The reason answers the ‘why’ question to a statement. Asking for a reason is asking for justification. An argument is a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are premises, intended as support for the conclusion. A proposition is the factual content expressed in an argument.
RECOGNISING ARGUMENTS
Not all attempts to persuade are attempts to persuade by arguments. Attempts to persuade by means of rhetorical devices are also possible. Rhetoric is any verbal or written attempt to persuade someone that does not attempt to give good reasons but attempts to motivate solely through the power of the words used. It relies on the persuasive power of some words (e.g. instil fear using words without good reason). In analysing attempts to persuade, three tasks have to be performed:
Putting forward an argument is used to either advance an opinion (1) or recommend an action (2). Arguments are attempts to provide reasons that some claim is true. An argument requires more than one claim. If only one claim is used in an attempt to persuade, it is an unsupported claim. The second claim should give support to the first claim. The primary claim which we try to persuade people of is the conclusion. The supporting claims are premises. Indexicals are words of which the meaning changes relative to its context of use or relative to the person to whom it refers.
STANDARD FORM
The standard form of an argument is:
There are five steps to reconstruct an argument:
IDENTIFYING CONCLUSIONS AND PREMISES
The context refers to the circumstances in which the passage or speech appeared or took place. Attempts to persuade often include hidden premises, premises that are not being spoken out loud. Any proposition of any topic can be a conclusion. A single text may contain several arguments for several connected conclusions. Indicator words are not parts of the proposition that the argument comprises. They introduce or frame the conclusion and premises. Implicit conclusions are conclusions that are not explicitly being expressed.
Information that puts emphasis on words, is used for rhetoric or has any function besides being a premise or conclusion is extraneous material and should be discarded when identifying the argument.
ARGUMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS
An explanation is used to assert a relation of cause and effect and is different from an argument. A cause can be used in both an argument and an explanation. If a cause is used in an argument, that means that there is a conclusion attached to it.
Example:
This is an argument. If the answer to “why are you driving so fast” is merely “because I enjoy it” this could be both an argument or an explanation. The argument often has more far-fetched consequences (you argue for something bigger) than an explanation.
INTERMEDIATE CONCLUSIONS
The conclusion of one argument could serve as a premise of a subsequent argument. Intermediate conclusions are conclusions that are used as a premise for subsequent arguments.
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Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 1 
The reason answers the ‘why’ question to a statement. Asking for a reason is asking for justification. An argument is a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are premises, intended as support for the conclusion. A proposition is the factual content expressed in an argument.
RECOGNISING ARGUMENTS
Not all attempts to persuade are attempts to persuade by arguments. Attempts to persuade by means of rhetorical devices are also possible. Rhetoric is any verbal or written attempt to persuade someone that does not attempt to give good reasons but attempts to motivate solely through the power of the words used. It relies on the persuasive power of some words (e.g. instil fear using words without good reason). In analysing attempts to persuade, three tasks have to be performed:
Putting forward an argument is used to either advance an opinion (1) or recommend an action (2). Arguments are attempts to provide reasons that some claim is true. An argument requires more than one claim. If only one claim is used in an attempt to persuade, it is an unsupported claim. The second claim should give support to the first claim. The primary claim which we try to persuade people of is the conclusion. The supporting claims are premises. Indexicals are words of which the meaning changes relative to its context of use or relative to the person to whom it refers.
STANDARD FORM
The standard form of an argument is:
There are five steps to reconstruct an argument:
IDENTIFYING CONCLUSIONS AND PREMISES
The context refers to the circumstances in which the passage or speech appeared or took place. Attempts to persuade often include hidden premises, premises that are not being spoken out loud. Any proposition of any topic can be a conclusion. A single text may contain several arguments for several connected conclusions. Indicator words are not parts of the proposition that the argument comprises. They introduce or frame the conclusion and premises. Implicit conclusions are conclusions that are not explicitly being expressed.
Information that puts emphasis on words, is used for rhetoric or has any function besides being a premise or conclusion is extraneous material and should be discarded when identifying the argument.
ARGUMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS
An explanation is used to assert a
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 2There are several problems with linguistic phenomena that makes an argument difficult to understand. The set of things a word is about is called the extension.
Ambiguity occurs if a sentence can be interpreted in more than one way and should be avoided when trying to persuade using an argument. There are two types of ambiguity:
Vagueness occurs if the meaning of a word is indefinite or unclear (e.g. rights). Vagueness can also refer to words of which the meaning is clear, but there is no precise demarcation between that word and another (e.g. orange and yellow).
The primary connotation of a word are the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as part of that term’s extension (e.g. ram: male, sheep). The secondary connotation of a word are characteristics of the word but are not necessary for something to count as part of that term’s extension (e.g. ram: woolly, horns). Words that are vague often have an unclear primary connotation and a rich secondary connotation.
Metaphors function by only using the secondary connotation of a word. Rhetorical questions are questions that indirectly assert a proposition. Irony refers to making a statement that, taken literally, conveys the opposite of the message people are trying to convey (e.g. ‘very tasteful’).
Implicitly relative sentences make a comparison with some group of things but that comparison is not explicitly mentioned. Quantifiers are words and phrases that tell us how many/much there are/is or how often something happens (e.g. all). There are three potential problems of using quantifiers:
Counterexamples are cases that are used to challenge the truth of a generalising claim. Soft generalizations are used to make a statement of how things typically or normally are. Hard generalizations are used to make a statement of how things always are.
ASPECTS OF MEANING
A sentence’s meaning has different aspects:
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 3Argument reconstruction clarifies what the arguer actually said and to supplement the arguer, as some statements are implicit. The reconstruction of an argument can be presented as a bad argument or as a good argument, depending on the goal (e.g. political debate). A bad argument does not mean that the proposition is false. The principle of charity states that people should also choose the best reconstruction of an argument to discover reasons for accepting or rejecting particular prepositions, advancing the cause of knowledge.
TRUTH
The truth-value of a proposition is the truth of the proposition. The two truth-values are true and false.
DEDUCTIVE VALIDITY
A conclusion is valid if the conclusion would be true, given that the premises are also true. The truth of premises is, in principle, not relevant for the validity of an argument. Validity should be judged by disregarding the truth-values of the premises.
PRESCRIPTIVE CLAIMS VS DESCRIPTIVE CLAIMS
Statements that state facts are descriptive claims and statements which express desires, norms or moral rules are prescriptive claims.
CONDITIONAL PROPOSITIONS
Conditional propositions use the ‘if-then’ format. A double negative in logic is equal to a positive and it is called contraposition (e.g: if not A, then not B = if B then A). The word ‘or’ can be used in the inclusive sense or in the exclusive sense. In the inclusive sense, it means that ‘A or B’ that either A is true or B is true or they are both true. That statement is only false if both A and B are false. In the exclusive sense ‘A or B’ means that either A is true or B is true but not both. The word ‘either’ is often used here too.
The words ‘if only’ create a conditional proportion that sets a necessary condition for it to apply, but it does not implicate that it is true the other way around. For example, ‘A only if B’ implies that A only occurs if B occurs, but B can occur without A occurring. A does not necessarily have to occur if B occurs, but if B does not occur A will never occur. The ‘if and only if’ statement creates a necessary condition. It means that either both happens or neither happens. For example: ‘A if and only if B’ means that A will never occur without B and that when B occurs A also occurs. In this case, B is the sole condition for A. If and only if means the same as either both A and B or neither. Unless (‘A unless B’) implies that A if not B. It does not mean that A will occur if B does not occur, but it does mean that A will not occur if B does not occur.
THE ANTECEDENT AND CONSEQUENT OF A CONDITIONAL
Formal logic can be denoted in another way.
A →B
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 4Precise generalisations make it more difficult to divert from the topic. The quantifier ‘some’ does not mean ‘most’ or ‘all’ when making generalizations, although when stating ‘some A are B’ it is possible that all A are B.
An argument is inductively forceful if the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises but is still ‘probably true’. It is very likely to be true and unlikely to be false. To say that an argument is inductively forceful means that the probability of A relative to the set is greater than one-half but less than one.
The proportion indicate the part of A in the total (e.g. 7/8). Frequency refers to the number of times something occurs. The degree of rational expectation refers to the degree to which a person is entitled to believe a proposition given the evidence provided. Frequency and proportion could be used to calculate probability. Probability is a matter of degree and so is an argument being inductively forceful. The degree of indicative force of an argument is independent of the truth-values of the premises.
INDUCTIVE SOUNDNESS
An argument is inductively sound if the argument is inductively forceful and its premises are true. Another word for inductive soundness is cogency. An inductive inference refers to extrapolating from a sample of a total population of things either to something outside the sample or to a generalisation about the population as a whole. An inference is an inductive inference if it is not deductively valid, its premises include a generalisation about a sample of a given population and its conclusion extrapolates the generalisation to all or part of the total population from the sample. It frequently involves extrapolation from the past to the future. The inductive force of an argument is equal to the conditional probability of the conclusion relative to the premises.
In order to make a proper inductive inference, the sample needs to be representative of the population. An argument can be forceful and sound but the conclusion may still not be accepted. The argument is then overridden by other information one has and the argument is defeated.
CONVERSION OF INDUCTION TO DEDUCTION
An inductive argument can be converted into a deductive one by making explicit the basis for the inductive principle:
For example:
P2 is the added premise to make it a deductive argument. If P2 is not added it is a forceful inductive argument. People tend to make the base rate fallacy.
A PROGRAMME FOR ASSESSMENT
There is a programme for assessment of arguments:
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 5A lot of things people write plays no argumentative role. It can serve the function of emphasis, rhetoric or something else. This extraneous material should not be included in the reconstructing of an argument. The word ‘since’ transforms a conditional statement into a statement that asserts both the conditional and the antecedent of that conditional. The first step in reconstructing an argument is to make a list of the argument’s premises and conclusion that leaves out extraneous material.
DEFUSING THE RHETORIC
Metaphors, slang and expressive epithets should be eliminated while reconstructing an argument. Expressive epithets are terms used to refer to some person, group or other entity, without actually using the name.
LOGICAL STREAMLINING
When reconstructing arguments, the logical relationships should be displayed in the simplest, clearest and most familiar ways possible. There are two rules of thumb when logical streamlining:
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT
In arguments, some essential propositions are left implicit. Reconstruction of arguments should make all propositions explicit. The first step is always identifying the conclusion. The next step is identifying the argument’s premises. The third step is making any implicit statements explicit.
CONNECTING PREMISES
A connecting premise is a premise that has to be made explicit in order to make the argument valid. The connection premise can be not true or not lead to the argument being valid.
COVERING GENERALISATIONS
Asserting conditionals often happens on the basis of some covering generalisation. The conditional often relies on a generalization.
RELEVANCE
Whether a certain premise is true or false is not always equally relevant.
AMBIGUITY AND VAGUENESS
In reconstructing arguments, ambiguity and vagueness have to be eliminated. If we are unable to choose one interpretation of an ambiguous term when reconstructing an argument, they should all be presented. While reconstructing an argument, vagueness should be eliminated where possible as this clarifies the argument and allows us to focus on the matter, without being distracted by a vague and possibly controversial term.
PRACTICAL REASONING
Practical reasoning or means-end reasoning refers to reasoning that includes a practical conclusion. It includes desirable or undesirable outcomes. For practical reasoning, the cost and the benefit of the outcome must be considered.
BALANCING COSTS, BENEFITS AND PROBABILITIES
If an argument is represented as inductive, the cost, benefit and probability have to be discussed and weighted. The expected value can be used to systematically give an overview of the costs, benefits and probabilities of things happening. To calculate the expected value, the cost or benefit of the action is multiplied with its probability. The expected value should be maximised.
EXPLANATIONS AS CONCLUSIONS
Abduction is also called inference to the best explanation. There is a distinct pattern when explanations are used as conclusion:
P1) Agreed fact
P2) Agreed fact was caused by either A, B or C
P3)
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 6An argument is rationally unpersuasive if there is no good reason to accept a premise, even though the argument is deductively valid and sound. An argument is defeated if a person reasonably believes the premises, but, nevertheless, reasonably rejects the conclusion. An argument is rationally persuasive for a person if the argument is either deductively valid or inductively forceful (1), the person reasonably believes the premises (2) and the argument is not defeated for that person (3).
There are several points considering rational persuasiveness:
There are three ways in which someone can be mistaken about the rational persuasiveness of an argument:
LOGICAL ASSESMENT
If an argument is not valid, the question should always be asked whether the argument is inductively forceful. When assessing conditionals, we should always assume the antecedent is true in order to see whether the consequent is true and the argument is thus deductively valid.
Conditional proof refers to determining whether ‘if A then B’ follows from some premises. In order to do so, we should ask ourselves whether B follows from those premises together with A.
One way of assessing the validity of an argument is to suppose the premises are true but the conclusion is false. If this is impossible, then the argument must be valid.
REFUTATION BY COUNTEREXAMPLE
A counterexample, especially using the same reasoning as the original argument, can illustrate why an argument is invalid or not inductively forceful.
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 7Fallacies are arguments which make use of a mistake in reasoning. They do count as arguments, but are faulty arguments. There is an inappropriate connection between premises an conclusion. Formal fallacies are fallacies where there is an inappropriate logical connection. Substantive (informal) fallacies involve reliance or unjustified assumptions or inferences. Substantive fallacies are different from unsound arguments in the sense that the false premise is of general nature and has nothing to do specifically with the subject.
There are several formal fallacies:
There are several informal fallacies:
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 1 The reason answers the ‘why’ question to a statement. Asking for a reason is asking for justification. An argument is a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are premises, intended as support for the conclusion. A proposition is the factual content expressed in an argument.
RECOGNISING ARGUMENTS
Not all attempts to persuade are attempts to persuade by arguments. Attempts to persuade by means of rhetorical devices are also possible. Rhetoric is any verbal or written attempt to persuade someone that does not attempt to give good reasons but attempts to motivate solely through the power of the words used. It relies on the persuasive power of some words (e.g. instil fear using words without good reason). In analysing attempts to persuade, three tasks have to be performed:
Putting forward an argument is used to either advance an opinion (1) or recommend an action (2). Arguments are attempts to provide reasons that some claim is true. An argument requires more than one claim. If only one claim is used in an attempt to persuade, it is an unsupported claim. The second claim should give support to the first claim. The primary claim which we try to persuade people of is the conclusion. The supporting claims are premises. Indexicals are words of which the meaning changes relative to its context of use or relative to the person to whom it refers.
STANDARD FORM
The standard form of an argument is:
There are five steps to reconstruct an argument:
IDENTIFYING CONCLUSIONS AND PREMISES
The context refers to the circumstances in which the passage or speech appeared or took place. Attempts to persuade often include hidden premises, premises that are not being spoken out loud. Any proposition of any topic can be a conclusion. A single text may contain several arguments for several connected conclusions. Indicator words are not parts of the proposition that the argument comprises. They introduce or frame the conclusion and premises. Implicit conclusions are conclusions that are not explicitly being expressed.
Information that puts emphasis on words, is used for rhetoric or has any function besides being a premise or conclusion is extraneous material and should be discarded when identifying the argument.
ARGUMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS
An explanation is used to assert a
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 2There are several problems with linguistic phenomena that makes an argument difficult to understand. The set of things a word is about is called the extension.
Ambiguity occurs if a sentence can be interpreted in more than one way and should be avoided when trying to persuade using an argument. There are two types of ambiguity:
Vagueness occurs if the meaning of a word is indefinite or unclear (e.g. rights). Vagueness can also refer to words of which the meaning is clear, but there is no precise demarcation between that word and another (e.g. orange and yellow).
The primary connotation of a word are the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as part of that term’s extension (e.g. ram: male, sheep). The secondary connotation of a word are characteristics of the word but are not necessary for something to count as part of that term’s extension (e.g. ram: woolly, horns). Words that are vague often have an unclear primary connotation and a rich secondary connotation.
Metaphors function by only using the secondary connotation of a word. Rhetorical questions are questions that indirectly assert a proposition. Irony refers to making a statement that, taken literally, conveys the opposite of the message people are trying to convey (e.g. ‘very tasteful’).
Implicitly relative sentences make a comparison with some group of things but that comparison is not explicitly mentioned. Quantifiers are words and phrases that tell us how many/much there are/is or how often something happens (e.g. all). There are three potential problems of using quantifiers:
Counterexamples are cases that are used to challenge the truth of a generalising claim. Soft generalizations are used to make a statement of how things typically or normally are. Hard generalizations are used to make a statement of how things always are.
ASPECTS OF MEANING
A sentence’s meaning has different aspects:
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 3Argument reconstruction clarifies what the arguer actually said and to supplement the arguer, as some statements are implicit. The reconstruction of an argument can be presented as a bad argument or as a good argument, depending on the goal (e.g. political debate). A bad argument does not mean that the proposition is false. The principle of charity states that people should also choose the best reconstruction of an argument to discover reasons for accepting or rejecting particular prepositions, advancing the cause of knowledge.
TRUTH
The truth-value of a proposition is the truth of the proposition. The two truth-values are true and false.
DEDUCTIVE VALIDITY
A conclusion is valid if the conclusion would be true, given that the premises are also true. The truth of premises is, in principle, not relevant for the validity of an argument. Validity should be judged by disregarding the truth-values of the premises.
PRESCRIPTIVE CLAIMS VS DESCRIPTIVE CLAIMS
Statements that state facts are descriptive claims and statements which express desires, norms or moral rules are prescriptive claims.
CONDITIONAL PROPOSITIONS
Conditional propositions use the ‘if-then’ format. A double negative in logic is equal to a positive and it is called contraposition (e.g: if not A, then not B = if B then A). The word ‘or’ can be used in the inclusive sense or in the exclusive sense. In the inclusive sense, it means that ‘A or B’ that either A is true or B is true or they are both true. That statement is only false if both A and B are false. In the exclusive sense ‘A or B’ means that either A is true or B is true but not both. The word ‘either’ is often used here too.
The words ‘if only’ create a conditional proportion that sets a necessary condition for it to apply, but it does not implicate that it is true the other way around. For example, ‘A only if B’ implies that A only occurs if B occurs, but B can occur without A occurring. A does not necessarily have to occur if B occurs, but if B does not occur A will never occur. The ‘if and only if’ statement creates a necessary condition. It means that either both happens or neither happens. For example: ‘A if and only if B’ means that A will never occur without B and that when B occurs A also occurs. In this case, B is the sole condition for A. If and only if means the same as either both A and B or neither. Unless (‘A unless B’) implies that A if not B. It does not mean that A will occur if B does not occur, but it does mean that A will not occur if B does not occur.
THE ANTECEDENT AND CONSEQUENT OF A CONDITIONAL
Formal logic can be denoted in another way.
A →B
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 4Precise generalisations make it more difficult to divert from the topic. The quantifier ‘some’ does not mean ‘most’ or ‘all’ when making generalizations, although when stating ‘some A are B’ it is possible that all A are B.
An argument is inductively forceful if the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises but is still ‘probably true’. It is very likely to be true and unlikely to be false. To say that an argument is inductively forceful means that the probability of A relative to the set is greater than one-half but less than one.
The proportion indicate the part of A in the total (e.g. 7/8). Frequency refers to the number of times something occurs. The degree of rational expectation refers to the degree to which a person is entitled to believe a proposition given the evidence provided. Frequency and proportion could be used to calculate probability. Probability is a matter of degree and so is an argument being inductively forceful. The degree of indicative force of an argument is independent of the truth-values of the premises.
INDUCTIVE SOUNDNESS
An argument is inductively sound if the argument is inductively forceful and its premises are true. Another word for inductive soundness is cogency. An inductive inference refers to extrapolating from a sample of a total population of things either to something outside the sample or to a generalisation about the population as a whole. An inference is an inductive inference if it is not deductively valid, its premises include a generalisation about a sample of a given population and its conclusion extrapolates the generalisation to all or part of the total population from the sample. It frequently involves extrapolation from the past to the future. The inductive force of an argument is equal to the conditional probability of the conclusion relative to the premises.
In order to make a proper inductive inference, the sample needs to be representative of the population. An argument can be forceful and sound but the conclusion may still not be accepted. The argument is then overridden by other information one has and the argument is defeated.
CONVERSION OF INDUCTION TO DEDUCTION
An inductive argument can be converted into a deductive one by making explicit the basis for the inductive principle:
For example:
P2 is the added premise to make it a deductive argument. If P2 is not added it is a forceful inductive argument. People tend to make the base rate fallacy.
A PROGRAMME FOR ASSESSMENT
There is a programme for assessment of arguments:
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 5A lot of things people write plays no argumentative role. It can serve the function of emphasis, rhetoric or something else. This extraneous material should not be included in the reconstructing of an argument. The word ‘since’ transforms a conditional statement into a statement that asserts both the conditional and the antecedent of that conditional. The first step in reconstructing an argument is to make a list of the argument’s premises and conclusion that leaves out extraneous material.
DEFUSING THE RHETORIC
Metaphors, slang and expressive epithets should be eliminated while reconstructing an argument. Expressive epithets are terms used to refer to some person, group or other entity, without actually using the name.
LOGICAL STREAMLINING
When reconstructing arguments, the logical relationships should be displayed in the simplest, clearest and most familiar ways possible. There are two rules of thumb when logical streamlining:
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT
In arguments, some essential propositions are left implicit. Reconstruction of arguments should make all propositions explicit. The first step is always identifying the conclusion. The next step is identifying the argument’s premises. The third step is making any implicit statements explicit.
CONNECTING PREMISES
A connecting premise is a premise that has to be made explicit in order to make the argument valid. The connection premise can be not true or not lead to the argument being valid.
COVERING GENERALISATIONS
Asserting conditionals often happens on the basis of some covering generalisation. The conditional often relies on a generalization.
RELEVANCE
Whether a certain premise is true or false is not always equally relevant.
AMBIGUITY AND VAGUENESS
In reconstructing arguments, ambiguity and vagueness have to be eliminated. If we are unable to choose one interpretation of an ambiguous term when reconstructing an argument, they should all be presented. While reconstructing an argument, vagueness should be eliminated where possible as this clarifies the argument and allows us to focus on the matter, without being distracted by a vague and possibly controversial term.
PRACTICAL REASONING
Practical reasoning or means-end reasoning refers to reasoning that includes a practical conclusion. It includes desirable or undesirable outcomes. For practical reasoning, the cost and the benefit of the outcome must be considered.
BALANCING COSTS, BENEFITS AND PROBABILITIES
If an argument is represented as inductive, the cost, benefit and probability have to be discussed and weighted. The expected value can be used to systematically give an overview of the costs, benefits and probabilities of things happening. To calculate the expected value, the cost or benefit of the action is multiplied with its probability. The expected value should be maximised.
EXPLANATIONS AS CONCLUSIONS
Abduction is also called inference to the best explanation. There is a distinct pattern when explanations are used as conclusion:
P1) Agreed fact
P2) Agreed fact was caused by either A, B or C
P3)
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 6An argument is rationally unpersuasive if there is no good reason to accept a premise, even though the argument is deductively valid and sound. An argument is defeated if a person reasonably believes the premises, but, nevertheless, reasonably rejects the conclusion. An argument is rationally persuasive for a person if the argument is either deductively valid or inductively forceful (1), the person reasonably believes the premises (2) and the argument is not defeated for that person (3).
There are several points considering rational persuasiveness:
There are three ways in which someone can be mistaken about the rational persuasiveness of an argument:
LOGICAL ASSESMENT
If an argument is not valid, the question should always be asked whether the argument is inductively forceful. When assessing conditionals, we should always assume the antecedent is true in order to see whether the consequent is true and the argument is thus deductively valid.
Conditional proof refers to determining whether ‘if A then B’ follows from some premises. In order to do so, we should ask ourselves whether B follows from those premises together with A.
One way of assessing the validity of an argument is to suppose the premises are true but the conclusion is false. If this is impossible, then the argument must be valid.
REFUTATION BY COUNTEREXAMPLE
A counterexample, especially using the same reasoning as the original argument, can illustrate why an argument is invalid or not inductively forceful.
Critical thinking a concise guide by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, fourth edition – Summary chapter 7Fallacies are arguments which make use of a mistake in reasoning. They do count as arguments, but are faulty arguments. There is an inappropriate connection between premises an conclusion. Formal fallacies are fallacies where there is an inappropriate logical connection. Substantive (informal) fallacies involve reliance or unjustified assumptions or inferences. Substantive fallacies are different from unsound arguments in the sense that the false premise is of general nature and has nothing to do specifically with the subject.
There are several formal fallacies:
There are several informal fallacies:
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