no use studying

Counter Arguments
There are several ways that one can use when refuting an argument directly, these include “Show that at least one of the premises is dubious. Show that the argument isn’t strong or valid. Show that the conclusion is false”.

The other day my friend was freaking out because he had a mid-term the next day and he hadn’t studied. He said, “It’s useless for me to study. I can’t find any of the answers to the short answer questions”. When he said this, my first response was “It’s not useless for you to study – even if you study with the material that you have, you’ll still be able to get some studying done and you’ll still know some things on the mid-term.”

In this case, I was attacking my brother’s conclusion and showing that it was false – thus, directly refuting his argument.

Raising Objections
Raising objections against an argument is a common way to show that an argument is bad (Epstein, 147). When we have an objection we are showing that one of the premises is questionable or there is a premise that is missing to support the argument more, thus showing why or how the argument is weak.

For example, someone could say, “We should get a new couch because I don’t like the one we have.” Objections against that could be, “We already have a functional couch no need for a new one,” or “What’s wrong with the one we’ve got” or “We don’t have money for a new couch right now” or “We would have to work extra hours to pay off the couch.”

These objections are showing that the argument about getting a new couch just because the person doesn’t prefer it isn’t strong enough. It raises many questions as to why a new couch is needed.