Ashford University - Ed Tech | Arguments_1
SPEAKER:
Hi, everybody. This is going to be the first lecture on arguments. So we've talked a
bit about propositions, premises, and conclusions, and non-propositions, and now
we're going to talk about arguments and what they are. An argument in logic is not
a shouting match. A lot of people think, oh, I got into an argument, and my wife was
like, you're an idiot, and I was like, no, I'm not! And then the cops came, and blah,
blah, blah, right? And that's not an argument in logic.
In everyday usage, people say I got into an argument-- means a shouting match.
But an argument in logic is just a list of propositions. If you're not taking notes, make
sure you take notes. Remember, a proposition is a true or false sentence. There
are some non-propositions, if you'll remember from last time. Questions,
commands, and exclamations are non-propositions.
But an argument is a list of propositions that support a definite conclusion, and this
conclusion must also be a proposition. The conclusion can't be a question, it can't
be a command, and it can't be an exclamation. So this is the formal definition of an
argument in logic. The informal definition is a shouting match, but a true argument
has nothing to do with shouting at all. In fact, the best arguments are usually made
in an objective temperament. It's really hard to actually make an objective argument
when you're screaming at somebody, although it can be done.
So the propositions that support the definite conclusion are called premises. So an
argument must have at least one premise and then a conclusion. So an argument,
to be an argument, technically needs to be two premises. It can't just be-- or sorry,
needs to be two statements, or two propositions. It can't just be one statement.
There's no such thing as a single sentence that's an argument. Now, our minds
often create arguments, but they will either add premises or add conclusions.
But the arguments don't necessarily have to just have one promise. So you could
have-- and actually, probably, usually the more premises you have, so long as
they're good premises, the stronger your argument is going to be. So you could
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have multiple premises that support a conclusion.
And actually, in an argument itself, a premise might support another premise.
Premise two could be the conclusion of premise one, but the ultimate conclusion
would be the final conclusion down here. So when you're analyzing arguments, it's
important to be able to identify premises and conclusions. That's the most important
thing.
So arguments arise rise in relation to issues. And usually, these issues are
debatable issues. There's a difference between an argument and an explanation,
and that'll be a different lecture. But usually, things that are pretty much solidified by
scientific knowledge or logical reasoning, things that we all know to be true, are not
necessarily going to be an argument.
For example, if a meteorologist explains to me why it rains and they talk about
humidity and precipitation and all those things, that's not going to be an argument.
It's going to be an explanation. If my doctor tells me why I have cancer and the
doctor has fundamental knowledge that's backed in scientific evidence, that's going
to be more of an explanation. It's not going to be an argument. He's not going to be
trying to convince me that I have cancer or that these factors led to it.
We all tend to realize that if you smoke, it can contribute to lung cancer. So your
doctor saying, well, you're smoking more than likely contributed to your lung cancer
is going to be more of an explanation of why you got the lung cancer, rather than an
argument that's trying to convince you of the conclusion there that you have cancer.
But anyway, arguments are going to be usually in relation to debatable issues. So a
debatable issue is one that has multiple positions that you can take. Now, some
positions will be stronger than others, but you can choose to take multiple positions
on the issue and provide reasons. And issues can often be stated as questions.
We all know what contemporary social issues are affecting our nation. So one issue
is what is the responsibility of the government to its citizens' health? This is kind of a
formal way of framing the quote unquote "Obamacare" debate, right? Does a
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government have a duty to provide medical care for its citizenry?
And I don't know what the exact percentages are here, but obviously, there's a big
contingent that say no, that the citizens themselves ought to be responsible for their
own medical care. On the opposite side, there are people who say yes, the
government ought to provide all services to its citizenry. And then, of course, there's
a more moderate position that would claim people who have resources should have
to pay for their health care or ought to have the opportunity to pay for maybe a
higher form of health coverage, but the government itself ought to provide basic
services to its citizens that keep everyone alive in relation to treatable illnesses or
diseases.
So we've framed the issue here, right? So what is the responsibility of the
government to its citizens' health? And the answer to the issue question will be the
conclusion of your argument. So let's say that you believe that Obamacare is a bad
idea and that it's not the responsibility of the government to provide medical
coverage for all of its citizens. Then that would be your conclusion.
The conclusion of your argument would be it is not the responsibility. I'm not going
to write it all out again, but it's not the responsibility of the government-- oh, sorry, I
should've said provide here-- the government to provide its citizens. So it's not the
responsibility of the government to provide its citizens' health care services. And
that would be the conclusion of your argument.
So what's another issue? Another issue might be, how ought one raise one's
children? And of course, this is an extremely debatable issue. It depends on a lot of
factors. And your answer to this question would be the conclusion of the argument.
So I think hopefully you've got the idea about issues. So whenever you're trying to
analyze an argument-- let's say somebody's talking to you about taxation. You can
start to think, OK, what is the issue that the person's responding to here?
Let's say they're saying to you that the government should not tax people as much.
Well, how can we frame that conclusion in terms of an issue? Well, we make it a
question, right? And we can just say, should the government tax people more or
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less? That's an issue. And then, the response of that person is the government
should not tax people more. And remember, the answer to the issue question is the
conclusion.
So let's just make one that's not quite as debatable because it's easy. Well, actually,
this is not easy. Dogs are the best animals. So that would be our conclusion here.
And often in logic, a line separates premises from conclusions. So dogs are the best
animals, or we could just say the best pets. So this is the conclusion of our
argument. The issue is, what type of pats are best? The answer is dogs are the
best.
And then, what kind of premises might you use to support that? Well, one, dogs are
obedient in general and for the most part. Number two, dogs love unconditionally.
Number three, dogs can open beer bottles. Actually, I've never seen a dog open a
beer bottle, but I have seen dogs retrieve beers from refrigerators, which might be
handy for many of us.
So for all of these reasons, I believe that dogs are the best pets. So this would be
premise one, premise two, and premise three. Dogs are obedient. Dogs love
unconditionally. Dogs can open beer bottles. Therefore, dogs are the best pets.
Now, somebody might disagree with this claim, right? And if they were going to
disagree, then they would say dogs are not the best pets, and then they would
provide information about dogs that indicate that they're not the best pets. And
that's a simple argument. That argument probably wasn't very strong. Just because
something is obedient doesn't mean that it's best. We'd need to do a lot of work to
figure out what "best" means and things of that nature.
And often, arguments, obviously, are not much formed of simple, discrete
sentences that give the conclusion. And that's going to be the whole point of many
of our activities, is you're going to actually have to find the conclusion and find the
premises. So how can you go about doing that?
Well, the first thing I want to talk about is conclusion indicator words. So when you
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get a paragraph and you're trying to piece it out and figure out where is the
conclusion, you can look for conclusion indicators. So some of these will probably
be really no duh, Justin, right? So if you ever see "in conclusion," that's a conclusion
indicator.
The word "therefore"-- I don't have any friends. Therefore, I'm going to watch Louis
tonight by myself while I eat cheese, and that's probably actually a true-- those are
all true statements, except I do have some friends. Maybe. OK, so "in conclusion"
and "therefore" are conclusion indicator words.
"Consequently" is another conclusion indicator word. "Hence"-- this one we don't
use as much, right? At work, in the break room, you probably wouldn't be like,
hence, it's the case that we deserve to have an extra 15 minutes at lunch, whatever.
That's kind of like an older form of saying things.
Let's see. Oh, here's a good one. "So"-- I really want to go, so I didn't. So I didn't
want to go. Therefore, I didn't. I didn't want to go; consequently, I didn't. So is one
that we use a lot, actually. "This implies that"-- the fact that I don't have any friends
implies that I'm not a very enjoyable human to be around. So because I'm not a
very enjoyable human to be around, I don't have any friends. "This proves that" and
then "this indicates that" dot dot dot. So these are all things that you should look for
in the paragraph to determine whether or not a statement is a conclusion or a
premise.
Now, it could be the case that a statement is a conclusion that relates to another
premise, but the two work together in conjunction to support the final conclusion.
And in most of our activities, we're going to be wanting to find the final conclusion,
although we will be diagramming arguments, hopefully, at some point. And in that
case, you label all the propositions with numbers.
And you might have two premises working together to support a third premise, but
that third premise supports the fourth. So the third would actually be the conclusion
of one and two, but the ultimate conclusion of our argument would be four, and
perhaps there's a fifth sentence tacked on at the end that supports four directly. So
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you can see that arguments can get really complex and really difficult to piece out
from larger contexts.
OK, so we talked about conclusion indicators, but there are also premise indicator
words. Again, remember, premises are the reasons that we have to believe that the
conclusion is the case, or that the conclusion ought to be the case. Two of the most
important premise indicators are "since" and "because." Now, there could be
instances where these words are not actually premise indicators, but usually, if we
see the word "sense" or "because," these two words indicate that what follows is
going to be a premise. Since I'm unhappy in my work, I often take it out on my
family or something, right?
I've got all these negative things today, don't I? And I don't even have a family
because remember, I don't have any friends. A wife and kids would be friends, or if I
were gay, a partner and kids would be friends hopefully, although a lot of times,
partners are not friends. And that's the whole problem. You think you're friends, and
then you start hanging out and you live together. And then, you end up at some
point being like, I can't believe you bought the red peppers again. They're too
sweet. I said green peppers.
And then you realize I'm screaming at a human being that I love about peppers.
There's gotta be something else, like the subconscious, instinctual drive to destroy
or something. You don't just scream at somebody in public about peppers, right? It's
so funny. We're so patient with people that we don't even know, and then the
people that we do know, it's just like, [SCREAMING].
My wife tends to like to hide things from me. So everything in our house has its
place, and then she'll just decide for a new place for the pot to be or the NutriBullet.
And I'll just be looking at its old place, and I'll be like, why did you hide the
NutriBullet? And she's like, that's not its place. And she's like, I'm not hiding anything
from you. And it tends to digress from there.
But anyway, as I was saying, "since" and "because" are our premise indicators.
Another one, "for," is another premise indicator word. This is close to the last one,
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but "this is implied by." So for the premise indicators, some proposition, some
statement I've just said is implied by this other proposition that supports the first.
Obamacare is going to fail, and I'm not saying that I actually believe one or the
other. But anyway, because it was an original example, Obamacare is going to fail is
implied by the fact that people are unwilling to pay higher taxes that are necessary
in order to pay for these basic medical needs of the general populace. So some
premise indicators-- since, because, for, and this is implied by.
So as we move forward, we're going to talk more. We're going to actually-- I'm
going to put up some arguments, and then we're going to go over them together.
But arguments in general are composed of premises and conclusions. Remember
that every argument must be at least two statements, so it must be at least two
complete sentences. Well, OK, that's not true. They must be two statements, at
least one premise and a conclusion.
If somebody just states a conclusion, sometimes there are unstated premises. For
example, in a syllogism, an unstated premise is calling an enthymeme, where you
can insert the unstated premise, and our minds often do that, right? So for example,
I might say, well, my father is going to vote for Obama because he's a Democrat.
There's actually a hidden premise in that argument. Can you think of that hidden
premise? Correct. It's that Democrats will vote for Obama. So Democrats will vote
for Obama. My dad's a Democrat. Therefore, he'll vote for Obama.
In our minds, notice how, again, logic analyzes these rational, argumentative
structures that govern human consciousness. And if I tell you my dad's going to vote
for Obama because he's a Democrat, you don't need me to tell you that Democrats
vote for Obama, even though if I were to be more formal in my argumentative style,
I would need to add that premise. And premises can be of all sorts, and so can
conclusions.
And the last thing I wanted to do was just talk about some-- well, actually, let's just
leave that for another video. So arguments are composed of premises and
conclusions. All premises and all conclusions must be propositions or statements.
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That means they must be true or false sentences. They cannot be questions, they
cannot be commands, and they cannot be exclamations.
So next time, I think what I'm going to do is talk about the different types of
propositions just to let you all know that, for example, a conditional statement-- an
if/then statement-- is actually just one promise. It's not two, even though you might
think it's two.
An and statement is actually two premises, even though it's contained in one
sentence. So if I say to you I'm happy, and I'm kind of sad, then really, there are two
propositions located or contained within that single sentence. Justin is happy. Justin
is sad.
However, if I were to say to you I'm happy or I'm sad, which one is it? In an or
statement, the whole or statement is just a single proposition because you're not
stating that both are the case, although there are some other issues when it comes
to truth values of or statements, where both being the case actually means that the
whole thing is true, which is a little counter intuitive for some students. And if you
didn't understand that last part, don't worry about it. I was just nerding out.
But anyway, thanks for watching, and we'll have another video soon.
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