…

Help me…Help you

Quiz # 1: Re-Write

ONLY highest grade gets logged

Argument; Explanation; or Neither [no “BOTH” questions]

Today: Arguments v. Explanations (TAKE II)

Remaining Schedule: Pushed one week [QUIZZES and LECTURES — POSTED ONLINE THURSDAY]

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PROPOSITIONS

QUIZ/EXAM: You will be given some passages and asked to COUNT the number of SIMPLE propositions.

PROPOSITION: content or meaning of a sentence

THREE FEATURES:

- express single complete thought - contains one subject and one predicate - falsifiable (i.e., can be true or false)

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PROPOSITIONS

THREE TYPES:

SIMPLE

COMPOUND

COMPLEX

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Beth ran.

COMPOUND PROPOSITIONS

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“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind

simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

SUBJECT = Doublethink [PREDICATE VERB = Means] PREDICATES (TWO): (a) Means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind

simultaneously (b) Means accepting both of them as true

Subject (and verb) occur once…but two predicates Compound because (a) and (b) separately falsifiable

COMPOUND PROPOSITIONS

QUIZ QUESTION # 10: IDENTIFY THE NUMBER OF SIMPLE PROPOSITIONS

The Nissan 240 SX is rear-wheel drive, and has a 50:50 weight distribution, making it perfect for drifting, since drifting involves power slides, fishtailing, and precision steering.

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COMPOUND PROPOSITIONS

QUIZ QUESTION # 10: IDENTIFY THE NUMBER OF SIMPLE PROPOSITIONS

The Nissan 240 SX is rear-wheel drive, and has a 50:50 weight distribution, making it perfect for drifting, since drifting involves power slides, fishtailing, and precision steering.

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COMPOUND PROPOSITIONS

Prop 1: The Nissan 240 SX is rear-wheel drive… Prop 2: The Nissan 240 SX has 50:50 weight distribution Prop 3: The Nissan 240 SX perfect for drifting

Prop 4: Drifting involves power slides Prop 5: Drifting involves fishtailing Prop 6: Drifting involves precision steering

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The Nissan 240 SX is rear-wheel drive, and has a 50:50 weight distribution, making it perfect for drifting, since drifting involves power slides, fishtailing, and precision steering.

COMPLEX PROPOSITIONS

SUBJECT: Speaker, Bart Simpson [IMPLIED]

PREDICATES (TWO):

(A) CAN’T SLEEP

(B) CLOWN WILL EAT ME

Complex because… truth value of (complex) proposition depends on both parts jointly

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“Can’t sleep; clown will eat me.”

ARGUMENTS V. EXPLANATIONS

ARGUMENT: Attempt to JUSTIFY or PROVE a conclusion - Offers REASONS to believe a conclusion

EXPLANATION: Reasons why something is true, WITHOUT attempting to convince you it’s true

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ARGUMENTS V. EXPLANATIONS

ARGUMENTS

- Offers reasons for why something is the case

- Attempts to convince you to believe conclusions

- Justification for conclusion

Evidence

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EXPLANATIONS

- Offers reasons for why something is the case

- no attempt to convince

- Presumes you believe the conclusion is true

Causal Story* Motivational Story*

DETECTIVE WORK

PROCESS:

1) Identify the conclusion (if applicable).

2) Analyze the conclusion. [Widely accepted; presumption of belief; attempt to persuade; making a case for something; etc.]

3) Analyze the reasons: (a) Are the reasons evidential claims? (b) Are we being told a causal story (how it came about)? (c) Are we being told a motivational story (e.g. thought process)?

4) Miscellaneous detective work Context? Attempt to get rid of DOUBT? Controversial premise(s)?

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QUIZ QUESTION # 1

People normally believe what other tell them unless there is reason to be suspicious. This reliance on other people is called depending on testimony.

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QUIZ QUESTION # 2

No question that the marketing of infant formula in the Third World can pose serious problems. Everyone, including the infant formula industry agrees that breast feeding provides the best and cheapest nutrition for infants. Also, mother who are lactating are less likely to conceive. Breast-feeding helps space out births. Therefore, marketing practices should not induce mothers who otherwise would be willing and able to breast feed to switch to a bottle.

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QUIZ QUESTION # 3

Every loyal citizen must demonstrate his loyalty to the state by taking an oath. To be credible, that oath must be sworn on a religious text. No atheist can swear an oath on a religious text. So, we can see that no atheists can demonstrate his loyalty to the state.

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QUIZ QUESTION # 4

I think the battery in my iPhone is worn out. It doesn't play as long as it used to. I guess it's just been recharged too many times.

P1: [my iPhone] doesn’t play as long as it used to EVIDENTIAL CLAIM — reason to believe

P2: [my iPhone] has been recharged too many times. CAUSAL CLAIM - how it came about

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QUIZ QUESTION # 5

It never occurred to me to question what we were taught about God and the world around us. We heard the stories, we sang the hymns, we prayed every day, and we spoke of God as a constant presence in our world. So of course I was a believer; this was part of how I grew up.

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QUIZ QUESTION # 6

Abstract expressionism was the first truly American modern art movement. Although some of its members were from Europe, they themselves had become American immigrants and broke ties with old culture in favour of new one. All the important works of Abstract Expressionism were created on American soil.

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QUIZ QUESTION # 7

“I shall pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now; let me no teeter it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.“

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QUIZ QUESTION # 8

Wilson: Well, it’s too bad we lost so much, but you can’t win all the time. I just don’t understand how it happened. Smith: Actually, it’s perfectly understandable. The causes of our good business in Slumptown were the poverty of the people and the bad job market there. Because people could not quite afford the houses they bought, the market for second mortgages was good. And yet these factors did indicate how vulnerable Slumptown’s economy was. When the powerful XYZ company laid off workers, people in Slumptown were worse off than before, and they just couldn’t keep up with the payments on their houses. It is easy to see what led to our losses in Slumptown.

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It’s = people in Slumptown lost everything

END PART A

Part B:

ARGUMENTS, EXPLANATIONS, NEITHER Exercises

Next Lecture:

Quiz # 1 (TAKE II)

Categorical Logic I (Review/Refresh)

Exercises (ASSORTED)

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PART B

2 Minute Break

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PART B

EX 1) The window had been shut all summer and the weather was hot and damp. So the room smelled awfully musty.

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PART B

EX 2) Wilson: We were unlucky in Slumptown. Perhaps we should transfer the firm to Hightown, down the road. In Hightown, there are plenty of jobs, the real estate market is booming, and people are crying out for second mortgages.

Smith: That would be a mistake, I think. Hightown is different from Slumptown in many ways, but it is similar in having a vulnerable economy. All of the economic activity in Hightown depends on one aircraft parts firm, which is expanding at the moment. If the firm loses a contract with Nigeria, it will have to lay off thousands of workers, and Hightown’s economy will be severely affected. In such a situation, Hightown would become another Slumptown, and we would have the same problem with defaults all over again.

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PART B

EX 3) She had difficulty completing the examination because she has an eye problem that affects her reading. In addition, the room was noisy, making it difficult to concentrate.

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PART B

EX 4) “If Rudolph Guiliani did one good thing for the arts while he was mayor of New York, it was to give the usual arguments on behalf of scandalous art so many chances to be aired that it soon became clear how unsatisfying they are.”

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PART B

EX 5) Good health depends on good nutrition. Good nutrition requires a budget adequate to buy some fresh fruits and vegetables. Therefore, good health requires a budget adequate to buy some fresh fruits and vegetables.

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PART B

EX 6) It is not strictly true that all human beings are either male or female. That’s because some human beings are born with mixed sexual characteristics.

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PART B

EX 7) Due to pride some people find it easier than others do to admit that they are wrong. You can see that this is true. It works this way: their pride is based on a deep conviction of personal worth. As a result of their conviction that they are worthy people, they can admit to flaws without being threatened.

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PART B

EX 8) Because she was an only child, she did not develop the independence necessary to care for herself. For example, even at the age of 7, she was unable to put on her own skates.

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PART B

EX 9) If a person knows in advance that his actions risk death, then when he voluntarily takes those actions, he accepts a risk of death. These conditions surely apply to mountain climbers. Therefore, people who climb mountains have accepted a risk of death.

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PART B

EX 10) “In part the peasant’s melancholy is caused by worry. Having no savings, he must always dread what is likely to happen. What for others are misfortunes are for him calamities. When their hog strangled on its tether, a labourer and his wife were desolate. The woman tore her hair and beat her head against a wall while the husband sat mute and stricken in a corner. The loss of the hog meant they would have no meat that winter, no grease to spread on bread, nothing to sell for cash to pay taxes, and no possibility of acquiring a pig the next spring. Such blows may fall at any time. Fields may be washed away in a flood. Hail may beat down the wheat. Illness may strike. To be a peasant is to stand helpless before these possibilities.”

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PART B

EX 11) “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.“

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PART B

EX 12) “One immediate retort to the idea that a market society without governing institutions is a decent society is that a market society includes economic organizations, particularly monopolies and cartels, which are in fact governing institutions. The coercive power of monopolies is no less than that of political institutions. Thus the idea that a market society is free of institutions that have the power to humiliate people is a fairy tale.”

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PART B

EX 13) “The kids are rarely overpowered by life’s adversities because they set up safety valves to release the mental anguish caused by their personal hang-ups. Lucy, for example, flaunts her femininity so she can cope with life more easily. Charlie Brown eats peanut butter sandwiches when he gets lonely. And Frieda wheedles compliments to restore her faith in herself and in her curly hair. Snoopy, unashamed, straps himself to his doghouse and mentally shrugs off most anything he can’t handle.”

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