Hallo thar! I have a wonderful Critical Thinking A level exam on Monday and have heard it said that you remember 90% of what you teach other people so I thought I'd do some charity work for you good people and teach some of you how to argue properly.
Warning, epic tl;dr will ensure.
Critical reasoning for dummies.
Step one: Structure
The critical definition of an argument is a conclusion supported by one or more reason, obviously one reason makes for a pretty weak argument so it is preferable to have two.
What an argument is not:
An Opinion is just an expressed conclusion with no reasoning to back it up, if it has reasoning behind it then it is a solid argument.
Example of an Opinion:
:
I don't like that show, the guy sucked.
A reason is not given to support the conclusion therefore it is an opinion and will be torn to shreds in a decent debate.
A rant is something rather overzealously by some forumites here, it involves a round about argument which is superficially fine (apart from looking like a fucking mess) but has no depth to it at all.
Example of a rant:
:
Oh my God, I went down to the cinema today and the guy just would not let me in, he asked for my ID, stupid idiot, could he not see I was over 18. Compulsory ID checks are really really stupid because no-one ever remembers ID anyway so the very idea of someone checking it is stupid.
The key word here is
superficial
The next thing to be aware of in an argument after identifying that it
is actually an argument is by evaluating how plausible the conclusion is, by following the reasoning; this is assuming that the argument in question is inductive which 99% of all arguments ever are. A simple argument follows this simple pattern:
R1 + R2 + R3 = C
But that is not always the case, it is not a guaranteed thing that reasons will follow the same logical sequence or that the conclusion will be obvious.
A more complex argument would be this:
MC = (R1*R2) + R3 = IC > CR(4) + R5
Having the Main Conclusion at the start of an argument only serves to strengthen it while introducing symbiotic reasoning (Two reasons that strengthen eachother - 1*2) is another technique and finally reason 4 is a counter argument, more on those later :P.
And there you have the first part of my handy AS introduction to arguing the proper way. Naturally due to Sod's Law if you have read this far you are probably someone who knows all this and is about to correct me on it.
Just remember; with a flawless struture to your arguments you can make even the weakest 'Cursory glance forumer' proof. Note; nothing and I mean NOTHING is BM proof.
Next tiem I shall go over part two of our three part course Advanced Elements of an Argument. Be sure to tune in because I r seriously tired and need sleep.
Bai bai xxx
I don't take it till the 10th of June.
