Firstly, a thing is a thing. An apple is an apple and not a pear. There are distinct categories. But there are ‘becomings’ and ‘transformations’. For example, a woman starts to learn guitar, to become a professional musician. The point where she crosses from ‘learning guitar’ to ‘being a musician’ isn’t specific. You can make a STATEMENT about her. She is a woman. This is a fact and, sensibly, cannot be argued with. It’s a DECLARATIVE STATEMENT. But to say she is a musician, is an EVALUATIVE statement. It’s not a definite category. It is open to argument. It’s subjective. One person could legitimately say yes and another person could legitimately say no.
STATEMENTS ARE DECLARATIVE OR EVALUATIVE – There’s black and white and shades of grey
The fact she is a woman is directly related to the world. It’s a direct observation. If she’s a musician or not is based on an idea, thinking about a category that is subjective. Genetic women have two X chromosomes, but the criteria to be a musician isn’t directly observed, it’s based on thinking alone.
Yes, obviously, so what? This might all seem a bit irrelevant to a person journaling their thoughts to understand the contents of the mind, but when writing down their repeating ideas, essentially who they are, as a series of ideas that will form an argument, their idea about life that they are consciously and unconsciously living from. It creates their inner and outer world. Thus journals need to avoid being vague, but be specific and define terms. You need to think about essential terms when constructing the argument or it isn’t clear what you are talking about. There is no room to be vague, for example ‘immigrants steal’ What is stealing? Robbing banks, sleeping with the married (stealing loyalty), not returning a library book, stealing ideas? Language needs to be clear. Double negatives need to be avoided, such as ‘It is unlikely immigrants could not learn to steal’.
Never stop short in the search for causes. Why is something the way it is?
*WHY SO – WHY NOT?*
Perhaps someone might say, ‘all immigrants steal’. Then considering this category, and the generalization, the word ALL is a linguistic qualifier, in plain English, it means it lets the listener know if we are talking about the entire category ‘ALL’ and not ‘SOME’ – or ‘NONE’. So now we have something to work with in terms of evidence. Can you say, ‘all immigrants steal’ because if they do you wouldn’t be able to find an example of one who didn’t. And of course, you can. Thus the statement is logically false based on evidence, and that is the end of it. You can definitely say ‘SOME immigrants steal’, but then that would apply to all categories of human beings. You can say ‘NO dead people steal’, but that is pretty much the only category of people, based on evidence, that definitely don’t steal. So now we have some logical facts. The terms for this is universal (all) and particular (some).
Recap:
Logical Qualifiers (so you know exactly what your argument is):
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- All (universal)
- Some (particular)
- None
*CLARITY IS KING*
So an argument is reasoning. It’s not a collection of statements which are unrelated. It is one thing leading to another. It starts with the premise. The basic ‘proposition’ (what you suggest to be true (subject to reasoning)). For example: ‘All immigrants steal’. Then it goes on to a conclusion. Alice is an immigrant. Therefore, Alice steals. So the first premise is a known truth (here it’s not correct, obviously), then an inferential move, one thing leads to another. Alice is an immigrant. So the first two results in the third (conclusion (incorrect in this instance)), Alice steals.
Obviously, you need to make sure the premises are sound. If you cannot say ‘ALL’ (universal), then you have to switch to ‘SOME’ (particular).
To add a few technical terms. Predication is what is being talked about (immigrants) and the idea that is being attached (stealing) is the predicate. So predicate is linked to prediction. If you have a truth about something then you can guess what will happen (accurately) in the future.
There are negative and affirmative statements. Affirmative statements connect ideas, with a word like ARE, and negative statements disconnect ideas with a word like NOT. Not every black person steals. This disconnects the idea of immigrants and stealing.
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- ARE = CONNECTING IDEAS
- NOT = DISCONNECTING IDEAS
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A lot of reasoning involves making comparisons between groups of things. If two things are identical, then they are the same, and opposite things are not. Some things have similar characteristics. So mice and elephants are both animals, but only one goes squeak. So you can have a premise that because one thing is like another, then they might be the same in another way. For example, humans like to drink beer. Mice don’t like drinking beer; elephants and mice are both not humans, and so elephants might not like to drink beer. If liking beer is a human thing, then this would be sound. When making these comparisons, a prediction based on two things being similar, you need to consider all of the traits. If neither mice nor elephants like beer, it might not be the animal category that causes this. If slugs like beer, then it might be having a tail that is the relevant aspect (I don’t like beer and I don’t have a tail, so we might be onto something there).
Logical ualifi
JUDGE WHAT YOU KNOW
So arguments consist of these statements, and we need to consider the categories and be very specific. We need to really think about the words, the logical operators, and the statements made with them. Let’s take the word AND as an example. It’s sunny today, AND I’ll go for a walk. So it links these two statements simply and is known as a conjunctive argument.
OR. I’ll have tea OR coffee (but not both). If one is false, then the other is true. If you have coffee, then you cannot have tea also (or you would need to replace OR with AND). OR is known as the disjunctive argument.
IF … THEN. If it rains, THEN I’ll carry an umbrella. So this is a conditional argument; if the first one is true, then so is the second one; if the first one is false, the second one is also false (if it doesn’t rain, then you won’t carry an umbrella). The first one is the antecedent (rain), and the consequent is carrying an umbrella.
The logical operators also have symbols so you can look very clever indeed writing out arguments using them:
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- AND: Represented by the symbol ∧ (conjunction).
- OR: Represented by the symbol ∨ (disjunction).
- IF…THEN: Represented by the symbol → (implication).
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(If… (antecedent) then (consequent))
If you love me…Be promiscuous 