A useful concept

One concept that I found useful in chapter 15 was section 8 which is titled "criteria for cause and effect." There are necessary conditions for there to be cause and effect. In the book Epstein list six different criteria for cause and effect.

The six necessary criteria for cause and effect are;

• The cause happened (claim describing it is true).
• The effect happened (claim describing it is true).
• The cause precedes the effect.
• It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal condition.
• The cause makes a difference - if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true).
• There is no common cause

The reason why I found this section to be really useful was because even though the section was short, it had a lot of useful information. I think the most important criteria would be the first two because it defines any cause and effect problem.

What was useful about the Mission Critical website?

What was useful about the Mission Critical website?

There were many things that I found useful from the mission critical website that was provided. After reading through the information provided on the website, I was able to understand the subject a lot better because of all the information on the website. The website had many different parts such as "parts of an argument," "basic relations," "analysis of arguments," "fallacies and non rational persuasion," and "other common fallacies." On the mission critical website under the "parts of argument" tab, i found the information provided for statements to be very helpful. A statement or claim can be divided into a sentence that is either true or false, and a sentence that "cannot." Only a few sentences cannot be true or false. Sentences such as "just do it!" and "why not?" Statements or claims are sentences that fall under the "true or false" category. We can categorize statements by three qualities; "where they are verifiable, evaluative, or advocatory claims," "where they are specific or, if non-specific, whether the qualification strengthens or weakens the claim," and "whether they serve as conclusions, premises, or support in an argument."

What was useful about the Cause and Effect website?

What was useful about the Cause and Effect website?

There were many things that I found useful from the cause and effect website that was provided. After reading through the information provided on the cause and effect website, I was able to understand the subject a lot better. I was also able to get a better understanding of the two. The website had examples which supported and demonstrated what cause and effect were. In the website it states that there are three factors which casual argument relies on. Those three factors are; how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is, how likely the case for causation seems to be, and how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is. Another thing I really liked from the website was the exercise that was provided. They exercise was a multiple choice exercise and they gave four different potential answers and wrote a small paragraph explaining why the wrong answers were wrong and why the right answer was right.

Criteria Reasoning

One concept that I found difficult to understand to understand want "criteria reasoning." The examples provided on my classmate blogs did help me understand the concept a lot because of all the different examples given. Criteria reasoning is when you place a criteria in a statement that will make it seem more valid and accurate. One should start be looking at the criteria by how the outcome of the decision by judged. I had the hardest time trying to find an example for criteria reasoning in my first post for this week because I did not understand criteria reasoning that well. The example that I used in my previous post was how employers look at certain criteria's on your resume when you apply for a job. They look for certain things such as your education level, your previous work experience, and other activities. Employers look at certain criteria to fill the position that they are currently hiring for.

Important concept in chapter 12

A concept in chapter 12 that I found important in chapter 12 was "judging analogies." When judging analogies, it is very important to survey the importance of similarities and guess the more important one that we find a general principle that will be able to apply to both sides of the argument. The example given in the book that I found useful for explaining this analogy was that Tom was talking about how homosexual marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage because every child needs both a mom and a dad. Not two parents of the same sex. Tom believes that a constitutional amendment will protect the sanctity of marriage. The same argument can be used against divorced family because a child needs both a mom and dad. If there is a law that will outlaw homosexual marriage then there should also be a law that outlaw divorces.

Different types of reasoning

There are seven different types of reasoning.

The first type of reasoning is reasoning by analogy. Reasoning of analogy is basically an analogy statement of two similar things that are compared to each other. An example of this is "riding bmx is like playing a video game. The more you ride, the better you get."

The second type of reasoning is sign reasoning. An example of sign reasoning is "if there is loud music coming from a house, then there must be a party going on inside the house." Sign reasoning can be a linked cause and effect. In the example just because there is loud music coming from the house, doesn't mean there is a party going on inside.

The third type of reasoning is causal reasoning. An example of this is "I walked over a nail so my foot is now bleeding." Causal reasoning is that any cause can lead to a certain effect such as how walking over a nail can cause your foot to bleed.

The fourth type of reasoning is reasoning by criteria. Reasoning of criteria is comparing or looking at certain criteria. An example of this is when people look over your resume, they are looking for certain criteria of the resume such as previous work experience and education.

The fifth type of reasoning is reasoning by example. Reasoning by example is using examples in an argument. An example of this is "I was so bored until I bought a Playstation 3. Now i am never bored."

The sixth type of reasoning is inductive reasoning. An example of inductive reasoning is, "All soccer players we know are fast, therefore all soccer players are fast.

The seventh type of reasoning is deductive reasoning. An example of deductive reasoning is "All MMA fighters are strong. Jake Shields is an MMA fighter, so Jake Shields is strong."

Page 19 exercise #4

Make up an appeal to some emotion for the next time a traffic officer stops you.

"I'm sorry bu officer th reason why i was speeding was ecause my parents were unableworka to pick uup my little sister from school so they called me to pick her up. I was speding because i didn't wnt her to wait at school all alone at school."

I know this actually works because I have used it before. This typ of appeal to emotion is the appeal to pity. The officer would not want to keep you there any longer because would not want your litle sister to be left all alone with no one to pick her up. Any officer would let you go without giving you a speeding ticket because you have a legitimate reason to be speeding. Everyone knows how important it is to pick up their child from school, and everyone knows how dangerous it is to be leaving kids alone on the streets.

Appeal to Spite

An appeal that I found interesting that we have not discussed yet is "appeal to spite." This is interesting to me before appealing to spite is "the hope of revenge." This idea revolves around the idea of getting even with someone. Appeals to spite is also when someone will try to attempt certain things during an argument such as taking advantage of existing feelings of bitterness. The example given in the book for this concepts revolves around someone name Tom and someone named Dick. Tom's car is not working and Tom is asking Dick to help push his car. Another person name Zoe is asking Dick why he is helping Tom push his car when the week before, Tom didn't help Dick when help was needed. The premise that makes this argument strong is not helping someone who has refused to help you recently. Appeal to spite "often invokes the "principle" that two wrongs make a right." (Epstein pg. 193.)

Appeals to Emotion

Appealing to the audiences emotion plays a major role in their reasoning. Appealing to emotion is a type of argument that will connect to your audience through their emotions. People will make good or bad decisions because of their emotions. A type of appeal to emotions is appealing to someone's fear. An appeal to fear is a fallacy in which a person will attempt to support their idea by using deception to increase fear towards an idea. Appealing to fear is most commonly used in politics and in marketing. An example of appealing to someone's fear is "if you do not graduate high school, then you will never be successful in life." This is an appeal to fear that if often advertised in high school to make students believe that the only way they can be successful is to have an education. Without an education, students will never be successful in life and will only be able to get a job where they get paid the minimum wage.