Refuting directly.

I thought that the refuting an argument (directly) section of Chapter 7 (counterarguments) was interesting.

There are direct ways of refuting an argument.

-1. Show that at least one of the premises is dubious.

-2. Show that the argument isn’t valid or strong.

-3. Show the conclusion is false.

For example:

There’s no point in coming to class when you’re already late. You’ve already missed some things, so might as well miss the whole thing (all or nothing). (1)

Since you missed the first half, you will be confused for the whole second half, meaning you wouldn’t understand anything making it reasonable to not come to class when late. (2)

Refuting the argument:

1.     We can object to the first premise (dubious) because maybe the class didn’t learn anything in the first half.

2.     We can agree to the second premise, but we’d have to tweak “the whole” with “some of the,” and also “anything” to “some things” making the argument weak.

3.     We can show the conclusion as false by saying that we’ve gone to class late and was still able to understand what was going on either on your own or by asking your professor and/or classmates.