The Use of Argument

    Many people in society have a misconception about arguments. That is why I thought to write this kind of article. I mainly wanted to explain the difference between an arguments and a quarrel. That also, according to philosophy, I wanted to explain what argument is and to change the attitude of some people towards argument in a positive way and show them how to find the right solutions to social problems through arguments. This article focuses on how to use logic correctly understand an argument to determine the truth. To that end, I have used some resources to explain the theoretical side of the arguments and to facilitate clarification of ideas.

   

ARGUMENTS

     Philosophy is the practice of making and assessing arguments. According to Wikipedia, an argument is a set of statements (called premises) that work together to support another statement (the conclusion). Each statement can be evaluated to be true or false. Making and assessing arguments can help us to understand the truth.

    An argument is not an abuse, name-calling, or yelling. Clearly, that is an important point that leads to logic. It leads us to critical thinking. An argument flows from the premises to the conclusions. We need to know how to apply the correct logic.

The definition of monty python

    "Argument clinic" is a sketch from Monty Python's flying circus, written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman. The sketch was originally broadcast as part of the television series, and has subsequently been performed live by the group. It relies heavily on wordplay and dialogue, and has been use as an example of how language works.

    In this skit, He proposes a definition to the argument as "an argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition."

    This definition is almost correct. The purpose of an argument need not always be to “establish” its conclusion, both because some conclusions were established in advance and because many reasons are inconclusive. Nonetheless, Monty Python’s definition needs to be modified only a little in order to arrive at an adequate definition as follows.

    "An argument is a connected series of sentences, statements, or propositions (called “premises”) that are intended to give a reason of some kind for a sentence, statement, or proposition (called the “conclusion”)."

THE STANDARD FORM OF AN ARGUMENT

    The standard form of an argument is a way of presenting the argument clearly. An argument consists of two main parts. Those are Premises and the Conclusion. In addition, there are indicator words.

The standard form looks like this:

        Premise 1

        Premise 2

        …

    Therefore,

         Conclusion

    A premise is a statement in an argument that provides reason or support for the conclusion. There can be one or more premises in a single argument.

    Conclusion is the final statement justified by the premises made within the argument. Premises are always intended to provide support or evidence for the conclusion.

    Conclusion and premise indicators are the words that are used to make clear which statements are premises and which statements are conclusions in arguments.

    A conclusion indicator is a word or phrase that indicates that the statement it's attached to is a conclusion.

    Ex: Therefore, So, In conclusion, Hence, Thus, It proves that, Consequently

    Premise indicators point to causal relationships reasons.

    Ex: Because, Since, As shown by, Given that, The fact that, Assuming that

A SIMPLE EXAMPLE FOR AN ARGUMENT

(P – Premises ,   C – Conclusion)

    P1 - I’m on leave this week

    P2 - I never answer work emails when I am on leave

Therefore,

    C - I’m not answering work email this week

Arguments are commonly classified as deductive or inductive.

Deductive reasoning is the process of reasoning from one or more statement to reach logical conclusion.

    Ex: old men are mortal. Joe is a man. Therefore, Joe is mortal.

Inductive reasoning is a type of reasoning that involves drawing a general conclusion from a set of specific observation.

    Ex: The coin I pulled from the bag is a penny. That coin is a penny. A third coin from the bag is a penny. Therefore, old the coins in the bag are pennies.

To fully understand arguments, we need to distinguish different uses of argument. In particular, we will focus on two exemplary purposes: justification and explanation.

Justification is a concept in epistemology used to describe beliefs that one has good reason for holding.

ex: An employer bringing evidence to support why they fired an employee

Explanation is a rationale in which the reason presents a cause of some fact represented by the conclusion. Its purpose is to help us understand how or why that fact occurs.

ex: Telling how rain forms

CONCLUSION

    An argument is a claim with reasons that are supported by evidence. It consists of premises and a conclusion.  It is not abuse, name-calling or yelling. Arguments are classified as deductive or inductive. An argument has two purposes: justification and explanation. An argument is used to change people's points of view or persuade them to accept new points of view, and it is used to persuade people to a particular action or new behaviour. Arguments lead us to critical thinking, and they teach us how to evaluate conflicting claims and judge evidence and methods of investigation.

REFFERENCES: Sinnott-armstrong, W.and Fogelin, R.J..2014 cengage Advantage Books; Understanding arguments: An introduction to informal logic. Cengage Learning, Wikipedia.