At the heart of philosophy is philosophical argument. Arguments are different from assertions. Assertions are simply stated; arguments always involve giving reasons. An argument is a reasoned inference from one set of claims – the premises – to another claim – the conclusion. The premises provide reasons to believe that the conclusion is true. If the premises are true, the conclusion is more likely to be true. Arguments seek to ‘preserve truth’ – true premises will lead to a true conclusion. It is worth knowing a little bit more about arguments straightaway.
DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT
Philosophers distinguish between two types of argument – deductive and inductive. Successful deductive arguments are valid – if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. In
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But a valid deductive argument doesn’t have to have true premises. Here is an example:
Premise 1: There are gnomes in my house.
Premise 2: My house is in Oxford.
Conclusion: Therefore, there are gnomes in Oxford.
If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true – so the argument is valid. But the premises aren’t both true.
There are two ways that a deductive argument can ‘go wrong’. First, it could be invalid: even if the premises are true, it is possible that the conclusion might be false. Second, it could be unsound: even though the conclusion is entailed by the premises, at least one of the premises is false.
INDUCTIVE ARGUMENT
A successful inductive argument is an argument whose conclusion is supported by its premises. If the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true, but it is still possible that the conclusion is false. So inductive arguments are not described as ‘valid’ or ‘sound’.
© Michael Lacewing
But they can also go wrong in just two ways. First, the premises might not make the conclusion more likely – they don’t offer good reasons for believing the conclusion is true. Second, one of the premises may be
By providing a base argument and the implications of
For instance, one of the first steps in creating an argument is convincing the audience to listen to you, and then convincing them there is a problem that requires a solution.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this method. However, it does become a problem when a deductive argument is attempting to bring something into existence. We simply cannot do that, for it goes against the common sense laws of logic. Gaunilo offered us an example famously known as the “Isle of the Blessed” (Peterson 173). In this example, he attempts to use the same deductive form Anselm uses to bring an island into existence. “Because it is better that such a perfect island exists in reality than simply in the mind alone, this Isle of the Blest must necessarily exist” (Pojman 42).
Rule number two: “The argument has a pattern such that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true (or more simply that the conclusion follows or argument is
Deduction is the third characteristic of rationalism, which is to prove something with certainty rather than reason. For example, Descartes attempted to prove the existence of God through deductive reasoning in his third meditation. It went something like this: “I have an idea of a perfect substance, but I am not a perfect substance, so there is no way I could not be the cause of this idea, so there must be some formal reality which is a perfect substance- like God. Because only perfection can create perfection, and though it can also create imperfection- nothing that is imperfect can create something that is perfect.
I will start off by agreeing with Clifford that we should have sufficient evidence before making an assumption. But I don’t believe that just because we don’t have sufficient evidence it’s automatically wrong. I think that we have to look at the foundations first. And we have to look at the foundations that we know and if they’re where some reasons to doubt, then I will have to doubt the principles. And I think that knowledge does not depend upon things of whose existence I don’t have knowledge yet. So how can we say that if there isn’t enough evidence to support a claim, why is it considered wrong? I find it illogical because just because there still isn’t enough evidence, doesn’t mean its wrong, its just not considered right or wrong. We don’t have enough proof to make it erroneous. And we can’t assume anything until there are enough indications to make it otherwise.
When talking about an argument, it should be written in a manner that unfolds both the strengths and limits of the argument. The point of an argument is to come to a conclusion as close to the truth or realistic solution. In the twentieth-century, British philosopher Stephen Toulmin asked the question of where is the love and what are the uses of an argument. Stephen Toulmin then conducted a method constructing and analyzing an argument. This method, named after Stephen Toulmin, is called the Toulmin model. The Toulmin model involves breaking down an argument into six basic parts, looking at all supporting points and views both for and against the argument.
For the purposes of this debate, I take the sign of a poor argument to be that the negation of the premises are more plausible than their affirmations. With that in mind, kohai must demonstrate that the following premises are probably false:
Fallacies, in terms of logic, are forms of flawed thinking. They are obstacles—weeds in the garden of the mind, which can be difficult to distinguish from the plants if not closely observed. The nature of fallacies falls in with our nature as human beings—they do not like to be discovered and plucked any more than we like to be the ones to admit that we are incorrect. Accepting responsibility for our actions, and in this case fallacies in our thinking, is the first step to change. Thus, if we can overcome our human pride and admit our flaws to ourselves, we are then empowered to correct them. Therein lies the value of examining these fallacies, which is an important component of studying critical thinking.
An occasion when someone has told me “that is not logical at all” is when I had a debate in my AP Language class. We had a debate that revolved around
In this argument, if “employees have a duty of loyalty to the companies that employ them” is considered the p and “it is rational for employees to expect companies to recognize and fulfill a duty of loyalty to their employees” will be the q. It continues to follow that q is false as it is not rational for employees to expect companies to recognize and fulfill loyalty to their employees. The logical form ends with not p as “It is false that employees have a duty of loyalty to the companies that employ them”. It is known that this argument is deductively valid but in order to show that the conclusion is also true, it must be true that the argument is deductively sound. An example of a deductively valid argument would be as following: Premise 1) All mammals have four feet; Premise 2) Lions are mammals; Conclusion) Therefore, Lions have four feet. Premise 1 in this argument is true, mammals do have four feet, Premise 2 is also true, Lions are mammals, and therefore the conclusion is also true that Lions have four feet. With these true premises leading to a true conclusion help us understand
...h not justifiable enough to be relied. Even though the inductive reasoning has been a success in the determination of events and instances that have occurred in the past, philosophers still argue about its appropriateness, in the modern society (Earman, 2006, p.36). The problem of induction has been analyzed through various philosophical studies with the aim of finding a justifiable answer to the dilemma. The uncertainty of inductive reason forms the basis of myriad questions that engulf the justification of the approach. According to some philosophers, it is possible that some unknown phenomenon might occur, leading to justification with a known phenomenon. As aforementioned, falsification and irrationalism are some of the solutions to the induction problem. It is, therefore, imperative for individuals to falsify the beliefs through hypothesis and empirical testing.
Imagine two people are arguing; one person is clearly right, but the other person is obviously winning. Why is this? People that make convincing arguments are usually the ones who can vouch for their character and make the audience think that they should believe them. Along with making people think they are trustworthy they must also appeal to human emotion. Change the way they feel and it will change the way they think. Finally, the argument must be reasonable and logical to the people who need convincing. The person who wins the argument isn’t always right, but they were able to convince an audience that they were by vouching for their character, appealing to human emotion, and by creating a reasonable and logical justification. In the essay,
The first tool that I found to be relatively effective in proving that an argument is truthful was Sagan's first tool of providing information that validates the facts (Sagan, 1997). In order to establish that the facts are honest, there must be evidence in the argument that confirms without a doubt that the facts are correct. This is what makes this tool so useful. It takes away some of the doubt you may have had in an idea if the facts in it are backed up with proof. For example, a scientist has a theory, but has no evidence to support it. With no evidence, this scientist has no way of showing that his theory is valid.
Deductive reasoning is general information people have and use to reach to some type of conclusion. Deductive is done by understanding the first part which is using logic to reach a conclusion which reasoning is to understand what is going on. There are many different ways to explain what is required of deductive reasoning. For example, in an article, it states, “logical way of reaching a conclusion based on ded...