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Resume Think Critically

Begining to Think Critically: Recognising Argument

Rhetoric

Any verbal or written to persuade someone to believe desire or do something that does not attempt to give good reason for the beliefe, desire or action but attempt to motivate that beliefe desire or action through the power of the words use

Those who try to persuade us of not such good cause might also be effective, persuasive rhetoricians. European dictators of the last century-Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin provide good example of this.

Of attempt to persuade that are arguments, not all are good arguments. So when analysing attempts to persuade we have to perform three task:

·         The crucial first stage involves distinguishing whether an arguments is being presented. We need to identify the issue being disscussed and determine whether or not the writer or speaker is attemping to persuade by means of argument

·         Once we have established that the writer/speaker is presenting an argument, we can move to the task of recontrusing the argument so as to express it clearly, and so as to demonstrate clearly the steps and form of the arguments reasong.

·         A clear recontruction makes our third and final stage- avluating the argument, asking whats good about it and whats bad about it- much easier to perform and justify

Argument can be understood as attemping to provide reason of thinking that some claim is true. For example, if a person makes the true claim ‘Moskow is further from London than Paris is,’ then according to our intuitive conception of truth, it is true just because Moskow is further from London than Paris is. Our working definition of truth, then, is as follows:

to say that a claim is true to say that what is claimed is how things actually are

to illustrate the difference between arguments and claim, consider these unsupported claim:

·         Its going to rain later

·         Obama is better leader than Bush ever was

Whether they provide adequate support is something we will later. Examples:

·         Its going to rain later; I know because I heard the wheather forecast on the radio and its usually reliable

·         Obama is better leader than Bush ever was. He already the support of most sectors of the population and is well respected by leader overseas

There are special terms for the parts arguments: the primary claim, the one we are trying to get other accept, is the conclusiom. The supporting claims, the ones intended to give us reason for accepting the conclusion, are the premises.

We can now give a working definition of argument:

An argument: a set propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are premises, intended as support for the conclusion.

And what exactly do we mean by proposition?

The factual content expressed by a declarative sentence on a particular occasion the same proposotion maybe expressed by different sentence.

2. Aspect Of Meaning

Depending on how we use sentence, it may express aspect of meaning additional to its factual, propostional content.

a.       Rhetorical force

This is the rhetorical aspect of a sentence’s meaning. It is not part of the propositional content that it express; rather it is emotive or otherwisw suggestive windows-dressing surrounding the proporsition, which may be used to persuade us.

b.      Implicature

Implicature is meaning, which is not stated, but which one can reasonablly take to be intented, given the context in which the sentence is written or uttered. Unlike rhetorical forcw, implicature cannot typically be interpreted according to convention covering our ordinary use of the words in the sentence used

c.       Definition

Tell us what it takes for something to qualify as a particular type of thing. Thw kind of definition with which you are most familiar is probably a dictionary definition.

3. Standard Form

An argument may be about any subject and number of premises, but it will always have only one final conclusion. This argument has just one premise:

Bart has two sisters.

Therefore, Bart is not an only child.

In reconstructing arguments you should follow the example below by taking these steps:

·         Identify the conclusion

·         Identify the premises

·         Number the premises and write them out in order

·         Draw in the inference bar

·         Write out the conclusion, placing ‘C)’ in front of it

4. Identifying Conclusions and Premises

a. Identifying Conclusions

determining whenther a passage contains an attempt to persuade by argument and identifyinh the conclusion of that argument do not always accur indenpendently, however.

Several points make the identification of conclusions an easier task

1.       Once you have decided that a passage or speech contains an attempt to persuade by argument, try to see what the main point of the passage or speech is. Ask what point the speaker or author is trying to establish; that point will be the conclusion/

2.       Any proporsion on any topic can be conclusion. The type of subject matter of proporsition-religion, morality, science, the weather, politics, sport is not in itself a guide to identifying whether or not that proporsition is intended as the conclusion of a passages argument

3.       A single text or speech may contain several argument for several different bit connected conclusions. These chains of argument are known as extended argument and we look at them in more detail shortly.

4.       4. A helpful guide to recornising are words that usually indicate that a writer or speaker is putting forward an argument  other common conclusion indicators are:

·         Therefore...

·         Hence

·         Thus

·         It can be concluded that

·         So..

5.       Indicator word are not part of propositions that the argument comprises; rather they introduce or frame the conclusion and premises

6.       These are implicit conclusion. They are only implied or suggested by the actual text or speech content, not explicitly expressed by it

b. identifying premises

as you go through the process of identifying an arguments conclusion, it is likely that you will also spot some or all of its premises. Thus the stage of identification are not entriely separate in practice.

d.      Extraneous material

You will notice that much of what people say or write when putting forward an argument plays no role in the arguments itself.  Before identifying those proporsitions the arguments conclusion the premises given as support for it. We often have to identify and hive iff this material, whuch has no role to play in the recontruction of the  arguments

5. arguments and Explanation

Words that function as indicator worsd can be sed for the purposes. A tricker case is the use as ‘sicne’ and ‘because’- especially ‘because’ in explanation.

6.       Intermediate

The conclusion of one argument may serve as a premise of a subsequent argument. Th conclusion of that arument may itelf serve as a premise for another argument and so on.a simple illustration:

Fido is a dog. All dogs are mammals, so Fido is a mammal. And since all mammals are warm-blooded, it follows that Fido is warm blooded