Think Again: How to Reason and Argue

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Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Page 21

by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong


  4. Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, editors, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), chapter 4. A better-known example of the representativeness heuristic is Linda the feminist bank teller (chapter 6).

  5. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, “Can a General Deontic Logic Capture the Facts of Human Moral Reasoning? How the Mind Interprets Social Exchange Rules and Detects Cheaters,” in Moral Psychology, Volume 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, edited by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 53–120.

  6. Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2011), pp. 57–111 at 63 and 72. See also Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).

  7. This process of correction in science is described by Miriam Solomon, Social Empiricism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).

  8. R. Ritchart and D. N. Perkins, “Learning to Think: The Challenges of Teaching Thinking,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, edited by Keith Holyoak and Robert G. Morrison (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). These negative results could reflect deficiencies in particular teaching methods that were tested.

  9. Mercier and Sperber, “Why Do Humans Reason?” pp. 57–111.

  Chapter 6

  1. See Monty Python, “Argument Clinic” sketch (1976); at

  2. See below on ad hominem fallacies.

  3. This definition comes from Robert Fogelin. He and I have defended a close relative in Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, 9th ed. (Stamford, CT: Cengage, 2014).

  4. I will not bother with technical issues about whether the premises and conclusion are statements, propositions, or sentences, since that nicety does not affect the general issues in this book. I will also allow arguments with a single premise, but they must have at least one premise. What if the speaker knows that the premises are not really reasons at all, but he presents them as such in order to fool some audience? I am inclined to think that what he gives is an argument, even though he does not intend its premises to be real reasons for its conclusion. This explains why I define arguments as presenting premises as reasons, which means that their premises are intended to be seen as reasons.

  5. Aristotle, Physics II, 3, and Metaphysics V, 2. Notice that an arguer’s desire for an argument to serve a purpose is what causes the arguer to give the argument.

  6. “Conservative South Koreans rally against President Park’s impeachment”, Asia Times (December 17, 2016); at http://www.atimes.com/article/conservative-south-koreans-rally-parks-impeachment/.

  Chapter 7

  1. For hilarious examples, see literallyunbelievable.org and Snopes.com

  2. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism.

  3. See Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Moral Skepticisms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), chapter 4.

  4. For details on how to limit our goals to certain contrast classes, see my Moral Skepticisms, chapter 5.

  5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969).

  6. Cass R. Sunstein, Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez, Stephanie C. Lazarro, and Tali Sharot, “How People Update Beliefs about Climate Change: Good News and Bad News,” (forthcoming; written September 2, 2016 and available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2821919 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2821919).

  7. J. O. Urmson, “On Grading,” Mind 59, 234 (1950), pp. 145–169.

  8. Advertisement for Equal Exchange fair trade coffee (Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999).

  Chapter 8

  1. Which kind of possibility? Consider “This building is 100 meters tall, so I cannot jump over it.” Is this argument valid if jumping over 100 meters is conceptually possible but not physically possible? Luckily, such tricky cases will not affect my main points here, so I will not pause to worry about these complications.

  2. See Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin, Understanding Arguments, chapters 6–7.

  3. “New Approaches Needed to Address Rise of Poor Urban Villages in the Pacific,” Asia Today (October 19, 2016); at .

  Chapter 9

  1. “The Greek Interpreter,” in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  2. John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action (New York: Capricorn, 1960).

  3. It might sometimes be more intuitive to think of the strength of inductive arguments in terms of conditional reasons instead of conditional probability. Contrast Keith Lehrer, Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), which analyzed justification in terms of probability, with Keith Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1990), which analyzed justification in terms of reasons. This philosophical distinction will not affect my main points in the text.

  4. Assume there are 50,000 cars and 1,000 Fiats in Edinburgh. The witness would identify 90% or 900 of these 1000 Fiats as Fiats. But he would also misidentify 10% or 4,900 of the 49,000 non-Fiats as Fiats. Thus, out of the 900 + 4,900 = 5,800 cars that he would identify as Fiats, only 900/5800 = 15.5% really are Fiats.

  5. For more on these and other kinds of inductive arguments, see my and Robert Fogelin’s textbook, Understanding Arguments, and my and Ram Neta’s massive open online course (MOOC), Think Again, available on the Coursera website at < https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=think+again>.

  6. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream . . .” speech (1963); at < https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf>

  7. General Colin Powell, Address to the United Nations Security Council, February 5, 2003; at

  Chapter 10

  1. From Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim and Other Flubs from the Nation’s Press, edited by Columbia Journalism Review (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980).

  2. From Matthew H. Hurley, Daniel C. Dennett, and Reginald B. Adams Jr., Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).

  3. Roy Sorensen, “Vagueness”, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 edition); at

  4. “Torture Memos”, Wikipedia; at

  5. Jeffrey Hart, “Protesters Are ‘Ugly, Stupid,’ ” King Features.

  6. American Psychological Association, “Report of the Task Force on the Role of Psychology in the Criminal Justice System,” American Psychologist 33 (1978), pp. 1099–1113; at . This basic point has not changed much since this report.

  7. See Solomon, Social Empiricism.

  8. See “International Panel on Climate Change”, Wikipedia; at

  9. This point might seem to suggest that any valid argument from a universal premise begs the question, but it doesn’t, as I show in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “Begging the Question,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77, 2 (1999), pp. 174–191.

  10. For example, Gary N. Curtis, “The Fallacy Files”; at and Don Lindsay, “A List of Fallacious Arguments” (2013); at

  Conclusion

  1. For more lessons on arguments, see my MOOC with Ram Neta called Think Again on the Coursera Platform and my textbook with Robert Fogelin, Understanding Arguments.

  INDEX

  Page numbers in bold face indicate where the entry is defined.

  abstraction, 60–61, 63

  absurdities, 204–206

  abuse, 78

  abusive assurin
g, 100

  actions, 3, 14–15, 50, 82–83

  and fallacies, 179

  actuality, 118

  ad hominem arguments, 184, 185–186, 198

  and refutation, 207

  affirming the consequent, 121, 173

  agreement, 26

  algorithms, 42

  ambiguity, 174–175, 177

  amphiboly, 175

  analogies, 60

  analysis, close, 107, 108–116, 117, 126

  and rules to live by, 215

  analysis, deep, 117, 126, 215

  antagonism, 14, 16, 21–24

  and abstraction, 61

  and toxic talk, 34, 36, 38

  appeals to ignorance, 197

  application, 158–160

  applications, statistical, 152, 154, 156

  arguing, learning how, 67–73

  Argument Clinic, The (TV skit), 77–78

  argument from analogy, 153–154

  arguments, 6–8, 20, 48–66, 80–81

  defined, 83

  how to complete, 117–141

  how to evaluate, 142–169

  how to refute, 200–213

  how to stop, 88–116

  inductive, 149, 156, 193

  and joking, 32

  parallel, 207–209

  recognizing, 77–87

  and silencing, 41, 44–46

  slippery slope, 179–180

  sound, 122

  and symmetry, 181

  and toxic talk, 26, 33, 35, 38

  and trust/trustworthiness, 69, 72

  Aristotle, 81

  Asian Development Bank (ADB), 187–188

  assumptions, 3, 24, 28, 80

  and compromises, 62

  and fallacies, 177

  and formal validity, 122–126

  and inferences to the best explanation, 166

  and rules to live by, 214

  and stopping arguments, 90, 92

  assuring terms, 93, 99–101, 103, 108

  and close analysis, 113–114, 116

  attacking people, 184–187

  authority, 39, 100

  appeal to, 184, 197, 207

  questioning, 187–194

  Bayes’s theorem, 153

  because clauses, 62

  begging the question, 207

  beliefs, 50, 52, 54–55, 82–83

  and humility, 59–60

  and reconstruction, 129

  and refutation, 201, 207

  and rules to live by, 215

  and stopping arguments, 90

  bias, desirability, 69

  bias, sample, 157–158

  Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth (Shapiro), 29

  branching structure, 139

  Brexit vote, 23, 34–36, 51

  and generalizations, 155

  Britain. See United Kingdom

  Brzezinski, M. (news commentator), 29

  caricatures, 25, 27–28

  Carnegie, D. (philanthropist), 52

  causal reasoning, 153

  causation, 81, 212

  certainty, 147–149, 193, 206

  Chamberlain, N. (British prime minister), 62

  “Change My View” (internet thread), 46

  China, 56

  civility, 26, 48

  claims, 7, 20, 53, 59, 89

  and authority, 188, 193

  and close analysis, 110

  and discounting terms, 105–106

  and fallacies, 177, 185–186

  and guarding terms, 95

  and reconstruction, 133, 135

  and refutation, 201

  and stopping arguments, 91

  Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on (IPCC), 192–193

  coalitions, 15

  coherence, 119

  communication, 2–3, 47

  comparison, 161

  competition, 192

  composition, fallacy of, 210

  compromises, 2, 4–5, 15, 21, 61–62

  and Angela Merkel, 37

  and arguments, 63

  and discounting terms, 107

  and guarding terms, 98

  and toxic talk, 35, 38–39

  Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur (author), 146–147

  conclusion markers, 85

  conclusions, 7, 49, 80, 81, 82

  and application, 159–160

  and assumptions, 124

  and begging the question, 195–196

  and close analysis, 113, 115

  and deduction, 146, 148

  and evaluating arguments, 143–144

  and fallacies, 178–179, 183, 186

  and generalizations, 156

  and inductive strength, 150

  and inferences to the best explanation, 161–162, 168

  and irrelevance, 184

  and parallel arguments, 208, 210

  and questions, 87

  and reconstruction, 128–129, 131

  and refutation, 201, 207, 212

  and soundness, 122

  and stopping arguments, 90

  and validity, 118–120

  conditionals, 121, 148

  confidence, 19–20

  conservatives, 13, 16, 186

  contradiction, 79, 200, 204, 206

  controversy, 47, 185, 194

  conversations, 3, 26, 29, 40

  and assumptions, 123

  and humility, 59

  conversion, 54

  cooperation, 2, 4–5, 15, 24

  and arguments, 63

  and caricatures, 27

  and fallacies, 186

  correlation, 212

  counterarguments, 46

  counterexamples, 202–204

  criticism, 25–26, 33, 85, 146

  and fallacies, 177, 196

  culture, 4

  culture wars, 12

  cynicism, 55

  Daily Show, The, 42

  “Dear White America” (Yancy), 32–33

  death penalty, 195

  debates, political, 41, 81, 183

  deduction, 143–149, 145

  definitions, 181–183

  denial, 79, 200

  denying a disjunct, 120

  denying the antecedent, 121, 173

  descriptions, 119

  diagnoses, psychiatric, 28–29

  discounting terms, 93, 104–107, 108–109

  and close analysis, 115–116

  discourse, 2, 32

  disrespect, 34, 38

  distance, 13, 16, 20–21, 23

  division, fallacy of, 210

  double entendre, 174–178

  doubt, 201

  echo chambers, 42, 45

  emotions, 5, 8, 35, 48–49

  and ad hominem arguments, 184

  appeal to, 197–198

  and arguments, 50–52, 54

  and trust/trustworthiness, 197

  equivalence, false, 211

  equivocation, 175, 177–178

  and refutation, 207

  Europe, 23, 34–38, 43, 51

  and compromises, 62

  evaluating terms, 93, 101–104, 108

  and close analysis, 110, 112–113, 116

  and validity, 117

  evidence, 79, 89–91

  and evaluating arguments, 144

  and guarding terms, 98

  and inductive arguments, 149

  evolution, 196

  exaggeration, 38

  exceptions, 2, 28, 201–204

  expert consensus, 190

  explanations, 7, 81, 113, 137–141, 164, 200

  alternative, 166–167

  extremism, 38

  facts, 18–19, 38, 42–43

  and arguments, 49–52

  and fallacies, 198

  and humility, 59

  and purpose of arguments, 82

  ‘fake news’, 41

  fallacies, 33, 154, 173–199

  ad hominem arguments, 184

  appeals to ignorance, 197

  appeal to authority, 190

  appeal to emotion, 197
>
  appeal to ignorance, 212

  begging the question, 194–196

  of composition, 210

  of division, 210–211

  false cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc), 212

  false dichotomy, 197, 211

  false equivalence, 211

  gambler’s, 197

  genetic, 197

  hasty generalization, 157, 160

  and refutation, 202, 207

  and rules to live by, 214–215

  tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy), 197

  false cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc), 212

  false dichotomy, 197, 211

  forgiveness, 7, 26, 48

  form, 81

  Fox News, 41–42

  France, 37

  gambler’s fallacy, 197

  gay marriage, 43–44

  generalizations, 72, 146, 155–158, 173

  statistical, 151–152, 154

  Germany, 37

  governments, 15

  graciousness, 7, 48

  gridlock, 15–16, 23

  guarding terms, 93–98, 108, 111–112

  and close analysis, 114–116

  and fallacies, 180

  and reconstruction, 131–133

  and refutation, 202

  halo/horn effects, 187

  Hartford, J. (musician), 86

  hatred, 14, 21

  headlines, newspaper, 174

  heuristics, 69

  Holmes, Sherlock, 143, 146–147, 155, 161

  homogeneity, 13, 16, 20–21

  homosexuality, 175–177

  How the Right Lost Its Mind (Sykes), 29

  Hume, D. (philosopher), 48–49

  humility, 58–60, 63, 149

  humor, 32

  hypothesis, 161–162, 166

  alternative. See also explanations, alternative

  hypotheticals, 121

  Iceland, 23

  ignorance, appeal to, 198–199, 212

  incivility, 14, 16, 25, 27, 34, 38–39

  and assuring terms, 100

  and rules to live by, 215–216

  and silencing, 40

  induction, 145, 146–147, 151–154

  and application, 158

  and rules to live by, 214

  inequality, financial, 27

  inference to the best explanation, 152, 154, 160–161

  and political decisions, 163–164, 166, 168–169

 

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