FALLIBLE FOX

What is an Argument? (Arguments & Claims Part 1)

 

Understanding arguments is essential for understanding our own and others reasoning. First and foremost, the word "argument" has two meanings and we're referring to one in particular. What are we not talking about? When we refer to "argument" in this section of MAPS, we're not talking about a verbal fight between two or more people. Put that aside entirely.

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In the context we're interested in, an argument is a set of two or more statements that are related in a very specific way (we'll get to precisely what we mean by "statements" below). In an argument, an author or speaker provides one or more reasons (premises) for the audience to accept that a claim (conclusion) is true. For example, each of the following are claims that an person might make:

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• Cats are better than dogs.

• Climate change is due to human intervention.

• Self-driving cars are safe.

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Each one of these, by itself, is merely a truth claim (that doesn't mean it is true—it just means that it can be worded in such a way that it could be true or false). None of these are arguments, because they include no reason(s) that support them. However, once you add even one reason, they become arguments. For example:​

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• My cat is smarter than Steve's dog. Therefore, cats are better than dogs. 

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The above is now a simple argument. The author has provided a conclusion ("cats are better than dogs") and they've also provided a reason, or premise, for the conclusion ("my cat is smarter than Steve's dog"). Regardless of whether the premise is a good reason to accept the conclusion, what we have here is clearly an argument. Of course, you can probably see that the reason given is not a very good reason to accept the conclusion that cats are better than dogs. That is, it's a poor argument, but we'll get to that later. Right now, we're simply interested in what is and is not an argument.

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Why is it important to develop your understanding of arguments?

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Understanding argument helps us to see when we have good reasons for beliefs, communicate our own ideas more effectively, and make better sense of others' communications.

 

Think, for example, about your own beliefs. It's possible to arrive at a justifiable or true belief about some topic—say, homeopathy, MMR vaccines, or the shape of the earth—without personally having good reasons for holding the belief. That is, one can arrive at a belief that reflects reality without having constructed a good argument for the belief. Critically, though, without understanding what makes for a good argument, one might just as easily be persuaded to adopt flawed beliefs for no good reason (e.g., because an authority told you to believe it or because a friend shared with you a bad argument that you couldn't effectively critique). 

 

By contrast, when you can understand where your beliefs are coming from, you can pick apart the reasoning and discover flaws you didn't know were there. The same goes for when you're analyzing others' ideas. 

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It can be quite hard to identify arguments where they might be present in the media or in our own minds—they're often messily presented and littered with lots of superfluous content. Arguments are everywhere, but understanding the basics of more explicitly stated arguments—like the ones we'll look at here—is necessary before you start trying to deconstruct complex arguments in articles and podcasts. You need to know what you're looking for first.

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The first step toward being able to evaluate an argument is to be able to identify the components of an arguments and distinguish arguments from non-arguments. In the remainder of part 1, we'll break down the components of argument. In part 2, we'll separate arguments from non-arguments.

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Arguments are made of statements

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An argument is a group of statements: one conclusion and one or more premises (or the reasons upon which the conclusion is based). For something to qualify as a statement, it must be possible to state whether it is as true or false (regardless of whether it actually is true or false). The following, therefore, are statements:

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• The sky is blue.

• The sky is made of Swiss cheese.

• God exists.

• God does not exist.

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It doesn't matter if a statement is true, false, or impossible to prove—it's about whether you can preface it with "It is true that..." or "It is false that..."

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I can state, for example, that, "It is true that the sky is made of Swiss cheese." My having stated this does not make it true, but it does make it a statement! As such, "the sky is made of Swiss cheese" can be a premise or a conclusion in an argument. It would be a conclusion if I gave reasons that the the sky is made of Swiss cheese. It would be a premise if I use "the sky is made of Swiss cheese" to support some other conclusions, like this:

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• The sky is made of Swiss cheese. Therefore, we can all go up and have a delicious sky snack.

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That's, of course, a ridiculous argument, but I'm hoping you now see that it is an argument. It's made of two statements: a premise and a conclusion. Both can be rephrased with "It is true that..." at the beginning.

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By contrast, the following are not statements and so cannot, under any circumstances, be premises or conclusions in an argument:

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• Shut the door.

• Let's go to Niagara Falls!

• Are your shoes on backwards?

 

The above cannot reasonably be prefaced with "It is true that..." or "It is false that...". You can't say, "it is true that shut the door!" As such, "shut the door" is not a statement and, therefore, cannot be the premise or conclusion in an argument.

 

Of course, with slight alterations to these sentences, they can be changed into statements. For example, while "are your shoes on backwards?" is not a statement, the following rewording is a statement: "Your shoes are on backwards." That is, you cannot say "it is true that are your shoes on backwards?" You can say, "it is true that your shoes are on backwards." Thus, "your shoes are on backwards" could become, say, the premise in an argument. Like this:

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• I think you're going to hurt yourself in the basketball game (conclusion). Your shoes are on backwards (premise).

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A look at some simple arguments

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As you read the below arguments, based on the above criteria, see  if you can tell why each qualifies as an argument. (no tricks here—thy are all indeed arguments!)

 

Don't forget, arguments can be good or bad (we'll get more nuanced on this point later). In other words, some arguments do not provide sufficient reasons for us to accept the conclusion offered. Try to identify anything you think might be wrong with these three arguments (one of them is fine!). Give it a try and see if you can come up with reasons for the arguments' quality. Don't worry, however, if you're not sure about what might make the arguments good or bad—the remainder of the Arguments and Truth Claims module is intended to help you develop that capacity.

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ARGUMENT 1: “Bob is a male (premise 1). Most males experience hair thinning as adults (premise 2). Therefore, as time goes by, Bob is likely to lose at least some of his hair (conclusion).”

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ARGUMENT 2: “Dr. Patton offended hundreds of people when he made his controversial claims about differences between men and women (premise). Dr. Patton's view is therefore clearly incorrect (conclusion).”

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ARGUMENT 3: “This medicine is good for you (conclusion) because it is natural (premise 1) and doesn't have cyanide in it (premise 2)”

 

Why can we conclude that these are arguments? ​Well, each one is composed of two or more statements: one or more premises and a conclusion. You can tell that these are arguments—regardless of whether they're good or bad—because they are composed of premises and a conclusion. Each of those premises and conclusions are statements (see above), so there's nothing wrong with their construction. The following, by contrast, are not arguments. Given the definitions of statement, premise, conclusion, and argument, why do you think are these are not arguments?

 

NON-ARGUMENT 1: "As time goes by, Bob is likely to lose at least some of his hair"

 

NON-ARGUMENT 2: "Is this medicine good for you? It is natural and doesn't have cyanide in it." 

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The first is not an argument because it's just a single statement on its own. The second contains a question, which is not a statement and so cannot be a part of an argument.

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Now, we can consider the quality of these arguments. ARGUMENT 1 is probably fine (so long as we have good reason to believe the premises are true). There are no obvious logical flaws there (see parts 3-5 of this module for more information on evaluating arguments). By contrast, you may have noted that there are serious problems with the latter two arguments. We'll see later that good arguments have (a) all true premises and (b) logical connections between the premises and conclusion. If you haven't identified any problems with arguments 2 or 3, give it another try before reading on. Specifically, do you see any issues with arriving at the conclusion based solely on the premises provided?

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In ARGUMENT 2, the author is judging Dr. Patton's view as incorrect solely because hundreds of people were offended by his claims. In other words, the argument is that Dr. Patton is wrong because he offended lots of people. This argument is flawed because whether people are offended by a claim is completely irrelevant to its truth value. Sometimes finding the faults in arguments like this can be hard because we as readers sometimes add meaning to what we read that isn't there. As you read the argument, perhaps you thought you might be offended by Patton's claim too—unfortunately, that's still irrelevant. Whether you might be offended has nothing to do with truth. As you read, you might have thought there was widespread agreement that Patton was wrong because "hundreds of people" were offended. But, that's still irrelevant to the conclusion's truth value! Remember, those people simply agree that the claims were offensive, not that they were right or wrong.

 

Generally speaking, it's important to read the argument for precisely what it says, not what you think it says or want it to say.

 

Now imagine that ARGUMENT 2 read as follows instead:

 

“Most people in the general public disagree with Dr. Patton's controversial claims about differences between men and women (premise). Dr. Patton's view is clearly incorrect (conclusion).”

 

Is this now a good argument? No, it's still no good! But the problem might be harder for you to spot. Whether the general public agrees or disagrees with a claim is not a good reason for us to go along with them and assume the claim is true. The author is falling prey to something called the bandwagon fallacy, which involves using other people's beliefs as a source of evidence. No matter the number or proportion of people that share a view, we shouldn't use that information alone as evidence that a conclusion is true (see Arguments & Truth Claims Part 6 for more on fallacies). Who's to say whether the general public has has good reason for their view?

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ARGUMENT 3 is bad too (“This medicine is good for you [conclusion] because it is natural [premise 1] and doesn't have cyanide in it [premise 2]”). Contrary to common belief, whether something is or is not natural has no bearing on whether it's good for you. This view that if it is natural it must be good is fallacious (see appeal to nature fallacy). Further, not having cyanide in a medicine does not give us any reason to believe the medicine is good for you. Electric chairs and deadly nightshade also lack cyanide—are they good for you? No!

 

In short, arguments like this do not provide good reason to accept their conclusions. We need to get better at spotting such bad arguments, so we're not convinced by peddlers of nonsense!

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At this point, how are you feeling about your general understanding of arguments? Based on our look at 3 basic arguments, how do you feel about your intuitions about good and bad arguments? We'll further develop our skills in this domain in the next few sections, but here are some links you can try for more support before you move on:

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• A basic introduction to argument

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• A fuller, though more academic, look at argument at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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