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An Example of Reconstruction (Part II)

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Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments

Universidad Duke

4.6 (1,753 calificaciones) | 210K estudiantes inscritos

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How to Understand Arguments Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Reasoning is important. This series of four short courses will teach you how to do it well. You will learn simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you. Courses at a Glance: All four courses in this series are offered through sessions which run every four weeks. We suggest sticking to the weekly schedule to the best of your ability. If for whatever reason you fall behind, feel free to re-enroll in the next session.We also suggest that you start each course close to the beginning of a month in order to increase the number of peers in the discussion forums who are working on the same material as you are. While each course can be taken independently, we suggest you take the four courses in order. Course 1 - Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Course 2 - Think Again II: How to Reason Deductively Course 3 - Think Again III: How to Reason Inductively Course 4 - Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies About This Course in the Series: When is someone giving an argument instead of just yelling? Which parts of what they say contribute to the argument? Why are they arguing instead of fighting? What are arguments made of? What forms do they take? Think Again: How to Understand Arguments will answer these questions a more. In this course, you will learn what an argument is. The definition of argument will enable students to identify when speakers are giving arguments and when they are not. Next, we will learn how to break an argument into its essential parts, how to put them in order to reveal their connections, and how to fill in gaps in an argument. By the end of this course, students will be better able to understand and appreciate arguments that they and other people present. Suggested Readings: Students who want more detailed explanations or additional exercises or who want to explore these topics in more depth should consult Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, Ninth Edition, Concise, Chapters 1-5, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin. Course Format: Each week will be divided into multiple video segments that can be viewed separately or in groups. There will be short ungraded quizzes after each segment (to check comprehension) and a longer graded quiz at the end of the course.

Destrezas que aprenderás

Evaluation, Interpretation, Language, Linguistics

Revisiones

4.6 (1,753 calificaciones)

5 stars
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SB

Nov 03, 2019

Excellent course, extremely worthwhile and very challenging for me. I used this course to help with my logic training for LSAT. I will be continuing on to complete all parts of the full course.

RB

May 04, 2020

Great class. Super insightful and the professor was knowledgable and entertaining. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone interested in being able to better formulate arguments.

De la lección

How to Reconstruct an Argument

CONTENT: This week’s material will teach you how to organize the parts of an argument in order to show how they fit into a structure of reasoning. The goal is to make the argument look as good as possible so that you can learn from it. We work through the main steps of reconstruction, including putting the premises and conclusion into a standard form, clarifying the premises and breaking them into parts, arranging the argument into stages or sub-arguments, adding suppressed premises where needed to make the argument valid, and assessing the argument for soundness. The lectures begin by defining the crucial notions of validity, soundness, and standard form. You will also learn to diagram alternative argument structures, including linear, branching, and joint structures. LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of this week’s material, you will be able to: label assuring, guarding, discounting, and evaluative terms determine whether an argument is valid or sound complete arguments by adding suppressed premises reconstruct arguments by and series of arguments classify argument structuresOPTIONAL READING: If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of these topics, we recommend <em>Understanding Arguments, Ninth Edition, Chapter 5.

An Example of Reconstruction (Part I)9:14

An Example of Reconstruction (Part II)9:36

An Example of Reconstruction (Part III)10:03

Impartido por:

Dr. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Professor
Dr. Ram Neta
Professor

Prueba el curso Gratis

Transcripción

The next stage is to sharpen edges. And that means clarify the premises and break them up, where doing so would help understand what they're really claiming. So let's look first at the BLMs argument which simply says, Conoco has a lease. These lands were set aside subject to valid rights, therefore its hands are tied. We gotta clarify first of all the conclusion. Its hands are tied. What does that mean? Well, basically the BLM is claiming, I can't do anything about Conoco. You know, my hands are tied. Don't hold me responsible. There's nothing I can do, okay. They're offering an excuse. Next premise two. These lands were set aside to subject to valid existing rights. Well, what is set aside mean? It means that you're not allowed to drill there. But subject evalid existing rights means that you are allowed to drill there if you've got a valid exisiting right. So, this premise can be restated as saying that if Conoco does have a valid existing right to drill, then the BLM must allow Conoco to drill. Okay. What about breaking up premises? What about premise 1? Well, that's one that I think we're going to have to break up. Because it says that Conoco has a lease that gives it the right to drill. And gives it, we already marked as an argument marker. Which suggests that the fact that Conoco has a lease is supposed to be a reason why it has a right to drill. So there's an argument implicit in that one sentence. And that means that we can take this whole argument and restate it something like this. Conoco has a lease, therefore Conoco has a valid right to drill. If Conoco has a valid right to drill, then the BLM must allow Conoco to drill. Therefore, the BLM must allow Conoco to drill. That is supposed to be the central force of the explicit premises and conclusions in the first part. Where the BLM gives its argument. The next part is Redford's response to this argument. Let's start with Redford's conclusion. What's he trying to show? He's trying to show the opposite of the BLM's argument. They're trying to show that their hands are tied. That is, that they can't stop Conoco from drilling. So Redford wants to show, that they can stop Conoco from drilling, or even that they must stop Conoco from drilling. So that's the conclusion he's trying to reach. What he says is sounds like Washington double speak to me. Well, that's 'cuz he's saying that people in Washington always say their hands are tied and can't get anything done. And he's going to argue that their hands aren't tied because they can and must stop Conoco from drilling. So we can replace the conclusion simply with the claim that the BLM must stop Conoco from drilling. Now we know how the argument ends. So let's take those premises and conclusion and number them pretty high, so that we can leave some room for the other premises that come before them. The next thing we need to do, is to get an argument for that central premise. Conoco does not have any valid right to drill. No here's what Redford said that the leases were originally issued without sufficient environmental study or public input, and in deciding to issue a permit now, the BLM didn't conduct a full analysis. Notice that they're two parts. To these claims. One is about the leases and the other is about the permit. Because in order to have a valid right to drill, Conoco needs to have a lease and a permit. Redford argues that there are problems with both the lease and the permit. But the considerations are a little different. So we need to separate those two parts into different arguments. The first part of this argument concerns the leases. He says that the leases were originally issued without sufficient environmental study or public input. Therefore, none of the leases conveyed a valid right to drill. Then the second part has to do with the permit. In deciding to issue a permit to drill now, the BLM did not conduct a full analysis therefore, none of the permits conveyed a valid right to drill. And the idea of the argument is going to be that the leases don't give them a right and the permits don't give them a right, so they ain't got no right. Wow, but that premise in that argument to show that the permit's not valid is a long premise with lots of different parts so we need to break it up. And we can figure out how to break it up by looking at the argument markers in the part of the passage that in effect constitute that premise. We know that there's a premise marker at the beginning. Once more, a discounting term. But, on the basis of, is an argument marker. Even, is a discounting term. And that breaks that long premise into parts so we can break them into A, the BLM did not conduct a full analysis of the environmental impacts of drilling on these incomparable lands. No full analysis. B, the BLM determined that there would be no significant environmental harm, okay? C, the BLM conducted only an abbrevieated review of the envorimental harm. And D, the BLM didn't even look at drilling on other federal leases. What about B? The BLM determined there would be no significant environmental impact. Well, that's what Redford opposes so that's not going to be part of his argument. How do the other three claims fit together, which is a reason for which? Well, now we're into a different step, namely organize the parts. And it's not completely clear. But it seems like Redford has 2 separate complaints. One is that the BLM did not look sufficiently hard at the environmental impact at this particular site the [UNKNOWN] plateau. The other complaint is that they didn't do a comparative analysis. And look at other leases on other federal lands to see, you know, what happens when drilling was allowed there. And when permits were issued in those other circumstances. So one claim is about this particular site and the other claim is a lack of comparison to other sites. These two points become even clearer in the next paragraph, if you remember that. There he said, first, I've spent considerable time on these extraordinary lands for years, and I know that an oil rig in their midst would have a major impact. So there, he's talking about the impact on this particular site on these particular lands. But right after that, he says, what's more. Indicating it's a separate argument, what's more. Conoco wants to drill a well to find oil. Inevitably, more rigs, more roads. New pipelines, toxic waste. And bright lights would follow to get the oil out. There he seems to be suggesting if he had just looked over at the other leases, you'd find that when you allow oil drilling a lot more happens than you ever expected to begin with. I'm, of course, not agreeing with this. It might be true or it might not. My point is that, this is the structure of Redford's own claims that make up his own argument. So there are two separate ways in which the review failed to be full. The first is that the BLM conducted only an abbreviated review, in the sense that they didn't look carefully at this particular site itself. And the second, is that the BLM didn't look at drilling in other places. Therefore, the conclusion is the BLM did not conduct a full analysis, that seems to be what Redford's saying in this particular sentence. Now let's bring it all together and clean it up a little bit in the process. One, all of Conoco's leases were originally issued without sufficient environmental study or public input. That's supposed to support two, none of Conoco's leases give it a valid right to drill. Then three, the BLM conducted an abbreviated review, they didn't look as carefully as they should've at the lands. Four, the BLM didn't look at drilling on lands under the other federal leases. This is the comparative claim. And those two are supposed to support five. The BLM did not conduct a full analysis. And whats that's supposed to show is that, six, its permit does not give Conoco a valid right to drill. Therefore, seven which is supposed to follow from two and six. Conoco does not have a valid right to drill. A, if Conoco does not have a valid right to drill then the BLM must not allow Conoco to drill. Therefore, the BLM must not allow Conoco to drill. Make sense? Seem fair? Hope so. I think it's a pretty good reconstruction of what Redford had in mind.

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