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http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Mahayana/2009/9/5/ExtenZe-for-Women-no-actually-still-just-men
This ad is for women’s extenze. It is geared towards women and “electrifying their orgasms and revved up libido.” I disagree with this advertisement for a few reasons. First, for an argument to pass or be good, it has to provide good reason to believe the premises to be true. I don’t believe it’s true because nowhere in the ad do they provide scientific reasoning as to why it would work. Also, the book provides three reasons about whether to believe a claim: “Accept it, reject it, or suspend it.” I’m rejecting it because I believe it is false. Based on past experiences, I have seen many advertisements claim to do something but then in a year or so a scientific source proves that it is bullshit and most likely will do some type of damage to the consumer. Although this product could be legit, I personally don’t agree with it and therefore reject it.

Repairing an argument

“I swim every day so I’m in good shape.”
This argument is on its way to being good but is missing a necessary premise. The missing premise is “Swimming is very healthy and gets you in good shape.” This is repairing the argument because: it makes it stronger, the added premise is plausible and would seem plausible to whom I’m speaking to, and the premise is more plausible than the conclusion. We can also add an indicator word “therefore,” to let us know the conclusion is coming. Now the argument would look like this:
“I swim every day. Swimming is very healthy and gets you in good shape. Therefore, I’m in good shape.”
This is a strong argument now because the premises are very plausible and definitely set up the conclusion. However, there are factors that could prove this false. For instance, what speed are we swimming? How many laps are being swam? Things like that could change whether or not an individual is in good shape. Nonetheless, most people who swim every day are going to be in pretty good shape.

Slippery Slope Fallacy (Content Fallacy)

The book doesn't go into very much detail about the specific fallacies so I did a little extra research as well. But I still couldn't find a very concrete definition of a content fallacy so if you understand it well please leave me a post with your interpretation. Anyways, the slippery slope fallacy is when someone assumes that one statement directly follows another statement. And when they do this, they do it without even making an argument of how or why the statement should follow. For instance, if I were to say, "I need to break up with my girlfriend. If I don't, she will probably cheat on me." This is a slippery slope because there is no argument or stated reasoning for me to assume she will probably cheat on me. The website nizkor.org stated the following:
"This sort of 'reasoning' is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another."
An argument like this cannot be valid. Remember, for an argument to be valid, it has to be impossible for the conclusion to be false and the premises true. The slippery slope fallacy is invalid because even if the premises are true, jumping to an assumed conclusion is false. Nizkor.org did a good job of showing this in a variable form:
1. Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
2. Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

Straw Man

Violating the principle of rational discussion is described in the Epstein text as “sometimes it seems the other person doesn’t understand what’s involved in rational discussion or is intending to mislead. And sometimes there’s not even an argument.” Under this, there are several different types of fallacies that are examples. One of which is the strawman fallacy. If you took comm. 20, I’m pretty sure this is the same fallacy as the straw figure. This fallacy is basically when you take someone else’s argument and basically reject it right away in order to make your argument appear more valid. One way to set up a strawman is to start your statement with “some say.”
For example:
“Some say that the illuminati doesn’t exist. However I disagree because I read that they secretly control everything and have all the power.”
Here, I completely rejected the argument that they don’t exist and led right into mine by saying "however, I disagree....". This fallacy is called straw man. I remember this because you just blow their argument down like you could a straw man.

Exercise on the Structure of Arguments

“I’m on my way to school. 1 I left five minutes late. 2 Traffic is heavy. 3 Therefore, I’ll be late for class. 4 So I might as well stop and get breakfast.” 5
Argument? (yes or no) Yes.
Conclusion: I might as well stop and get breakfast. However, if we reworded this argument, we could conclude that he is late for school because everything really builds up to that.
Additional premises needed? Yea, he could say something like “I’m hungry. Since I’m already going to be late, I might as well stop and get breakfast.”
Identify and subargument: I would say that number 1 through 3 are all subarguments. They can all be independent arguments. For instance, 1 is going to school, 2 is being late, and 3 is traffic is heavy. However 4 is using all 1 through 3 to support it. Therefore, in a different order, they wouldn’t technically be subarguments.
Good argument? Yes, the argument is pretty good. The premises are good and do provide pretty good reason to believe that he is going to be late. However, if he hustles, he can still make it. Nonetheless, it is still a good argument because it is up to him if he is later or not. Either way, it is most likely that he is going to be late seeing how traffic is bad, and he already left late.

I did like this activity because I learned a lot reading the other examples and really having to think. However, I still felt like I didn’t fully understand how to properly criticize the structure of arguments, but I’m sure that will come with more practice seeing how this was my first one.

Begging the Question

“Begging the question, also known as circular reasoning, is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true” (nizkor.org). Basically, it is a bad argument that doesn’t really prove or conclude anything but rather just beats around the bush. Here is an example of begging the question:
“If Robert wouldn’t have got caught stealing, then the cops wouldn’t have arrested him.”
This is circular reasoning. It’s obvious; no shit he wouldn’t have been arrested if he didn’t commit a crime. This is a fallacy. A fallacy, just in case you don’t know, is described by dictionary.com as the following:
1. deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.
2. a misleading or unsound argument.
3. deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness.

Every day people use fallacies and have no idea that they are doing so. Hopefully this post helps you catch someone next time they are just arguing in circles and you won’t have to waste your time!

Strong and valid arguments

A valid argument means “there is no possible way for its premises to be true and its conclusion false” (Epstein). This means the premises state such a fact that you can’t draw a conclusion that would not be true as well. But, however, the premises can be false, therefore the conclusion would be true to the premises but the argument itself would be a bad argument. For example, “no one can physically have kids until they are 18 years of age. So you and your dad have to be at least 18 years apart.” Here, we have a valid argument but it is bad because the premise is false.

A strong argument means “there is some possibility for its premises to be true and its conclusion false, but very unlikely” (Epstein). For example, “You could never see Derek’s abs before. Today, you can see them, so he must have been working out lately.” Here, the argument is strong yet the conclusion could be false. Maybe Derek was sick with mono and didn't eat much recently. Or maybe he started throwing up his meals to lose weight. Unlikely, but you still cannot conclude that Derek has been working out.

Section C: Tests for an argument to be good

According to the Epstein text, there are three tests’ an argument must pass in order for it to be good. These tests are: “the premises are plausible, the premises are more plausible than the conclusion and the argument is valid or strong” (Epstein text). For the premises to be plausible, that just means the opening statement of the argument is something within reason. The premises being more plausible than the conclusion, means that it must make a good point and therefore the conclusion follows. Lastly, the argument must be strong or valid. A strong argument means it is “highly unlikely that its premises to be true and its conclusion false” (Epstein text). A valid argument means there is “no possible way for its premises to be true and its conclusion false” (Epstein text).
Here is an example of an argument:
“That kid’s shirt is purple. That must be his favorite color.”
1. The premise is true. We can all agree that the kid’s shirt is the color purple.
2. The premise is also more plausible than the conclusion because we cannot fairly conclude that his favorite color is purple. It is very likely that he just wore a purple shirt.
3. Therefore, this is not a good argument because the conclusion is not valid or strong. Now, if we asked the kid what his favorite color was, and he said it was purple, then the argument would be stronger.

Topic of choice (Prescriptive and Descriptive claims)

I chose to discuss prescriptive and descriptive claims because you here them all the time and they actually seemed pretty interesting to me. It is basically another case of fact verse opinion, but a little different. According to the Epstein text, "a claim is descriptive if it says what it is. A claim is prescriptive if it says what is should be." For example, if my friend Shawn was thirsty, the descriptive claim would simply be to state, "Shawn is thirsty." However, it would be a prescriptive claim if I were to voice my opinion and say "Shawn should get something to drink." See the difference is stating the fact that he is thirsty verses stating my opinion that he should get something to drink. Another example was one I recognized last night. A couple friends and I were chilling at the crib and one of them said he was hungry. In reaction, my other friend told him "you should go to sevo and get food." So, the descriptive claim is my friend being hungry; and the prescriptive claim is that he should go to seven eleven and get food.

Vague Sentence

Yesterday in my swimming class, my two friends and I tested out so we could just swim laps. This class is epic by the way. It's like getting a free unit to exercise. Anyways, in between laps we would get tired because we are all out of shape and lazy so we would chit chat a little bit. We got to talking about exercise itself and my friend said to me "swimming is better than running." I laughed a little bit because I had just read the chapter on vague sentences. This sentence is very vague because "better" could mean a whole list of things.
1. You could interpret this as swimming being better for your body. People always talk about how running is bad on your knees and swimming is good for your joints. So that is one way to interpret this sentence.
2. You could also interpret this sentence as meaning it is a better cardio workout. Seeing how we were more tired swimming for 2 minutes than we would have been running for two minutes this could be another way of interpreting it.
There are numerous ways to interpret this sentence and that is why it is so vague. We could easily make a claim out of this sentence but not in the given context. For instance it would become a claim if we said something more like "swimming is more tiring than running."