criticaL THINIKING PP2

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Distinguishing Arguments from Non-arguments

The aim of this tutorial is to help youidentify arguments and distinguish them

from various kinds of non-arguments.

Chapter 2



An argument is a claim defended with reasons.

More precisely, a passage is an argument if and only if:

(a) it is a group of two or more statements

(b) one of those statements (the conclusion) is claimed orintended to be supported by the other(s) (the premises).



Notice three important things that follow from thisdefinition:

1. Arguments consist entirely of statements, i.e., sentences that it

makes sense to regard as either true or false. Questions,commands, exclamations, and other kinds of nonstatementscannot be parts of arguments. (Keep in mind, however, thatrhetorical questions should be treated as statements.)

2. No single statement, however long, complex, or controversial,is an argument. Arguments always consist of at least twostatements.

3. Nothing counts as an argument unless it is claimed or intended

that one statement follows from one or more other statementsin the passage. In other words, a passage is an argument onlyif the speaker or writer intends to offer evidence or reasons why another statement should be accepted as true.



Five kinds of passages that are sometimes confused witharguments are:

•reports

•unsupported statements of belief or opinion

•Illustrations

•conditional statements

•

explanations



Planet Earth was much drier in the Triassic than it is now,and there were large deserts in inland areas. There were no

flowering plants or grasses--they evolved much later. Themost common trees were conifers, similar to today's pines.Other large plants included yews, ginkgos, and thepalmlike cycads. Moisture-loving ferns and horsetailsthrived by lakes and rivers.Philip Whitfield, Simon & Schuster's Children's Guide to Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals , 1992)

This passage is a report.

A report is a statement or group of statements intended simply to

convey information about a subject.

Keep in mind that reports of other people's arguments should beregarded as reports rather than as arguments.



1. Begin each day with a prayer. 2. Work hard. 3. Love yourfamily. 4. Make light of your troubles. 5. Follow the Golden Rule.6. Read from the Bible. 7. Show kindness. 8. Read worthwhile

books. 9. Be clean and pure. 10. Have charity in your heart. 11.Be obedient and respectful. 12. End the day in prayer. Thesetwelve rules, the "Quaker Dozen," were written long ago in afamily Bible. But I believe they still fit today's problems.(Adapted from Olive Ireland Theen, "Grandfather's QuakerDozen," in William Nichol, ed., A New Treasury of Words to Live

By , 1959)

This passage is an unsupported statement of belief or opinion.

An unsupported statement of belief or opinion is a statement orset of statements in which the speaker or writer expresses his orher personal opinion, but offers no reasons or evidence to backup that opinion.



Almost all groups agree in holding other groups to beinferior to themselves. The American Indians looked upon

themselves as the chosen people, specially created by theGreat Spirit as an uplifting example for mankind. One

Indian tribe called itself "The Only Men"; another calleditself "Men of Men"; the Caribs said, "We alone arepeople." (Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage , 1935)

This passage is an illustration.

An illustration is a passage intended to provide examples that illustrate orsupport a claim, not to provide convincing evidence that the claim is true.

The three examples cited in this passage are clearly insufficient tosupport the author's claim that "almost all groups agree in holding othergroups to be inferior to themselves." This indicates that the passage isintended to illustrate the author's claim, rather than to prove it.



If Hal comes to the party than Sarah will come to the party.

This passage is a conditional statement.

A conditional statement is an if-then statement. It is an assertion thatsuch-and-such is true if something else is true.

Conditional statements are not arguments because arguments alwayscontain at least two statements and conditional statements consist ofonly a single statement: " Statement A is true on the condition thatstatement B is true."

In the passage above, the speaker or writer isn't asserting that Hal will

come to the party. Nor is she asserting that Sarah will come to the party.Rather, she is asserting that Sarah will come to the party provided that Hal comes to the party. This is a single statement, and thus is not anargument.



I speak English because my parents sent me to boarding

school in London.

This passage is an explanation.

An explanation is a statement or set of statements that seeks toprovide an account of why something has occurred or why

something is the case.

In this passage, the speaker or writer isn't trying to prove that hecan speak English (that's obvious from the fact that he isspeaking English!). Rather, he is trying to explain why he speaksEnglish.

In other words, arguments seek to provide evidence or reasonsthat something is the case; explanations seek to explain why something is the case.



For the person who called and said Larry Bird was betterthan Michael Jordan, wake up. No one was ever better than

Michael Jordan, not even Kareem in his glory and not evenDr. J (From a newspaper call-in column)

Is this passage an argument or not an argument?

If it is not an argument, is it a report, an unsupportedstatement of belief or opinion, an illustration, a conditionalstatement, or an explanation?



For the person who called and said Larry Bird was betterthan Michael Jordan, wake up. No one was ever better than

Michael Jordan, not even Kareem in his glory and not evenDr. J (From a newspaper call-in column)

Non-argument (unsupported statement of belief oropinion).

In this passage, the speaker simply asserts his opinion; hemakes no effort to defend it.



When a democratic society is correctly understood to beone in which the people live under constitutional

government with universal suffrage and with the securingof human rights, economic as well as political, for allcitizens, it must then be recognized that a democraticsociety is not yet fifty years old in this country

(Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal , 1984)





When a democratic society is correctly understood to beone in which the people live under constitutional

government with universal suffrage and with the securingof human rights, economic as well as political, for allcitizens, it must then be recognized that a democraticsociety is not yet fifty years old in this country

(Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal , 1984)

Argument.

The writer is giving a reason to support his claimthat democracy is less than fifty years old in the United

States.



If a claim or position is being set forth and no other explicitor implicit statement is used to support it, then the spoken

or written material in question is not an argument

(T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning , 4th ed.,2001)





If a claim or position is being set forth and no other explicitor implicit statement is used to support it, then the spoken

or written material in question is not an argument

(T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning , 4th ed.,2001)

Non-argument (conditional statement).

The writer is simply making an if-then statement, not

giving reasons why some other statement should be

believed.



Women my age know whom to blame for our own self-loathing, eating disorders and distorted body image:

Barbie. So we're raising our vulnerable, body-consciousgirls to beware the perpetually pointy-toed goddess with

the impossible body and perfect face

(Amy Dickinson, "Measuring Up," Time , November 20,

2000)


If it is not an argument, is it a report, an unsupported

statement of belief or opinion, an illustration, a conditionalstatement, or an explanation?



Women my age know whom to blame for our own self-loathing,eating disorders and distorted body image: Barbie. So we're

raising our vulnerable, body-conscious girls to beware theperpetually pointy-toed goddess with the impossible body and

perfect face

(Amy Dickinson, "Measuring Up," Time , November 20, 2000)

Non-argument (explanation).

The writer isn't seeking to prove that women her age are raising

their vulnerable, body-conscious daughters to beware of Barbie;rather, she's offering an explanation why they are doing so.



Although you usually cannot eliminate the personalfeelings that are influencing your perceptions, you can

become aware of them and try to compensate for theirbias. For instance, if you are asked to evaluate a group ofpeople, one of whom is a good friend, you should try tokeep these personal feelings in mind in order to make yourevaluation as accurate as possible(John Chaffee, The Thinker's Way , 1998)


If it is not an argument, is it a report, an unsupported

statement of belief or opinion, an illustration, a conditionalstatement, or an explanation?



Although you usually cannot eliminate the personalfeelings that are influencing your perceptions, you can

become aware of them and try to compensate for theirbias. For instance, if you are asked to evaluate a group ofpeople, one of whom is a good friend, you should try tokeep these personal feelings in mind in order to make yourevaluation as accurate as possible(John Chaffee, The Thinker's Way , 1998)

Non-argument (illustration).

In this passage, the words "for instance" signal us that theauthor is trying to illustrate a claim, not to prove it.



In his book Natural Theology , which set forth the standardacademic and theological wisdom of the early nineteenthcentury, William Paley had compared nature to a watch. If you

chanced upon a watch lying alone on the ground, he wrote, andthen examined its intricate structure, you could not helpconcluding that it had been made by an intelligent designer. Itcouldn't possibly be the product of mere chance. And yet, thenatural world exhibits much more complex order than any watch.Thus, Paley concluded, there has to be an intelligent designerresponsible for nature's fine arrangement(John F. Haught, Science and Religion , 1995)





In his book Natural Theology , which set forth the standardacademic and theological wisdom of the early nineteenthcentury, William Paley had compared nature to a watch. If you

chanced upon a watch lying alone on the ground, he wrote, andthen examined its intricate structure, you could not helpconcluding that it had been made by an intelligent designer. Itcouldn't possibly be the product of mere chance. And yet, thenatural world exhibits much more complex order than any watch.Thus, Paley concluded, there has to be an intelligent designerresponsible for nature's fine arrangement(John F. Haught, Science and Religion , 1995)

[This is the end of the tutorial] X

Non-argument (report).

In this passage, the writer is reporting someone else's argument,not endorsing it as correct. Thus, the argument is a report ratherthan an argument.

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