The Guide to Repairing Arguments
-When you have a flawed argument, you can add a premise or conclusion if it fulfills all 3:
1. Argument becomes stronger or valid.
2. Premise is plausible and would seem plausible to the other person.
3. Premise is more plausible than the conclusion.
Once the argument is valid or strong, you can take out a premise if it doesn’t make the argument worse.
Example:
No fish flies. So Nemo does not fly.
In order to make this a valid or strong argument we can add, “Nemo is a fish.” Because that is true, the argument is good. But, if we were to add “Nemo swims” it doesn’t make the argument any better so it would not satisfy making the argument valid or strong in the guide to repairing arguments.
We can’t have:
Now we have a repaired argument:
No fish flies. Nemo is a fish. So Nemo does not fly.
Hello there, emcee!
ReplyDeleteI believe we haven't met before. ;P ANYWAYS! I liked your example a lot. It was really easy to follow and it helped me understand how to repair arguments a lot more. It was so simple and straight to the point. I wished I thought of something similar to this when I wrote my entry for this question. Thanks for also adding the guide for repairing arguments as well. I'm such a forgetful person when it comes to reading entries, I forget what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. haha Nice touch with the picture too!
Keep it up! :D See you next week. :)
I really liked your post because it was in the style that I find I learn best in. It was concise and clear and it was very informative. Your example also made it very easy to understand what was necessary to add to make it a good argument. It also helped that you showed an example of what wouldn’t help to make it a good argument. “Nemo swim”, really does nothing for the argument. I thought that was very useful because it showed that not all information that is true, is helpful to making an argument a good one. Overall, I enjoyed your blog very much.
ReplyDeleteLOVED this!!! Basically, I love finding Nemo and I wished I could have come with this simplistic idea that was very effective myself!! Your example was so clear and easy to follow: I think it was better than the books example! This chapter explains that we can't assume that the audience knows all the details regarding the claim. Some people might not have ever heard of Nemo and so they wouldn't have understood this claim, so adding in that "Nemo is a fish" makes the claim stronger. In addition to this, I especially liked how you took the example into two parts so that you could show the reader how adding an extra premise can benefit the argument and how adding an extra premise could be bad. Overall, great job!! Loved the picture at the bottom too! It caught my attention and I instantly wanted to read your post!
ReplyDelete