Informal Logic

PHIL.105 / Summer 2024

Aran Arslan
Bogazici University

Why Should We Become Critical Thinkers? (1)

When we ask the question “Why?” we are asking for a reason for doing what we are being
enjoined to do, or for believing what we are enjoined to believe. When we ask for a reason in
this way we are asking for a justification for taking the action recommended or accepting the
belief that ought to motivate us to act or believe as we are recommended to do.

To attempt to persuade by giving reasons is to give an argument.

 Two senses of argument: According to one sense, the word ‘argument’ means a
disagreement – shouting the odds, slamming doors, insults, sulking, etc.

“Many people think that arguing is simply stating their prejudices in a new form. This
is why many people also think that arguments are unpleasant and pointless. One
dictionary definition of “argument” is “disputation.” In this sense we sometimes say
that two people “have an argument”: a verbal fistfight. It happens often enough. But it
is not what arguments really are” (Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments RA)

According to another sense, the sense relevant to our course, one gives or presents an
argument when one gives or provides some reasons for acting in some way or
believing something. Neither sense requires the other. The subject matter of critical
thinking is the latter sense.

“Some philosophers and activists have argued, for instance, that the factory farming of
animals for meat causes immense suffering to animals and is therefore unjustified and
immoral. Are they right?... Many issues are involved – we need to examine the
arguments.

- Do we have moral obligations to other species, for instance, or is only

human suffering really bad?
- How well can humans live without meat?
- Are vegetarian diets healthier given that some vegetarians have lived to
very old ages? Or might healthier people tend to become vegetarians rather
than vice versa?

All of these questions need to be considered carefully, and the answers are not clear in
advance…It is not a mistake to have strong views. The mistake is to have nothing
else” (Weston, RA).

 In this course, we are interested only in arguments that use (written or spoken)
language. But this does not need to deny that images can also occur in arguments. We
see on television, for example, a shot of dead fish in a dirty pond; a voice says, “This
is why we must strengthen the anti-pollution laws”. In this sort of case we can think of
the image as implicitly stating a premise.

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Reasons for why we better have arguments

 Having arguments is liberating: if you develop your ability to analyze people’s

attempts to persuade, then you can begin to liberate yourself from accepting what
others try to persuade you of without knowing whether you actually have a good
reason to be persuaded. (And liberating oneself from uncontrolled external influences
is better than subjecting oneself to them.)

“From everyday life to politics, science, philosophy, and even religion, arguments are
constantly offered to us for our consideration, and we may in turn offer back our own.
Think of an argument as a way to make your own place within these unfolding,
ongoing dialogues. What could be better than that?” (Weston, RA)

 Having arguments gets you closer to truth: only through analyzing, interpreting and
evaluating the evidence for and against a certain hypothesis, you can know whether it
is true or not. (And truth matters.)

 Having arguments are sometimes vitally important: there are various life situations in
which the ability to interpret and evaluate a person’s case properly may be crucial to
that person’s well-being, or even to their remaining alive.

Rhetoric versus Argument

Rhetoric is any verbal or written attempt to persuade someone to believe, desire or do

something that does not attempt to give reasons for the belief, desire or action, but attempts to
motivate that belief, desire or action solely through the power of the words used.

Arguments appeal to your critical faculties, your reason. Rhetoric tends to rely on the
persuasive power of certain words and verbal techniques to influence your beliefs, desires and
actions by appeal to your desires, fears and other feelings.

The use of rhetorical techniques should generally be avoided by those who aspire to think
critically and to persuade by reason.

Analyzing arguments

Merely having an argument need not sufficiently support or motivate the recommended action
or belief: the support an argument actually provides for believing something might be less
than the support required for believing it. In short, an argument might be bad: a reason is
provided but it is not good enough to support the recommended action or belief. So, the mere
fact that we are given an argument does not provide sufficient grounds for our believing the
thing the argument is recommending us to believe. What is needed is to see whether a given
argument is good, and for that purpose we need to analyze that argument.

When analyzing arguments we have to perform three tasks:

(i) The crucial first stage involves distinguishing whether an argument is being
presented. We need to identify the issue being discussed, and determine whether
or not the writer or speaker is attempting to persuade by means of argument.

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 (ii) Once we have established that the writer/speaker is presenting an argument, we
can move to the task of reconstructing the argument so as to express it clearly,
and so as to demonstrate clearly the steps and form of the argument’s reasoning.
(iii) A clear reconstruction makes our third and final stage – evaluating the argument,
asking what’s good about it and what’s bad about it – much easier to perform and
to justify.

Argument and truth

Arguments can be understood as attempting to provide reasons for thinking that some claim is
true.

To say that a claim is true is to say that what is claimed is how things actually are.
(Correspondence theory of truth: “To say of what it is that it is not, or of what it is not that it
is, is false, while to say of what it is that it is, or of what it is not that it is not, is true”
(Aristotle), “A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality” (Thomas
Aquinas).)

Structure of arguments

A single claim does not constitute an argument. An argument needs more than one claim: it
needs the claim of which the arguer hopes to convince the audience, plus at least one claim
offered in support of that claim. The former is called the conclusion, and the latter
premise(s). A formal definition of an argument goes as follows:

An argument is a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are
premises, intended as support for the conclusion. (A proposition is the content expressed by a
declarative sentence on a particular occasion. The same proposition may be expressed by
different sentences, and different propositions may be expressed by the same sentence.)

Propositional Content versus Rhetorical Force and Implicature

Rhetorical force is the emotive or otherwise suggestive window-dressing surrounding the

propositional content of a sentence. The sentence in question can reasonably be taken to
express this rhetorical message given the linguistic conventions according to which the words
are normally used.

Compare: “She is a single mum” and “She is bringing her children on her own”, the
former might manipulate our sympathies concerning the person in question.

Compare: (a) Miss X sang “Home Sweet Home.”

(b) Miss X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the
score of “Home Sweet Home.”

Suppose that a reviewer has chosen to utter (b) rather than (a) (Grice, Logic and
Conversation). The rhetorical message is that Miss X’s performance suffered from
some hideous defect.

Consider: “X is meeting a woman this evening.” (Grice, Logic and Conversation)

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 The rhetorical message is that the person to be met was someone other than X’s wife,
mother, sister, etc.

Implicature is meaning, which is not stated, but which one can reasonably take to be intended,
given the context in which the sentence is written or uttered. Unlike rhetorical force, in order
to recognize implicature, if there is any, we need to know the context in which a statement is
made. Contextual factors include who the speaker is, who she is addressing and the
circumstances surrounding the particular use of the sentence.

I say to an obstreperous visitor, “There is the door,” meaning that the visitor is to leave
now. But the sentence “There is the door” does not mean “You are to leave now,” nor
could I be described as having come out and said that the visitor is to leave. I say one
thing, and I mean another. (Lycan, Philosophy of Language)

Jones: By the way, did you get the message I left for you a couple of days ago? I’ve
been waiting for your response.
Smith: I’ve been away all week and just got back in town this minute. (Taylor, Truth
and Meaning)

Smith’s utterance in this context carries the implicature that he has not yet seen Jones’
message. The utterance of the very same sentence need not carry this implicature in
other contexts. Note that the implicature is not logically entailed by what Smith literally
says. Even if the implicature is false, what Smith says might still be true. Hence, the
implicature is not a part of the truth conditions of Smith’s utterance.

The standard form of arguments

We can formalize a given argument by numbering the premises P1, P2, and so on, and
drawing a line between the last premise and the conclusion, which we mark with a ‘C’. The
line between the premises and conclusion is called an inference bar, and its purpose is to
distinguish steps in reasoning. The bar should be read as standing for ‘therefore’. This style of
setting out arguments is called standard form. To set out arguments in standard form is to
reconstruct the argument, and the end product is called a reconstruction of the argument, or an
argument-reconstruction.

Identifying conclusions

 Once you have decided that a passage or speech contains an attempt to persuade by
argument, try to see what the main point of the passage or speech is. Ask what the
point the speaker or author is trying to establish. That will be the conclusion. (When it
comes to reconstruction, paraphrasing the conclusion may be needed.)

 The premises and conclusions of arguments should ideally be expressed in declarative

sentences, but in real-life arguments they may be expressed otherwise. (When
reconstructing arguments, you may need to rewrite premises and conclusions as
declarative sentences for achieving higher clarity.)

 Sometimes we argue for one point, then a second, and then use those conclusions as
premises in an argument for another conclusion. These chains of arguments are known
as extended arguments.

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  Conclusion indicators: phrases that usually indicate the presence of a conclusion.
They include therefore, hence, thus, implies, establishes, follows from the fact that,
because, is implied by, and so on. (Looking for conclusion indicators is usually a
helpful procedure for identifying the conclusion, but bear in mind that the fact that a
text does not include an indicator word is not always a reliable reason for thinking that
it does not have a conclusion!)

 Indicator words are not parts of the propositions that the argument comprises, rather
they frame the conclusion and premises. (When reconstructing the arguments, omit
indicator words from the reconstruction.)

 Implicit conclusions: only implied or suggested by the text, not explicitly expressed
by it. (In the name of clarity, try to avoid implicit conclusions.)

Identifying premises

 Ask yourself what the person’s reasons for believing the conclusion are.

 Premise indicators: phrases that usually indicate the presence of a premise. They
include because, is implied by, my reason is, my evidence for this is, on the basis of
the fact that, this is so because, and so on.

 When reconstructing arguments, take care not to include the premise indicators as they
are not part of the argument. (Later in this course, an exception about some uses of
‘since’ and ‘because’ will be introduced.)

 Implicit premises: only assumed or intended by the arguer as reasons in support of

the conclusion, but not actually expressed. (Try to avoid implicit premises.)

The Monty Hall Problem

Suppose that you are in a game show (“Let’s Make a Deal!”), and presented with 3 doors (A,
B, and C):

(1) There are two goats and 1 car (one for each door).
(2) You prefer the car to the goat.
(3) You are invited to pick a door (let us say, A).
(4) The game show host (“Monty Hall”) knows behind which door the car is, and
opens one of the remaining doors (let us say, B).
(5) The game host gives you the option of switching the door you pick: you can now
either switch to C or keep A.

Which choice (stick or switch) raises the chances of your winning the car?

The obvious answer is that it does not make any difference to switch or not switch. In either
case, the chances of winning the car is the same: 50 % or 0.5. After all, there are two doors
remaining, behind only one of which is the car and you do not know which. From your own
perspective, it seems that the chances must be the same.
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***

Where is the problem?

The puzzle here attracted the general attention when Marilyn vos Savant, listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records for having the “World’s Highest IQ” for some time,
answered a reader’s question (the Monty Hall Problem) in her weekly column “Ask Marilyn”
in Parade Magazine in 1991.

Her reply was that “Yes, you should switch. The first door has a 1/3 chance of winning, but
the second door has 2/3 chance.” So, according to vos Savant, switching the door doubles
your chances of winning the car!

Vos Savant’s reply generated a heated controversy, and she received over 10,000 letters, a
good amount of which from math professors and Ph.D.s, ridiculing and scorning her. Here is a
representative sample:

You blew it, and you blew it big! Since you seem to have difficulty grasping the basic
principle at work here, I’ll explain. After the host reveals a goat, you now have one-in-
two chance of being correct. Whether you change your selection or not, the odds are
the same. There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don’t need
the world’s highest IQ propagating more. Shame! (Scott Smith, PhD, University of
Florida)

May I suggest that you obtain and refer to a standard textbook on probability before
you try to answer a question of this type again? (Charles Reid, PhD, University of
Florida)

I am sure you will receive many letters on this topic from high school and college
students. Perhaps you should keep a few addresses for help with future columns
(Robert Smith, PhD, Georgia State University)

You are the goat! (Glenn Calkins, Western State College)

Maybe women look at math problems differently than men. (Don Edwards, Sunriver,
Oragon)

Only 8% of all readers, and only 35% of academicians, had previously believed that her
answer is correct.

Martin Gardner: “In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in
probability theory.”

Why does switching double the chances of winning the car?

 A common misconception: two options (or choices) always means 50-50 chances.

 Vos Savant warning: “The winning odds of 1/3 on the first choice can’t go up to 1/2
because the host opens a losing door.”

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 Sticking with the first door cannot improve my chances no matter what!

 An exaggerated modification of the problem that makes the answer relatively clear:

Imagine that there were a million of doors. After you have chosen your door, Monty
opens all but one of the remaining doors, showing you that they are “losers”. It is
obvious that your first choice is wildly unlikely to have been right. And is not it
obvious that of the other 999,999 doors that you didn’t choose, the one door he
avoided opening is wildly likely to be the one with the prize?
(www.montyhallproblem.com)