WEEK 9, POST 3

In general,  I think understanding the concept of deciding whether or not an argument was good or not. I think part of the reason I do not understand the concept is that there is so much “repetition”. False premise, false conclusion. False premise, true conclusion. Everything just starts to look the same, if you ask me. Then there’s plausibility of the claim which basically if the claim is believable or not. If someone came up to you and told you that the sky is yellow, the you would come to the conclusion that the premise presented is not plausible and then false. The there is the conclusion follows from the premise. There has to be a connection between the two. You cannot just say that Nancy is a girl. She is a bitch. There is no real connection. If you say Nancy girl. She says a lot of mean things about people. She is a bitch. Then there is a connection between the premises and the conclusion. 

http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/vocab/validity.html

WEEK 9, POST 2

I think Chapter 8 that had to deal with general claims in general was quite confusing. It made sense when I read other people’s blogs about valid and invalid forms it makes sense, but when I try to explain it, it is really hard to. It’s really hard to explain things in words sometimes and they are better explained visually, like diagrams. 

General claims and their contradictions are very common. Words such as all, always, a lot, most, never are used to make your claim stronger when it really isn’t. An example of this would be I say that I’m always tired. Which really isn’t true because I’m not always tired. 

Vague generalities are similar to general claims. They talk about all or part of a collection without specifying a precise number (Epstein 171). An example would be me saying all guys are douchebags. This argument is invalid because all guys aren’t douchebags. 

WEEK 9, POST 1

For our second paper, Critical Thinking and Social Organizations was a bit more difficult than the first. Working on the paper in general as a group, made my group realize that we couldn’t just talk online like we did last time. It was really hard to communicate and it was difficult to discuss in-depth topics via email. As a group, we decided that meeting in person would be better so we could get feedback from each other right away. That’s kind of why I feel like we have group communications book. But getting into the assignment part, it really made us think about what we learned in the book. Instead of regurgitating information, we had to apply the concepts and find the answers on the website instead of the bolded words in the book. I liked the the assignment asked what advertising techniques used to promote the chosen organization. 

WEEK 7, POST 3

The two things that I have learned in Epstein’s chapter 7 is the two different ways to refute and argument. One way is to refute directly and the other is to refute indirectly. 

Refuting directly is to object to what has been said. 

There are three ways:

• show that as least one of the premises is dubious or doubtful
• show that the argument isn’t valid or strong
• show that the conclusion is false (Epstein, 149)

Example:

We should buy 3 gallons of Hennessy for our vacation.

(objection) That’s a lot, we should buy 2.

(answer) We’re going to drink more than 2 gallons.

(objection) We are on a budget.

(answer) When we finish the 2 gallons, we are going to end up buying more at an expensive liquor store rather than wholesale. 

(answer) It will be cheaper to buy the 3 now rather than later. 

In this case, the objections were trying to make my argument of buying 3 gallons of Hennessy less valid and less strong. 

Refuting indirectly is used when you cannot exactly say any one premise is false or dubious (Epstein 149).

Example:

Conclusion: I want to start dieting healthy, I just won’t eat.

Indirect refute: You say you want to diet healthy by not eating. Not eating will result in you losing weight. Not eating causes a lot of problems. You are hungry all the time, you don’t have a lot of energy, you could possibly pass out, and maybe even die. The body uses food as energy to do its everyday tasks such as breathing and getting up out of bed. If the body has no energy, then it will start to shut down. So, not eating does not mean your are dieting healthy. 

WEEK 7, POST 2

In chapter 6, Epstein discusses conditionals. (Another thing I learned in philosophy, how convenient!)

“A claim is conditional if it can be rewritten as an ‘if....then...’ claim that must have the same truth-value. ‘If A then B’, the claim A is the antecedent and the claim B is the consequent” (Epstein, 121).

I’m really bad at remember things so the way I formed the relationship between “If A and B” and antecedent and consequent is that the letter A comes before the letter B. So, A = antecedent and B = consequent. And it also helps that antecedent starts with the letter A. 

Having that said, If you raise your voice with me, I will get mad. If you raise your voice with me is the antecedent. I will get mad is the consequent. Also, think of consequent as consequence, like the end result. Example: If you don’t drink water for a long period of time, you will get dehydrated. Getting dehydrated is the consequence of not drinking water. 

WEEK 7, POST 1

In Chapter 6 of Esptein’s book, the different contradictions of claims were very interesting. It reminded me of philosophy class I took a few semesters back. 

There are 3 different types of contradictions of claims: contradictory of a claim, contradictory of an or claim, and contradictory of an and claim. To make it look easier: claim, or claim, and claim. 

The contradictory of a claim is basically the opposite of what the claim is saying. 

For example:

Claim: Nicole’s hair is long.

Contradictory: Nicole’s hair isn’t long. 

This one is pretty easy to understand. You just say the opposite: The sky is blue. The sky is not blue. Kind of like an annoying little sibling that contradicts everything you say. 

The contradictory of an or claim is “A or B has contradictory not A and not B” (Esptein 115). 

Example:

Claim: Nicole will either run over Matt or Matt will run over Nicole.

Contradictory: Nicole won’t run over Matt, and Matt won’t run over Nicole. 

Basically, with or claims, you have to put “and” in the contradictory. 

The contradictory of an and claim is “A and B has contradictory not A or not B” (Epstein, 115).

Example:

Claim: Jack can’t drink milk, but Nicole can.

Contradictory: Jack can’t drink milk, or Nicole can drink milk. 

I’m still a little confused on the third one, it doesn’t really make sense to me since the word format is very new to me. 

WEEK 6, POST 2

"Life's too short for the wrong job." from jobsintown.com

As you can see, this advertisement is obviously from a company that offers job searching services. The premise is unstated but I believe it would be something of this context: Using our company will help you find the right job for you. Or maybe the quote in the add is the premise? This picture shows a woman inside the washing machine as a man is doing his laundry. The space is cramped, she's sweating profusely and by the looks of it, the job that she has doesn't pay well. It also looks like she doesn't enjoy her job, which is a common problem and a lot of people really want to find job that pay well, but they also enjoy doing.

Maybe the piece of advertisement that I used was not up to criteria but I'm having trouble trying to figure out what the premise is. Maybe the premise could be "Life's too short for the wrong job"? As for the criteria for accepting or rejecting claims, personal experience can greatly persuade readers. Everyone has a job, everyone needs a job to survive in this world. (Ha, I think I just made my own conclusion and premise without even knowing it. Ok random sorry.) I think this subject is really easy to accept as claim from people who have had jobs. A lot of the people I know who are making a good amount of money have told me about the low paying jobs that they have had to deal with and they say it is not worth it.