What is an Argument?

An argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something.

It is prompted usually by a disagreement, confusion, or ignorance about something the

arguers wish to resolve or illuminate in a convincing way.

The final goal of an argument is usually to reach a conclusion that is sufficiently

persuasive to convince someone of something.

Arguments may also often have a negative purpose: to convince someone that
something is not the case

Premises and Conclusion

The structure of all arguments, no matter what, consists of two components:

premises and conclusion.

The conclusion is the key assertion that the other assertions support; the point
one hopes to make when presenting an argument.

The premises are the reasons that support the conclusion.

For a group of assertions to be an argument, the passage must contain a

conclusion and at least one premise.

Premise Signals

 So
Since
Accordingly
For
Follows from
After all
Due to
Inasmuch as
Insofar as
Because

Conclusion Signals

So

Therefore

Thus

Consequently

It follows that

As a result

Hence

In conclusion

Shows that

This implies

We may infer that

Distinguishing Between Premises and Conclusion

EXAMPLE:

Cats with long hair shed all over the house, so you should not
get a long-haired cat. I have heard that they also have lots of
fleas.

P Long-haired cats shed all over the house

P Long-haired cats have a lot of fleas
C You should not get a long haired cat

Distinguishing Between Premises and Conclusion

Can you identify which statements are premises and which are
conclusions?

1. Fairdale will win the championship because they have the best team.
2. Since the housing market is depressed and interest rates are low, it's a good time to buy a
home.
3. China is guilty of extreme human rights abuses. Further, they refuse to implement
democratic reforms. Thus, the U.S. should refuse to deal with the present Chinese
government.
4. The revocation of the 55 mph speed limit has resulted in an increased number of auto
fatalities. We must alleviate this problem with stricter speed limit enforcement.

Implicit / Explicit

Very often arguments are implicit (or unsaid), rather than explicit (or
clearly stated).

With a little work we can extract most arguments from their natural
settings and write them in standard form.

Arguments are rarely as simple and straightforward as the ones covered

here in class!

Use your critical thinking skills to discern what a speaker leaves implicit or unsaid.

Hidden Assumptions
Can you identify the hidden assumptions?

Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is a mammal.

All whales are mammals.

Killing an innocent person is wrong. Therefore, abortion is wrong .

Abortion involves the killing of an innocent person.

Traces of ammonia have been found in Mars' atmosphere. So there must

be life on Mars.

"Only living things produce ammonia."

Standard Form of an Argument

Standard Form is a technique of reducing an argument to its essence: its

premises and conclusion. In other words, it is an outline of the argument. It
has a formula that works like this:

Premise,

 And premise,
And premise,
(and so on for as many as you have)
Therefore, conclusion

Example of Standard Form

I am human (premise)

And all humans are mortal (premise)

Therefore, I am mortal (conclusion)

Putting Arguments into Standard Form

Homo Sapiens are not built to live on a vegetable / fruit diet alone. Our
ancestors before Homo Habilis lived on an all plant diet and could do so
because of their low brain size. You just can't consume enough calories to
keep your mind and body functioning without meat. We are supposed to eat
meat in our diet and have serious problems long term if we don't.

P1: Homo Habilis lived on an all plant diet and could do so because of their low brain
size.

P2: [humans] just can't consume enough calories to keep mind and body functioning
without meat.

P3: We are supposed to eat meat in our diet and have serious problems long term if we
don't.

C: Homo Sapiens are not built to live on a vegetable / fruit diet alone.

Try It!

Ashton Kutcher is playing Steve Jobs in Joshua Michael Stern's biopic, Jobs.

Kutcher ended up in the hospital after trying to follow Jobs' all-fruit diet.

The following are all arguments given by readers of the article.

Putting the arguments into standard form makes them more coherent and
puts us in a stronger position to be able to evaluate them
When putting the arguments into standard form, separate the premises from
the conclusion. In some cases, you may need to infer the conclusion. Note any
hidden assumptions.

1.

Try It!
1.1

How many times do I have to hear eat what your forefathers ate, in
other words, about how great food used to be for our grandfathers and their
grandfathers, etc.? These people lived to an average age of 43 or so; how are
they examples to point to?

2. I read about the ancient Roman diet. It was pretty good. Ordinary people had no
room to cook, so they bought fast food that was much more nutritious than our
junk today. Their bread was baked nuts with dried fruit in it and they ate it with
cheese. And it was all whole grain. That's healthy.
3. Jobs's diet could have contributed to the development of his cancer. Our body
makes cancerous cells on a regular basis, and it is a question of how efficient our
immune system is in killing those cancerous cells. Poor diet = bad immune
system

Answers

1. How many times do I have to hear eat what your forefathers ate,
in other words, about how great food used to be for our grandfathers
and their grandfathers, etc.? These people lived to an average age of
43 or so; how are they examples to point to?

P1: Many argue that we should eat what your forefathers ate.

P2: The average age of our forefathers was approximately 43.

C: Our forefathers diets are not good examples of how we should eat.

Answers

2. I read about the ancient Roman diet. It was pretty good. Ordinary people
had no room to cook, so they bought fast food that was much more nutritious
than our junk today. Their bread was baked nuts with dried fruit in it and they
ate it with cheese. And it was all whole grain. That's healthy.

P1: Ordinary Romans who had no room to cook bought fast food.
P2: Their fast food was more nutritious than ours because it was all whole
grain.

P3: An all whole grain diet is healthy.

C: [The Ordinary Romans diet is healthier than ours].

Answers

4. Jobs's diet could have contributed to the development of his cancer. Our
body makes cancerous cells on a regular basis, and it is a question of how
efficient our immune system is in killing those cancerous cells. Poor diet = bad
immune system

P1: Our body makes cancerous cells on a regular basis

P2: [good health] depends on an efficient immune system that kills cancerous
cells

P3: A poor diet = a bad immune system

HA: Steve Jobs practiced a poor diet

C: Steve Jobs diet could have contributed to the development of cancer