Saturday, September 11, 2010
Week 3, Post 2
A concept that I believe to be useful was A Good Reason to Believe. It talks about what makes an argument good. I liked the point that you can still make a good argument even though you cannot convince a person. The example in the book says your friend can be drunk while you have good argument. So a good argument is not based on if you convince a person, it just depends on the argument itself. A bad argument would be a false premise accompanied with a false conclusion (37). An example of a bad argument would be: Only Tylenol makes ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is only made by Tylenol. A false premise accompanied with a true conclusion is an example of a bad argument as well; Only Tylenol makes ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is a medicine. You cannot make a good argument if the premise is false regardless if the conclusion is true or not.
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Hi Nicole, we're in the same group! I also thought the concept in "A Good Reason to Believe" was useful. We also both liked the point they made about a good argument not always necessarily having to convince the person you're arguing with. The drunk arguing is something that I thought was funny, especially because now that I'm in college, I have to deal with that a lot more. I learned on my own, before reading this, that you can have a pretty good, legit argument without ever really convincing the person you are talking to that you are right.
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