L8 Ch5 Argument Reconstruction

Question 1

What step of the 5 steps are we discussing?

Answer 1

1. Develop a critical disposition
2. Learn to recognize arguments
3. Learn to reconstruct arguments
4. Logical assessment
5. Factual assessment

Question 2

What things must you pay attention to when reconstructing arguments?

General overview of points

Answer 2

• Extraneous material
• Recognizing explanations
• Defusing the rhetoric
• Relevance
• Vagueness and ambiguity
• Logical streamlining
• Implicit & connecting premises
• Covering generalisations
• Practical reasoning
• Explanations as Conclusions
• And a few more small points

This seems like a lot, but most of them are very simple points

Question 3

What should you do first in reconstruction?

Answer 3

You need to identify the argumentative content from the written text
Then, you need to exclude the stuff that’s extraneous (stage setting, rhetorical questions) and irrelevant.

Your goal is to express the premises and conclusion as concisely and clearly as possible.

Look at picture 5.1 and 5.2 to see why you need to remove extraneous material first.

Question 4

What are some common extraneous material examples?

Answer 4

Phrases that merely serve to emphasise the claim being made (e.g. ‘it’s pretty obvious that’) should be removed from the reconstructed argument.
Words like ‘because’ and ‘since’ which indicate conditionality can be left out as standard form shows conditionality.

Question 5

What are some indicators to help you recognize explanations?

Answer 5

• General knowledge
  
  • Is the passage about common knowledge?
• Events in the past
• Intention of speaker/author
  
  • Look out for indicator words, bear in mind the context of the publication (e.g. scientific paper, societal relevance is argument, later paragraphs is explanation)
• Charity
  
  • If at all possible, we would rather assume that someone gives an explanation than that a bad argument is being given.

Question 6

What does it mean to defuse the rhetoric?

Answer 6

When reconstructing, you should eliminate rhetoric to improve clarity.
Rhetorical questions should always be rewritten as declarative sentences.

Look at picture 5.3 for an example of defusing the rhetoric

Question 7

What is an expressive epithet?

Answer 7

• Terms used to refer to some person/group/entity, but they characterise the entity referred to for rhetorical purposes.
  
  • (e.g. if I’m being annoying, calling me ‘that damned Australian’ is an expressive epithet, and in reconstruction, you’d have to write the clarified version of that)
• Can be for non-logical persuasive purposes, or non-persuasive purposes like humour.

Question 8

What should we do with irrelevant content?

Answer 8

When a proposition is irrelevant to the reasoning that delivers the conclusion, that proposition shouldn’t be included in a reconstruction of the argument.

Question 9

Why is removing irrelevant material important?

Answer 9

1. It’s distracting from the argument
2. If it’s included in the argument and we discover the irrelevant premise is false, we may incorrectly conclude the argument is unsound.
   
   1. If the argument is sound when you exclude the irrelevant material, you messed up.

Remember, this isn’t always the case, so the degree of relevance must therefore be taken into account in the process of reconstruction.

Question 10

What should you do with ambiguous material?

Answer 10

Ambiguity must be removed/clarified in reconstruction

One way to do that is by writing out all the possible propositions that were implied. You can then check through the soundness of each argument, and make a final judgement.

For an example about Sharemasters, london’s leading personal investment advice service, go to page 164

Question 11

Why is vague material an issue?

Answer 11

Vague terms also mess with reconstruction, however removing a vague term, such as conservative, can lead to the inductive soundness losing support, especially with

Many rhetorically highly charged words in public discourse are also vague.

For an example go to pg. 167

Question 12

Why should you try to avoid using vague material in arguments?

Answer 12

Even after rearranging a vague argument into standard form, you can test the argument with another non vague example, and it makes no sense.
Go to slide 28 onwards to see examples with the sentence
“Homosexuality is unnatural, therefore it must be immoral”
In this sentence, unnatural is such a vague term

Question 13

So whats the best thing to do with ambiguous or vague language?

Answer 13

Replace it with language that isn’t ambiguous or vague.
Do this whilst following the three principles of reconstruction (it’ll be discussed later, but im including this sentence for tax purposes)
This isn’t always possible, so sometimes we just have to accept the writer was vague or confused when writing it.

Question 14

What is logical streamlining?

Answer 14

When reconstructing argument we should strive to display the logical relationships in an argument in the simplest, clearest, and most familiar ways possible.

(Alternatively, use this definition which is ironically simpler)
Rephrasing the propositions in a way that clearly reflects the argumentative content/logical structure

Question 15

What are the two rules of thumb when streamlining logic?

Answer 15

Rewrite as conditional or disjunctive sentences, for example
* If A then B. | If not-A then not-B.
* If not-A then B. | If A then not-B.
* A or B. | A or not-B.
* Not-A, or B. | Not-A, or not-B.

Use quantifiers as generalisations

Question 16

What are connecting premises?

Answer 16

A premise which has to be made explicit in order to make the argument valid.
These are either conditionals or generalisations when in an implicit premise.

(It might not be the case that the following argument is valid, but without the connecting premise, it has no chance of being valid)

Question 17

What are covering generalisations?

Answer 17

Using these premises as examples
a) If Mika is a Siamese cat, then she has blue eyes.
b) All Siamese cats have blue eyes.

(b) is a covering generalisation for (a).
You can say that (a) is an instance of (b).
(a) may be inferred from (b), it is valid.

Question 18

Do covering generalisations have to be hard generalisations?

Answer 18

No, they don’t.
E.g. “If Jane’s cat is Siamese then its eyes are blue” is an instance of ‘All Siamese cats have blue eyes’, but it also is an instance of ‘Most Siamese cats have blue eyes’

In the second case, the inference from generalisation to instance is inductive rather than deductive.

Question 19

What should you consider when you’re making generalisations about two subjects.

Answer 19

The scope of each subject
Is the scope of subject 1 wider or narrower than the scope of subject 2?

Note: You can only compare generalisations in this way when the subject of one is a subset of the subject of the other.

Look at picture 5.4 for subset example.

Question 20

Why can’t you fix some invalid arguments by changing a hard generalisation to a soft generalisation?

Answer 20

Some arguments are too broad, even when soft it still might not be valid.
To fix this, you should reduce its scope, by making the proposition more specific.

Question 21

How should you reconstruct hard broad generalisations?

Answer 21

Avoid hard generalisations that are wider in scope than need be.
If a narrower (but hard(ehehe)) generalisation suffices, use that.
Don’t always go narrower though, you can make it too specific that it damages the argument.

Question 22

What is practical reasoning?

Answer 22

Its also known as means-end reasoning
If we’re trying to argue that a certain action should be performed for a desired outcome to be achieved, we’re engaging in practical reasoning

Question 23

What are the two considerations needed when using practical reasoning.

Answer 23

• An outcome is specified as being either desirable or undesirable
• There is a proposition put forward that says either.
  1. That if such-and-such action is performed, the outcome will result
  2. That if the action is performed, the outcome will not result
  3. That if the action is not performed the outcome will not come about
  4. That if the action is not performed then the outcome will come about.

Question 24

Additionally, once you’ve satisfied the considerations, there are two questions that need to be answered.
What are they?
How can you answer them?

Answer 24

Do the benefits of performing the action outweigh the costs?
Is there a better/more efficient/economical course of action?

For which we need to make expectancy x value calculations, when dealing with uncertain outcomes

Question 25

What is the expected value formula?

Answer 25

Where o1 etc. is the possible outcome of action A. V(o) is the value (cost or benefit) of each outcome. P(o) is the probability of each outcome.
∴ The expected value of action A is
[P(o1) × V(o1)] + [P(o2) × V(o2)] + . . . [P(on) × V(on)

You should do whatever maximises expected value

Question 26

Why can an explanation be a conclusion?

Answer 26

Sometimes, explanations can be the conclusion of an argument when the argument aims to persuade that such-and-such is the actual cause of a fact or event.

They’re known generally as ‘inference to the best explanation’

Question 27

What general structure do explanations as conclusions follow?

Answer 27

P1) (The agreed fact).
P2) (The agreed fact) was caused by either A or B (or C or …).
P3) B is not the case (nor is C, nor …).
——————————————————–~
C) (The agreed fact) was caused by A.

Question 28

What is Abduction?

Answer 28

Inductive arguments that rely on soft generalisations to come to the conclusion.

Question 29

When can you infer a causal relationship from a correlation between X and Y?

Answer 29

We need to know that Y exists more frequently when X exists than when it doesn’t, regardless of the circumstances in which we find X.

It’s more complex than this, but the book doesn’t go more into detail.

Question 30

What 3 principles should you follow when reconstructing arguments?

Answer 30

The principle of Completeness
The principle of Parsimony
The principle of Charity

Question 31

What is the principle of Completeness?

Answer 31

When reconstructing make sure if

If all the terms of the conclusion are connected with the premises
The premises have a relevant connection

Look at picture 5.5 to see example

Question 32

What is the principle of Parsimony?

Answer 32

You need to be parsimonious enough in your expectation of reconstruction
Meaning, you shouldn’t make more assumptions than necessary.
Be conservative

View picture 5.5 for bad parsimony/extremeee charity

Question 32

What is the principle of Charity?

Answer 32

Being generous in your reconstruction, attempting to recreate the arguers point to the best of your ability

Question 33

What do you need to consider when using the 3 principles?

Answer 33

BALANCE
You shouldn’t do too much of one principle.
Look at image 5.7, does that triangle look isoceles? Nope, thats equilateral

Question 34

The following flashcards are about ARGUMENT ASSESSMENT

When assessing a standard form argumentation, what should you consider if an argument is invalid?

Answer 34

Whether there are premises that
(1) the arguer could reasonably be expected to know, or which we know to be true,
(2) would make the argument inductively forceful, if added.

Look at pg. 202 for examples with general knowledge

Question 35

What is conditional derivation regarding P → Q?

Answer 35

Determining if Q (the conclusion) follows from some premises together with P (a premise), if so, then P → Q.

Look at pg. 204 for examples with italian footballers

Question 36

What’s a clever way to assess validity?

Answer 36

if you pretend the premises are true, but the conclusion is false. If this is impossible, then the argument is valid.

Question 37

When can you use a counterexample to refute arguments?

Answer 37

When you’ve already determined if the argument is invalid or inductively unforceful.

This is because counterexamples show if an argument is invalid or inductively unforceful

Question 38

What’s a common bad argument with marijuana and heroin addicts?

Answer 38

Some people argue marijuana is a gateway drug, saying If most heroin addicts (X) were marijuana users (Y) before, then marijuana users (Y) usually become heroin addicts (X).

Question 39

How can you refute the gateway drug theory with a counterexample?

Answer 39

The previous argument follows the structure of
If most X were Y before, most Y usually become X
(You have to include this as a premise if you are making the counterexample)
You can replace Y with milk users, giving you
If most heroin addicts drank milk before, then most milk drinkers usually become heroin addicts.
You see how stupid that sounds?

Question 40

Why is responding to an inductive argument with ‘who is to say…’ a bad criticism?

Answer 40

It’s an inductive argument, the event hasn’t occurred, but the likelihood of it happening is above 50%.
It’s a bad response because you aren’t actually criticising anything in particular

Question 41

How can you effectively criticise an argument?

Answer 41

You must either
1. Show the argument is neither valid nor inductively forceful
2. Show or argue there is no reason to believe in one or more of the premises, or that one of them is false
3. Show if it is an inductive argument, that it is defeated by some other argument.

Question 42

How can you use venn diagrams to break down arguments?

Answer 42

Look at pictures 5.8→5.12 onwards.
First you create the diagram with each subject, and what the arguer proposes its connected with.
Then you get rid of the non-premise zones
Then you analyse

Question 43

Can you flip conditionals?

Answer 43

NO (we say in unison)
You’d have to work out the probability using a frequency tree or the conditional probability formula.
If you want this explained, come to me, but we’ve covered it before in other lectures, and he didn’t really explain it well on the slides.