Chapter 3 in the Epstein text is thorough in its' descriptions and examples of what a good argument is, almost too thorough. Through reading the chapter, I felt that there were so many sections and definitions of what makes a good, valid, or strong argument, and that some of them didn't match up. The section that helped me understand exactly what a good argument is was the first section, titled: "Good Reason to Believe," where the true definition of a good argument was presented clear and simple. The section states that: "a good argument is one in which the premises give good reason to believe the conclusion is true" (Epstein, 37). I found this definition incredibly helpful, and I came back to it time and time again while working on creating my own examples.
Basically, the definition given in this section by Epstein incorporates many of the sections in the chapter into one statement. The "good reason' portion of the definition refers to the section "The Conclusion Follows From the Premises," pointing out that there needs to be a strong relation between the premises and conclusion. It also points out the differences between a strong and a weak argument.
I really found this section helpful. Hopefully you all will too.
I agree with you, in reading this section I found myself a bit confused. There were all kinds of examples and definitiond and I also found it a little confusing.Im glad that you said something because I was concerned that I was the only one having a hard time taking all of this in.Thank you for giving me a little direction on what to look for to clarify things up a little bit.When your trying to understand something and you keep reading and re-reading the same info over and over it begins to drive you a little crazy, so thank you.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post I never really noticed the differences between the sections until now. I am really glad you decided to point this flaw out from our book because now I think many of our class mates will see this and get a better understanding of some of the concepts we are learnign. I also wanted to say thank you for doing this, now maybe a few more of us can have an easier time with this class.
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