So its' Bad, So What

One thing that I noticed at the end of the chapter caught my eye and I thought that imight be a good idea to discuss it in my last post for this week. At the end of the chapter, there is a paragraph with the title, " So it's bad, So what". When I first saw this title, I assumed that it would be discussing why it would be ok for an argument to be bad. As you might guess, this was not the case. Instead, this section talked about the goal is to eventually be able to learn how to exchange ideas, not to stifle arguments. It points out that if we were to point out every single bad argument that our family and friends make, they would consider us completely unbearable. I think that statement would be completely true for most people and I know that it would be true in my life. My friends would definitely not want to talk to me as much if I criticsized. I agree with that statement of this section in the book.

Content Fallacies

A fallacy is a bad argument of one of the types that have been agreed to be typically unrepairable. I will be discussing content fallacies. A lot of arguments are considered bad because there is a need for repair to a false premise. But some arguments look like ones that we should definitely be suspicious of. When one of those arguments comes up, you should look for thr generic premise, which is the one that usually need to be repaired. Just because you use one of those premises, it doesn't really mean that your argument is really that bad. Sometimes, the premise is plausible and can even be true. The argument is a fallacy when the premise is suspicious and it is not supported by any other premises. An example is to say that almost everything someone says is probably not true. This is a content fallacy because there is a lot of doubt in what that person is saying. It would be a lot better to say " anything your friend says is not true". That is much more believeable simply because it does not use the words "almost" and "probably".

Structure of Arguments

The section about how to structure an argument was very helpful. I will use example number 1. It is , My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard. People do not like living next door to such a mess. He never drives any of them. They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place. It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values. I consider this an argument. I believe that there are two claims in this argument. I think the first one is when the person says " My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard". I believe the seconf claim is when the person says "It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values". I do not believe that this argument needs any additional premises because it already states many reasons as to why the cars need to be moved. There are a couple of subarguments in this argument. I believe the first one is " He never drives any of them". The second one is " They look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place". I believe that overall, this is a good argument.

Good Reason to Believe

The very first section of chapter three of the Epstein book talks about having good reason to believe and how you need good reasons to believe an argument. This is true because if you were to say something that was completely "out there", then people would think you were crazy because they have absolutely no reason to believe you. Part of making a good argument is making people believe what you say and for that to happen, you have to be able to make plausible claims. An example of a bad argument is: Everyone owns at least one television. Therefore John has two televisions. This makes no sense because both the premise and the conclusion are false and since there are people that do not own any televisions, there is no reason at all to believe this argument. So that is an example of how it is very important to make an argument easy to believe. If you don't do that, you will look really silly to whoever you're making your argument to.

Strong vs Valid Arguments

An argument is considered strong if there is a way for it's premises to be true and its conclusion be false at the same time even though it is unlikely. An argument is considered valid if it is not possible for its premises to be true and the conclusion false at the same time. It is hard to compare the two kinds of arguments but sometimes, a strong argument that has premises that are true is better than a valid argument with the same exact conclusion. An example of this could be: Most of the basketball players I have seen are more than six feet tall. Therefore, every basketball player is more than six feet tall. That is an example of a strong argument. An example of a valid argument would be: Every basketball player is over six feet tall. Therefore, anyone that plays basketball is over six feet tall. This is a good example of a strong argument with premises that are true being better than a valid argument even though they have pretty much the same conclusion.

Good Argument?

There are three tests that prove whether an argument is a good one or not. The first test is that the premises must be plausible. This means that there has to be good reason to believe the argument. The second test is that the premises have to be more plausible than the conclusion. The third test is that the argument has to be valid or strong. An example of an argument could be, Mike is a basketball player. All basketball players are tall. Mike is tall. The first test to see if this is a good argument or not is to decide whether the premises are plausible. I believe they are plausible because if you look at the basketball players in the NBA, they are mostly tall. The second test is to decide whether the premises are more plausible than the conclusion. I believe that the premises are definitely more plausible than the conclusion because it is much easier to believe that Mike is a basketball player than it is to believe that he is tall because if you have never met him, you wouldn't know how tall he is. The third and final test would be to decide whether or not the argument is valid or strong. My argument is neither valid nor strong. It is a weak argument. This is because it is possible and not unlikely for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. There are many basketball players who are under six feet tall, so to say that all basketball players are tall would be false. In conclusion, my example is a bad argument.

Good Group

One of the more interesting things I found in the rest of the reading was the section where it talked about what it takes to make a good group. This can be found in the "essential guide to group communication" book. It talks about many different things that are needed to make a good group. The first they talk about is Group Interdependence. This is basically saying that every member in the group needs to have their own responsibility and fulfill that responsibility. The next section talks about cohesion in groups. This section talks about how important it is to be involved with your group and how you need to learn to work together as a group to get things done. Another section talks about establishing norms in a group. In a group, it is important to have consistency and know that you can depend on your fellow group members. You also need to decide things like what roles that certain members will have and things like that. All those things are necessary to make a successful group.

Vague

A vague sentence is one that can be understood in many different ways, so many that we have to ask the speaker what they mean to get a clear understanding. A recent vague sentence I have heard was not too long ago when I was talking to my friend. He said that he was thinking about buying a new pair of shoes. I asked him which shoes he was talking about. His response was "those one Jordans". As you can probably guess, I had no idea what shoes he was talking about. I had to ask him to clarify because there are a countless amount of Jordan shoes that it was extremely difficult to automatically know which ones he was talking about based on the description he gave me. He could have been talking about any one of the hundreds of pairs of Jordan brand shoes. I had an idea that he was talking about the newest pair that came out not too long ago but, once again I had no way of knowing for a fact what he meant. His answer was just too vague.

Objective and Subjective Claims

An objective claim does not need anyone's opinion to make it true or false. On the other hand, a subjective claim invokes personal standards, meaning that the claim is true or false depending on someone's opinion. Since the super bowl is this sunday, I will use the 2009 Indianapolis Colts as my example. A subjective claim about the colts would be to say that " The Colts are the best team in the NFL". This is subjective because it depends on other people's opinions. Many people might think the New Orleans Saints are the best team because they are also in the super bowl. Others may believe that neither of those two teams are the best, it all depends on their opinion. An objective claim about the Colts would be to say that " The Colts had the best record in the NFL during the 2009 regular season" This is objective because it doesn't depen on what someone thinks. It is a fact that the Colts' 14-2 record was the best in the league during the 2009 regular season.