Useful 411… “Inferring and Implying”

In chapter 4 of the Epstein book, Epstein talks about inferring and implying at the end of chapter 4. Imply and infer means “ when someone leaves a conclusion unsaid, he or she is implying the conclusion. When you decide that an unstated claim is the conclusion, you are inferring that claim” (Epstein 74).  In the book, they used examples such as, “ Don’t forget we’re going to leave early for the beach tomorrow” said the father. The daughter came home at 3 in the morning and she was too sleepy to drive. The father implied that she should come home early so she can have a good nights rest and she can be up to drive early in the morning. He says one thing, and never states the conclusion. My own example is, “look at that car with all the dents on the car, she must not know how to drive”. I inferred that she didn’t know how to drive because the driver was a woman and the car has dents. Just because the car has dents doesn’t mean she don’t know how to drive. It can be that someone hit her car while its parked. Infer basically means a “conclusion about the unknown made on the basis of the known” (Cooper 22). So I know that her car is dent, but I made a conclusion.  

Internet Advertisement

Chapter 5 talks about accepting and rejecting claims, also when to accept or reject claims. It is either by your personal experience or other useful sources, such as the media, journal or someone you trust that is really reliable. There is a lot of false advertisement on the Internet nowadays because technology is becoming better and everyone knows how to use ads. I found three types of advertisement on the web and I wouldn’t choose so I posted these three pictures up. These pictures are an ad of Proactiv Solution, which is some type of cream to help people get rid of acnes or pimples. I never tried this, but my friends have and they have told me that it works. Now their skins are a little clearer than before. But I also have friends that told me that it does not work. So in order for me to know if it works or not, I have to try it myself.  That is what I did. I had 1 zit on my face a week before prom and I wanted to get rid of it quick. My friends suggested proactiv and I tried it. It did not work. :( To accept a claim or reject a claim, our most reliable resources are ourselves. I can trust my friends, but half of my friends said it worked for them and the others said it does not. Proactiv solution is using celebrities to false advertise their company to get more customers. Just because celebrities use the products, doesn’t mean that you should use it so you can clear up the acne. This product works on different types of skin, and if your skin is the type that it doesn’t work on, then the ad was false because you didn’t get the skin like the Justin Bieber or Jessica Simpson. The last add is aiming it at girls to use this product in order for them to get a boyfriend. This is a false advertisement. We should reject this ad because we know the claim contradicts other claims that we know to be true.  

Repairing Arguments

A repair argument means “ given an (implicit) argument that is apparently defective, we are justified in adding a premise or a conclusion if it satisfies all three of the following: 1. The argument becomes stronger or valid. 2. The premise is plausible and would seem plausible o the other person. 3. The premises are more plausible than the conclusion (Epstein 62).

My example is: All math teachers are hard. So Mr. Moran is a hard teacher.

The premise is “all math teachers are hard”, and the conclusion is “ so Mr. Moran is a hard teacher”.

Looking at the examples on the book made me understand how to repair arguments or if a sentence needs a repair. So the example I made did not have a good argument. It has a conclusion, but there are not enough premises to back up the conclusion. The word “so”, indicates that there is a conclusion. All math teachers are hard but Mr. Moran can be an English teacher, psychical education teacher, or even a history teacher. He does not have to be a math teacher. This example that I made does not have enough examples, premises to it. Therefore, adding more premises will make the sentence makes it weak, so this example that I made up is not repairable.

Structure of Argument

I chose the first one on the structure of argument exercise. Yes I do believe that there is an argument in this short paragraph. The conclusion is “It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property value”. There is no need to add additional premise. In my opinion, I believe the subargument is in sentence one and two because it is the  “conclusion that turns around and acts as a premise in support of a further conclusion”. I don’t think this is a good argument, but it is ok to start off with. It needs to be revised and add more details. I thought that this exercise was very useful because it tells me what I am doing, and what I am explaining. This exercise gives me a clear understanding on what I am doing and what I am missing; such as, a conclusion. If I was missing a conclusion, I would need to put one in or else I am giving the premises for no reason and nothing will make since. Another example, if I were missing an argument, it also wouldn’t be right. This is like an organizational chart, meaning a chart that tells you what you need to improve on or what you are doing that is good. This is very useful and I think it’s a good structure of making a good argument. 

Interesting 411

What I found useful in this weeks reading is in the book Group Communication by O’Hair and Wiemann. In Chapter 4, it talks about communicating in organizations. Organizational communication“ (O’Hair 54) is a process that involves the exchange of messages between organizational members or among members of different organizations”.  There are all different types of organizations, such as organizational culture, organizational relationships, organizational departments, organizational communication and etc. In communicating organizations, you have to have good relationship skills. You have to be able to interact with one another; for example, being a team leader and a team member, both will have to have good communication skills in order to get what needs to be done, completed. Another way to communicate is within networks, whether it’s centralized or decentralized. So everyone knows what networking is by now. If you have Facebook or Myspace, you are in a network, and you are networking. Networking refers to “communicating with others outside a single organization” (O’Hair 64). Whenever you meet new people, you are networking. It’s better to talk to strangers, so you can get into the network and have connections. This may be a good thing. All in all, organization culture is the main organization that sets up general culture to present exchange within the outside world. 

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

Many people have written many bad fallacies, and they do not even know that they are writing terrible ones. I for one admit that I have been writing many awful fallacies. I believe the definition of fallacy is when there is a false reasoning in an argument. Fallacy “A fallacy is a bad argument of one of the types that have been agreed to be typically unrepairable” (Epstein 199). There are six types of violation in the principle of rational discussions. There are “begging the question, strawman, shifting the burden proof, relevance, slanders, and ridicule”. A ridicule fallacy means when you try to mock someone, making them a joke in order to prove and convince what you are saying. An example would be “That shirt is so dreadful; you would see Lilly wear that type of stuff”. This is an example of ridicule fallacy because this sentence is mocking Lilly and the type of clothes she wears.

Plausible & Implausible Claims

Plausible claim is when there is a good given reason for one to believe that it is true. Now with implausible claim, it is the opposite. I know you can already guess what it means, but let me tell you. Implausible claim means we have no reason to believe that the claim is true. It is like if you have an argument with your parents because they think you are too young to go to a house party hosted by the popular football player/intelligent/cute guy in school. If you do not give good reasons to your parents, they will more than likely not let you attend the party, but if give them plausible reasons why you should go, they might just let. This happened to me this weekend. My room isn’t even messy and my mom says, “Clean your room now” and I said “why”? My mother would always reply back “because I said so”. That isn’t really convincing or believable. But there is always something about mothers that intimidates you, so you do what she tells you, or else…….

Good Arguments

A good argument is in which “the premises give good reason to believe that the conclusion is true” (Epstein 37). To get a good argument, the premises has to be reasonable, the premises has to be more practical than the conclusion. A couple examples I came up with are:

1.     “My best friends eyelashes are thin and short. Today it is thick, black, and long. Therefore, she put on false eyelashes”.

2.     “I saw Carissa walking in the car with a flower dress on. When she came out of the car, she had black Juicy Couture velour sweat suit on. Therefore, she changed in the car”. I think that this is a good example of a good argument because the premise gives a good reason to believe that the conclusion is true.

            Another good argument is when the sentence is strong, example,

3.                             Jessica: Who let the dog in the house? I’m not cleaning up his mess!

           Jessica’s sister: Your brother!

           Jessica: How do you know?

 Jessica’s sister: Well only you, mom, Jeremiah and I have the house keys. Mom is at work until 10 pm and we both were at school until now.

Strong & Valid Arguments

Strong and valid arguments are different from one another.  In a strong argument “with true premises is sometimes better than a valid one with the same conclusion” (Epstein 48). A valid argument means “no possible way for its premises to be true and the conclusion to be false” (Epstein 39). This weather has been really bi-polar. Some days it will be really hot and some days very dark and cloudy. My 4-month-old nephew got sick because one day it was burning up and the next day the temperature dropped 25 degrees. He is not immune to this world yet, and his little bitty body can’t handle it. So for an example of a strong argument would be, Jayden has a temperature of 110 degrees; therefore, Jayden has is sick with a fever. This is a valid argument because there is no way that the premises can be true and its conclusion to be false. An example of a strong argument would be, the doctors took Jayden’s body temperature and it was 110 degrees; therefore, Jayden is sick with a high fever. This is an example of a strong argument because it gives more details and you can prove that it’s true.  

Interesting 411

What I found very useful and interesting in chapter 2 is the descriptive and prescriptive claims. If a claim is descriptive, it says what is. Prescriptive on the other hand means it says what it should be. For example, they should legalize same sex marriages is a prescriptive claim because it says what it should be. But not all judgment claims are prescriptive. I think that descriptive and prescriptive claims are good to know for the future. Putting in a couple of words can make the sentence sound and mean different. An example of a descriptive claim would be something like this; Best Buy store sells a lot of electronic. This is what it is, not what should be because Best Buy already sells electronic items. I was with my BFF and last week marked the 1^st year since we have become friends. We were in the car and we passed a tattoo shop. My BFF said, “We should get matching BFF tattoos”. That is another example of a prescriptive claim. I never knew after all these years, that I have been using descriptive and prescriptive claims. 

Subjective & Objective Claims

Subjective claim is if you believe that someone’s claim is true or false by your feelings, thoughts, beliefs, emotions or opinions. Objective claim is a claim that whether it is true or false does not depend on what anyone thinks or believes. Objective claim is the opposite of subjective claim. Let’s say subjective claim means “from someone’s point of view”, and objective claim means “not from someone’s point of view”. My friend just tweeted the other day on twitter that “Twitter is better than Facebook”. This claim can be true or false. It is someone else’s opinion, therefore makes that claim subjective. My two-year-old niece and was watching TV, and she said, “Ronald McDonald is the mascot for McDonalds”. I was surprised because she is just two years old and she knew who the mascot was. This is an objective claim because this is not her point of view.