Evaluating Premises

"Is it true? Are these premises valid?" These are questions we must ask ourselves when evaluating premises in arguments. Validity is something that can be easily left out when making an argument, especially if it goes way against the argument. We have criteria for believing in arguments. If we don't believe the claim or the premise, we usually disregard it quickly. Usually first off we go off our own personal experience, which is a good thing because it is said the be the best source of information. But also it is only as good as we remember it to be. We can also check through reliable sources of information. We should never accept claims from a source we don't know that is valid or from sources that don't even have a source! But another thing is that we shouldn't disregard an argument just because of the person. We disregard arguments based on the premises.

Pretty Useful

I thought both assignments were pretty useful. As a whole, I thought that this was one of the smoothest group projects I've ever done in my college career. The assignments kind of made us delve deeper within an article or within an organization to actually question whether or not the arguments that they were stating were actually valid. That they actually were structured in a way a good and valid argument is supposed to be structured. The first was a useful exercise because it made us look deeper in what articles are actually posting. When I did my portion, I searched for each supporting claim and decided whether the argument within the article was actually valid and strong. I actually found it to structurally be weak, and it can show after you read the article. With the second assignment, we were asked to look deeper into an organization. I found this to be interesting because we were able to investigate further into the organization's statements and goals to find valid points.

Chapter 8 General Claims

Between One and All
Chapter 8 talks about general claims which are claims made in an argument that address a general topic. For example, saying that all salads are healthy is a general claim because it addresses salads in general. These general claims can be weak and invalid because of the generality included with them. In section C, they mention precise generalities. A precise generality is a claim that uses a quantity within the the argument. For example, "7% of San Jose State students graduate in 4 years. Mary graduated from San Jose State, therefore she graduated in more than four years." This could be either true or false, we can't tell whether Mary is part of the 93% percent that graduates after 4 years. Also in section C, they talk about vague generalities. In this they usually use the words "all," "some," "no," or "only." Instead of exact quantities they include a more vague key word. So for example you could say that "only a few students graduate in 4 years." With this you can create strong arguments but they can be weak as well.

Compound Claims

A compound claim has to do with a sentence that contains two claims but is viewed as a single claim. For example we have two single claims: "Working as an intern at a company can gain experience for the future." and "Working as an intern you can give you an insight of whether you'll do well or not in the career path." These claims can be combined to work as one claim. For example you could write, "Working as an intern at a company can give you experience or even give you an insight of whether you'll do well in said career path." These are two seperate claims that can be seen as one claim in one sentence, hence being a compound claim. This is also an alternative claim since it contains an "or" claim. It can also be seen as a compound claim because it is either or. The parts of the compound are not saying the same thing with different words, but are telling us that either you'll gain the right experience or you'll find out that you're not in the right field.

Chapter 7

Raising Objections
In the textbook, raising objections can show whether or not an argument is bad or not. Raising objections in an argument is puts one or more of the premises into question. You basically begin to contradict yourself in your own arguments. For example, you are try to sell a car and you point out the new state-of-the-art features, but then you bring your pitch down by saying the gas mileage is really low. The argument would've been good without the last part.
Refuting an Argument Directly
In this chapter there are more techniques to throw off an argument and prove it wrong and refuting directly is one of the methods that can be used. Firstly, there are three ways to directly refute an argument. You could show that there is doubt in a premise, show that argument isn't strong or valid, and show that the conclusion is false. But to successfully take an argument down, you need good proof to back it up.

Chapter 6

False Dilemmas
False dilemmas deal with arguments that use "or" claims. You can't use "or" without showing all the valid possibilities. For example, you argue that your brother smokes too many cigarettes and it's become too expensive. You give him the option that he can either stay away from you or cut back on smoking. Since he is bothering you specifically he can also move out or you could even move out. In this situation, you pose a false dilemma. You present two different alternatives when there is more alternatives that you didn't pose.

Conditionals
We all have used this type of claim in the past. For example, if you study well for the exam, then you'll do well on the exam. It deals with an 'if' statement and ends with a 'then' statement. Conditionals also don't need those two key words to form a conditional statement. With any action there is a reaction that follows it and as long as a sentence a antecedent and consequence, it can be called a conditional claim.

Who said it again?

Totally disregarding an argument based on who said is called "mistaking the person for the argument." In a way it's like the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" story. The boy went around saying there was a wolf trying to eat the sheep and people would run and panic only to find nothing there. Once a real wolf came, no one believed him. If he argued that wolf came and ate some sheep, people would reject him because he said it. You must consider the claims to be true or false in a non biased manner. A phony refutation when someone makes a point that the person who made the argument can't be believed because he hasn't been trustworthy in the past. In the case of the story, people reminded the other town members that he had told this lie several times. There's a company that sells vitamins, but they are known to scam people through a pyramid scheme, but you can't use that to disprove that the vitamins are actually valid.

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Spyware and virus have become a threat to your local PC. Naturally there are ads floating around on the internet for protection against those threats. You wonder which one is better. But they're all made to do the same thing. It's like choosing between the brand name or the generic stuff. It's all the same. Titanium by Trend Micro claims that 'nothing comes close.' All these antivirus ads always say that they're the best in protection. They do set up a good premise by allowing people to actually try the product and letting you try for yourself. But usually some programs on the internet cannot be trusted. There are new viruses that act like an antivirus program and try and force you to buy it so the attacks will stop. There was also a testimonial on the page, but the source seems random. Its getting harder and harder to believe testimonials.

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