Thursday, September 29, 2011

Discussion questions week 4: #1

Repairing arguments is an important subject when considering human communication, the ability to change an argument in order to remove fallacies or add supporting evidence in order to change a poor argument into a strong or valid one.

An example of an argument in need of repair would be:
Dave's children are way too loud and out of control. Dave must be a bad father.

This argument needs to be repaired because of a lack of premise connecting the way Dave's children behave and the fact that Dave is a bad father. A proper sentence to interject after the first would be "Children misbehave and scream when there is a lack of a proper father figure." By adding this sentence after the first premise, but before the conclusion, the argument now becomes strong and valid. Through this slight addition we now have an initial believable premise, followed by a premise which provides evidence and delivers a logical progression to the final conclusion.

1 comment:

  1. This is a good example. I agree that it needs to be repaired because in my opinion, I don't think Dave should be blamed saying he is a bad father if his children are too loud and out of control. Sometimes, it might just be because his children wants attention from their dad, and that's why they are behaving this way. The statement needs to be stronger so it can show that it is believable. If the sentence contained that one sentence you said, "Children misbehave and scream when there is a lack of a proper father figure," then maybe more people would believe that Dave is a bad father. other than that, there are no proof that Dave is a bad father.

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