Standardizing an Argument:

Prose Form:

This is not a good house to break into because the lights are out and there is a dog barking.


Standard Form:

1. Because the lights are out and
2. Since there is a dog barking
Therefore
3. This is not a good house to break into.


Prose Form:

Thomas is the murderer because only one person was at the scene at the time of the crime and that person was Thomas.

Standard Form:

1. Because only one person was at the scene at the time of the crime and
2. Since that person was Thomas.
Therefore,
3. Thomas is the murderer.

Arguments Illustrating Sub-Arguments:

Prose:

Censorship is acceptable only if it can be easily enforced but censorship cannot be easily enforced. Therefore censorship is not acceptable.

Standard Form:

1. Since censorship is acceptable only if it can be easily enforced and
2. Because censorship cannot be easily enforced
Therefore
3. Censorship is not acceptable.

Argument with Sub-Argument:

Prose:

Censorship is acceptable only if it can be easily enforced. But censorship cannot be easily enforced. The main problem with enforcement is determining which works will not be censored. Therefore, censorship is not acceptable.

Standard Form:

1. Since censorship is acceptable only if it can be easily enforced and
2. Because the main problem with enforcement is determining which works will not be censored,
Thus,
3. Censorship cannot be easily enforced
Therefore,
4. Censorship is unacceptable.

Argument with a Rhetorical Question:

Prose:

It is not mere hubris to argue that homo sapiens is special in some sense - for every species is unique in its own way. Shall we judge among the dance of the bees, the song of the humpback whale, and human intelligence?

Standard Form:

1. We should not judge between the dance of the bees, the songs of the humpback whale, and human intelligence.
Thus,
2. Every species is unique in its own way.
Therefore,
3. It is not mere hubris to argue that homo sapiens is special in some way.

Another Example:

Shouldn’t the comma be placed here and shouldn’t that word be capitalized?

Standard Form:

1. Because the comma should be placed here and
2. Since that word should be capitalized,
I conclude that
3. Your sentence displays poor grammar.

Argument with Two Conclusions:

Prose:

Labour is the basis of all property. From this it follows that a man owns what her makes by his own hands and the man who does not labour has no rightful property.

Standard Form:

1. Since labour is the basis of all property,
Hence,
2. A man owns what he males by his own hands and
3. The man who does not labour has no rightful property.

Types of Premises: Linking & Convergent:

Convergent Premises:

Hurricanes are dangerous and extremely unpleasant events because they can kill people and they can destroy buildings. Furthermore they can displace people from their homes.

Standard Form:

1. Because they can kill people and
2. Since they can destroy buildings and
3 .Given they they can displace people from their homes
Thus,
4. Hurricanes are dangerous and extremely unpleasant events.

Linking Premises:

Anything that can be considered dangerous should be avoided. Hurricanes are dangerous. therefore they should be avoided.

Standard Form:

1.Given that anything that can be considered dangerous should be avoided and
2. Since hurricanes are dangerous
Therefore,
3. They should be avoided.

Missing or Unstated Premises:

Because people need tickets to be admitted to the theatre, hence you cannot be admitted to the theatre.

Standard Form:

1. Because people need tickets to be admitted to the theatre and
3. Since you do not have a ticket
Therefore,
2. You cannot be admitted to the theatre.


Another Example:

We cannot bake a cake because we have no flour.

Standard Form:

1. Because we have no flour
3. Since flour is need to bake cake
Therefore
2. We cannot bake cake.

Argument with Missing or Unstated Premise:

No, of course, I’m not going to vote for Saunders. Do you take me for a fool?

Standard Form:

1. Since I’m not a fool (Nobody takes me for a fool) and
3. Because only a fool would vote for Saunders,
Hence,
2. I’m not going to vote for Saunders.


Conclusions - “sweeping in scope”:

All physics students are good at math.
Most physics students are good at math.
Many physics students are good at math.
Some physics students are good at math.
No physics students are good at math.

Degree of Commitment:

1. There is no doubt that this team is better than the one we saw last year.
2. It is possible that the hurricane will hit Louisiana.
3. We might get hot weather today.

Missing or Unstated Conclusions: find them

1. Did I murder Clyde? I was in jail when he was killed.

2. We make the best stir-fried chicken in town.

3. The bigger the burger, the better the burger. The burgers at Burger King are bigger burgers.

Homework

Standardize each of the following passages; think how you would analyze and diagram them.

1. If a car has reliable brakes, it has brakes that work in wet weather. The brakes on my car don’t work very well in wet weather. You can see that my car does not have reliable brake.

2. Every event must have a cause. Yet the series of causes must stop somewhere. It cannot go back to infinity. Therefore there must be a First Cause, which is God.

3. Either the butler committed the murder or the judge committed the murder. Since the butler was madly in love with the victim, it was not he who committed the murder. therefore, the judge committed the murder.

4. Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity.

5. Since we are not under an obligation to give aid unless aid is likely to be effective in reducing starvation or malnutrition, we are not under an obligation to give aid to countries that make no effort to reduce the rate of population growth that will lead to catastrophe.

6. Of all the forms of crime, bank robbery is the most satisfactory too both the individual and society. The individual of course gets lots of money, that goes without saying, and he benefits society by putting large amounts of cash into circulation. The economy is stimulated, small businessmen prosper , people read about the crime with great interest and the police have a chance to exercise their skills. Good for all.

7. No one has a right to use a relatively unreliable procedure in order to decide to punish another. Using such a system, he is in no position to know that the other deserves punishment: hence he has no right to punish him.

8, There is no point in getting your first elementary education in some other language if your native language is English, because English is the language of world business and world scholarship, and English is the most important language a person can learn to speak and write.

9. Individuals are not reliable in their judgments and  groupware made of individuals, so groups probably are not reliable in their judgments either.

10. The black hole is a key scientific concept that is virtually impossible for non experts to comprehend. The notion of antimatter is a real metaphysical paradox. And there is no understanding of what causation means when we come to the context of elementary physical particles. thus, we can see that modern physics is a mysterious subject indeed.

11. Descartes influenced Pascal and Pascal influenced Sartre. Therefore Descartes influenced Sartre.

Missing Premises:

For each of the following arguments, put them in standard form, add the missing premise, number them properly.

1. If global climate is getting warmer, then winters on Canadian prairies should be less cold. Bu they are not. So, what can we conclude from that? (Add the missing conclusion as well).

2. Butterflies need warm air and sunlight to breed. So the conservatory at the zoo is the  perfect place for them. (there are two missing premises in this example)

3. Mad cow disease spreads because of a certain form of protein that is not destroyed by disinfecting efforts, even at high temperatures. Because we can’t control the way it spreads, the disease is very serious.

4. If Nature had meant for us to fly through the air, we would have been born with wings. Were we born with wings? So i ask you, are we meant to fly through the air?

5. She’s a librarian. So she highly intelligent.

6. Only individuals can be friends. Therefore, it’s a mistaker to think countries can be friends.

7. Any busy person is at risk of illness caused by stress. So all mothers run those risks.

8. Language is necessary for communication and communication is necessary for the advancement of civilization. Therefore language is necessary for the advancement of civilization. because language is necessary for human advancement, any attempt to censor language will restrict tat advancement. Therefore censorship of written materials is always wrong. (there are two missing premises in this argument).

Arguments Illustrating Indicator Words.

1. Hey Joan, you better take your feet off the coffee table because mom’s about to enter the house.

2. Everyday we see innocent children being killed in some way all over the world. This shows that life has no meaning.

3. Since capital punishment deters crime and because it guarantees that a killer can never kill again, we can conclude that capital punishment ought to be permitted.

4. Capital punishment should not be an option because an innocent person may be executed and there are cases where persons have been executed who have turned out to be innocent.

5. Given that capital punishment deters crime and seeing that it guarantees that a killer can never kill again, it follows that capital punishment ought to be permitted.

6. Capital punishment should not be an option since an innocent person may be executed and there have been cases where persons have been executed who have turned out to be innocent.

7. He has a bomb, so he’s dangerous.

8. He’s dangerous because he has a bomb.

9. He has a bomb, then he must be dangerous.

10. He’s dangerous, the reason being that he has a bomb.

Indicator Words:

Premise Indicators:

since
because
given that
on the grounds that
as shown by
in view of the fact that
seeing that
as
due to the fact that
being that
assuming that
for the reason that
inasmuch as
for the reason being that

Conclusion Indicators:

therefore
thus
consequently
which implies that
it follows that
we can conclude that
so
hence
as a result
it must be that
ergo
in conclusion
it follows that
it demonstrates that
it shows that

An Argument Without a Conclusion Being Stated and Missing Indicators.

John: I think earth is the only place in the universe where life has flourished and developed.
Judy: I doubt it. The universe is infinite. It can’t be  that in an infinite universe only one place has the special features needed for life.

Examples of Explanations/Theories:

1. John broke his arm because he fell off the ladder when he was painting the house.

2. Natasha bought her wedding dress yesterday because her wedding day is quickly approaching and could not afford to wait any longer.

3. Mary threw the apple in the garbage because it had become stale.

4. I believe what the Bible tells me because my mother told me to do so.

Further Examples of Explanations:

1. Janet took her jacket because the weather report says it is very cold today.

2. Look the streets are wet. And I know why. It rained last night.

3. You don’t like me, don’t you? I know - I’m ugly.

4. Birds are not mammals because to be considered a mammal you have to have been born alive and you are breast-fed. Birds are not like that.

5. She went home because her mother was ill.

Explanation or Argument?

Derek is the best math student in the class because he’s the only one in the class that gets to go to that special math school in the evening.

Homework Exercise in Recognizing Arguments

Determine whether not the following passages contain an argument.

1. People normally believe what others tell them unless there is reason to be suspicious. This reliance on other people is called depending on testimony

2. The sun was setting on the hillside when he left. The air had a peculiar smoky aroma, the leaves were beginning to fall and he senses all around him the faintly melancholy atmosphere that comes when summer and summer romances are about to end.

3. To know any claim with certainty you have to know you are awake. To know you are awake, you have to prove you are awake. Nobody can prove they are awake. Therefore no one can know any claim with certainty.

4. Jane was a better tennis player than Peter.

5. Every loyal citizen must demonstrate his loyalty to the state by taking an oath. To be credible, that oath must be sworn on a religious text. No atheist can swear an oath on a religious text. So we can see that no atheist can demonstrate his loyalty to the state.

5. Mathematics is not the foundation of the sciences because it is not a science at all.

6. If all goes well, the reactor and the steam generator in a nuclear power plant of the pressurized water variety maintain a stable, businesslike relationship such as might obtain between two complimentary monopolies. The reactor can be thought of as selling heat to the stream generator.

7. If you want to be successful in business on a long term basis, you must match your operational expertise with an ethical code of conduct practiced in every phase of your business.

8. Every morning we wake up. how do we do it? What is happening when awareness dawns? Why do we need to be conscious? Where are we when we sleep or when we die?

9. The cause of the confusion was an ambiguous ext sign.

10. It is not essential to be tall to Be good at basketball. The point is that basketball teams often have players of average height who make contributions to the game through fast running and ex-pert passing.

11. Good health depends on good nutrition. Good nutrition requires an adequate budget to buy whole foods rather than processed foods. Therefore, good health requires a budget adequate to buy some whole foods, not process foods.

12. It is well known that dolphins, whales and elephants communicate with each other. In fact, even bees communicate with each other. So, human beings are not the only animals that communicate.

13. Only if they are meticulous about cleanliness and preventive measures can hospitals hope to prevent the spread of disease on their premises. The local hospital is not meticulous about cleanliness and preventive measures. Consequently, we can expect that it will not manage to prevent the spread of disease.

14. If a person knows in advance that his actions risk death, then when he voluntarily takes those actions, he accepts a risk of death. These conditions surely apply to mountain climbers. Thus, people who climb mountains have accepted risk of death.


15.The only way you can license nuclear power plants and no have murder is if you could guarantee perfect containment. But they admit they’re not going to contain it perfectly. So, licensing nuclear power plants is licensing murder.