For my last discussion question, I decided to focus on a very important concept that can make or break an argument. The main goal of creating an argument is to give the listener "good reason to believe" what you're arguing for. However, you must follow the concepts that were discussed in Chapter 3 or your argument won't hold much weight and will be easily countered.
The concept of "The Conclusion Follows From the Premises" is a pretty basic one, but it's really the foundation of all good arguments. When you break it down, it stresses the point of making sure your arguments have continuity between the premises and the conclusion. If there isn't any consistency whatsoever and the premises have no relation to the conclusion, then your argument won't make any sense. Arguments like these are easy to spot and avoid, but it's always a good idea to double-check to make sure everything flows and there is support for your conclusion.
For example:
Joe likes football.
So, Joe can't stand onions.
Even at a short glance, it's obvious this argument doesn't make any sense. The premise and the conclusion have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
I agree with what you wrote about how the concept of the conclusion following the premise in an argument is the one of the most important aspects for arguments. It does make sense that this may be the most important aspect of an argument because without a conclusion following a premise, you don’t really have an argument and you’re simply with a premise and a conclusion that completely incompatible with one another and would often cause confusion amongst the receiver of the argument. I found your example argument funny, but although it was humorous, it does really show how weird and off point a conclusion that does not follow a premise may sound in real life.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that is is an important part in making or breaking an argument. There is really no point if the conclusion does not follow the premise. It would sounds like you were talking about two separate things. An argument is always good when you have something to back it up with. It is like telling someone, "You should drink milk." That argument alone is not that good because it does not give the reader a reason to drink milk. If you say, "You should drink milk because it will make your bones strong", then the reader will be more inclined to drink milk because if your reason.
ReplyDeleteI think it was neat that you made a bogus argument that makes no sense because even though we don’t hear these a lot in our lives, it is part of what we are learning about in the chapter and important to see so we can identify what a weak argument looks like. These might not be so rare to find in real life as we think, ie. drunk people. When my friends are drunk, they try to convince me of things like why they should call their ex boyfriend, drink more, or other stupid ideas. More often than not, they don’t think their plan through and their arguments are almost as laughably weak as your example. The only ones that seem to make sense of all of their drunk nonsense are the other drunk people.
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