General Claims and Their Contradictions
Epstein states that “we need to know how to reason using general claims that assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection. Claims may seem valid but they aren’t.
For example, “All dogs like to play fetch. Tammy likes to play fetch. So Tammy is a dog.”
It seems valid but it’s not. The premises could be true but Tammy could either be a hamster, cat, hedgehog, bird or etc. that likes to play fetch. Dogs aren't the only animals that like to play fetch. Arguments that sound correct are actually bad.
In order to avoid getting lured into belief we first must understand what “all” and “some” mean. All means “Every single one, no exceptions” or sometimes depending on the argument All could also mean “Every single one, and there is at least one.” Some means “At least one,” or “At least one, but not all,” depending on the argument. This is where contradictions play into the general claims. We use contradictions to counter arguments that we experience on the daily. Contradictions further the discussion.
For example, let’s go back to the state used above about “All dogs like to play fetch,” someone could use it’s contradiction against it, “Not all dogs like to play fetch.”
Vague Generalities
Words that are too vague tend to make it difficult to figure out if the argument is valid. Words such as a few or a lot are too vague. But almost all and very few are two vague generalities that we can use in strong arguments.
For example, “Almost all students study” versus “A lot of students study.” The one with almost all sounds more concrete since it’s stating that not all students study. But as for the claim using a lot, it’s vague leaving you wondering how many students study? How many is a lot?
Saturday, March 12, 2011
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2 comments:
I think this is a very well written response for general claims and summarizes them well. People believe that arguments are true on a daily basis just because they sound like a good argument. But just because an argument sounds good doesn’t mean that it is valid or strong. With a quick glance at your example many people would just accept it as true because it sounds logical but if you actually stop to think about the argument it is clearly a bad argument. If people would just stop and think about an argument for two seconds instead of just accepting it as true, I feel that many problems could be prevented.
This was an amazing post to read at the end of doing all my reading because anything I did not understand was just cleared up in your post. you carefully explained ever minor detail that was mentioned in the book and supported your definitions and explanations with examples, which always makes everything easier to understand. I think it is interesting how one or two words can change a whole statement such as your example on vague generalities. Changing almost to a lot makes the statement completely different in meaning. Good job on explaining everything! Your post always seem to be the most help!
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