Chapter 8: Identifying Arguments

 Chapter 8: Identifying Arguments

1.  WHAT IS AN ARGUMENT?

·      Generally, an argument is taken to be a somewhat heated dispute between people. But in logic and critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the others are the premises or assumptions of the argument. An example:

o  It is raining.

o  So, you should bring an umbrella.

·      In this argument, the first statement is the premise/assumption and the second one the conclusion. If you say "that dress looks nice," you are only expressing an opinion. But if you say "that dress looks nice because the design is very elegant," then it would be an argument indeed. 

·      Dogmatic people, when they cannot defend themselves, they often resort to responses such as "this is a matter of opinion," "this is just what you think," or "I have the right to believe whatever I want."

·      The ability to construct, identify, and evaluate arguments is a crucial part of critical thinking. Giving good arguments helps us convince other people, and improve our presentation and debating skills. 

o  More important, using arguments to support our beliefs with reasons is likely to help us discover the truth and eliminate errors and biases.

2.  IDENTIFYING PREMISES AND CONCLUSIONS

·      Here is an example of a short argument made up of three statements. Premises are marked with REDcolour, and conclusion with BLUE ink.

o  Singapore is an island.
All islands are surrounded by water. 

o  Singapore is surrounded by water. 

·      To make it easier to refer premises and the conclusion in a discussion, we have numbered them: 

§  Rita is taller than Sita.

§  Sita is taller than Gita.

§  Gita is taller than Ganga. 

§  Ganga is taller than Laxmi. 

§  Rita is taller than Laxmi. 

·      The premises and conclusions of arguments are rarely laid out explicitly. So how do we identify them?There are no easy mechanical rules, and it depends on the context. But remember these two points: First, in a passage that contains an argument, the conclusion is usually the most important point the author is trying to put across. The premises would be the evidence the author uses to convince the readers that the conclusion is true. In addition, see if you can find indicator words expressing logical connections between premises and conclusions:

§  Every wizard has a wand and Harry is a wizard. Thus Harry has a wand.
Every wizard has a wand. Harry is a wizard. It follows that Harry has a wand.
Harry has a wand, since he is a wizard and every wizard has a wand.

·      The conclusions in the arguments are underlined. The first two conclusions are preceded by "thus" and "it follows that," respectively. Although the third example is a single long statement, we can still take it as an argument because it is combined from shorter statements. Here are some typical indicator words or phrases:

Indicator Words or Phrases	Role
therefore, hence, thus, so, consequently, if follows that, it can be concluded that, proves that, shows that, indicates that	Often followed by the conclusion, with the premises appearing before them.
since, this is because, one reason is that	Appears before premises

 

§  However, these are just guidelines and there are plenty of exceptions. We need to look at the actual context carefully:

o  I have been here since noon. (Not an argument—since does not link to a statement.)

o  You should not drink. You are going to do brain surgery afterward.(The first sentence is the premise and the second one its conclusion. No indicator words at all.)

o  How can you believe that corruption is acceptable? It is neither fair nor legal!

§  In the last example, the conclusion is expressed by a rhetorical question. The real argument might be reformulated explicitly as follows:

o  Corruption is neither fair nor legal. Corruption is not acceptable.

3.  EXTRACTING AND FORMULATING ARGUMENTS

Extracting: removing/separating

·      Many if not most of the arguments in real life are more difficult to analyse than the ones we have seen so far. 

o  It might be because the discussion is about complicated issues. 

o  Or the author mixes background information together with the argument itself. 

o  The structure of the argument might not be clearly indicated, and the same point might be repeated more than once. 

o  Or perhaps the author was busy or even confused and did not write as clearly as we would like. 

·      The result is that it takes a lot of effort to remove the superfluous (excessive) information, distil (filter) the main ideas, and extract the central argument. But this is something worth doing because this makes it easier to understand, evaluate, and remember the argument. If we do this often enough, it will also help us improve our critical thinking skills.

·      Take this passage taken from the website of the Economist magazine: 

o  Voltaire once wrote, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Leaving aside whether we actually did, can the same be said of religion? Most of the world's population professes (agrees) religious feelings of some sort, and these beliefs in turn underpin many strong communities, happy individuals and tremendous acts of charity.

Yet the world can be a very nasty place despite its preponderance of religious inhabitants. When faith curdles into dogmatism it often leads to arrogance, intolerance and violence. In other words, religion is a force for bad as well as good and there is no simple metric with which to measure its net effect (Economist, 2010).

·      The passage is very clearly written, and we can easily see that it contains an argument with the conclusion indicated by "in other words." But it can be condensed a lot further if we analyse it a little bit. Take the first paragraph. 

§  The quote in the first sentence sets the topic of discussion but does not contribute to the argument at all. 

§  The second sentence is a question and also not part of the argument. 

§  The third sentence does include a crucial premise about the positive effects of religion, but it can be simplified further. 

o  Going through the second paragraph in the same way, we can rewrite the argument in the standard format as follows:

§  Religion promotes strong communities, happiness, and charity. 
Religion also leads to arrogance, intolerance, and violence.

§  Religion has both good and bad consequences.

·      We are now able to present the central argument even more clearly and succinctly. This makes it easier to explore the argument further. 

o  First of all, the argument seems quite acceptable. The premises seem true and they support the conclusion. 

o  Of course, the premises do not exhaust (use) all the good and bad consequences of religion. 

o  Religion can also give rise to great art and culture (such as paintings and architecture), but it can also result in superstition and ignorance.

·      As we can see, extracting (removing) and reformulating an argument helps us identify the central ideas so we can think more deeply and systematically. 

·      This analytical approach is particularly suitable for reading articles that aim to present arguments, evidence, and information. Here are the main steps involved:

§  Identify the premises and conclusions in the target passage.

§  Leave out superfluous (unnecessary) material and focus on the main ideas. Delete any thing that does not affect the central argument or the main points.

§  Reformulate and simplify the central ideas in your own words to make them easier to understand.

§  Identify the logical structure of the argument

·      After identifying the premises and the conclusion of an argument, we can go further to analyse the nature of the logical relation between them.

END OF THE PART