25

C H A P T E R 2 Claims, Issues, and Arguments

E very argument contains at least one intended conclusion plus one or more supporting
reasons, called premises. However, in some passages it is not easy to tell whether an
argument occurs at all, nor what the premises and conclusion of an argument really are, nor
how other arguments in the passage are related to that argument. This chapter explores that
understatement. It begins with an introduction of special phrases that often indicate the presence
of premises and conclusions. Then the chapter investigates the problems of identifying the
unstated premises and conclusions. For especially complex argumentation, the chapter
introduces a diagramming technique that can provide a helpful display of the argument
structure.

What is a Statement?
Statements are what is said. More accurately, statements are things that are said that are either
true or false. They are also called claims. Here is one: "The homicide rate in England was fifty
times higher in the fourteenth century than it is today." Here is another: “Neptune has the fastest
winds in the solar system.” Both of these statements happen to be true. A statement that is
especially important to us might be called a proposition, assertion, judgment, hypothesis, principle,
thesis, or, in some situations, a law. Statements have to be capable of being true or false even if we
don't know which. So, if you say, “Is it midnight?” then you've not made a statement.
Suggestions, commands, and proposals aren’t statements either. The suggestion “We should get
a new refrigerator,” and the command, “Stand back!” and the proposal, “Let’s quit studying,” are
not statements. It would be very odd to call any of them “true” or “false.” The following are
statements: “She suggested we should get a new refrigerator,” and “He said, 'Stand back!'”

There are many ways to evaluate a statement and say whether it is true. If you think it is false,
you don't need to say, simply, "The statement is false." Instead, you might roll your eyes, or shake
your head, or say, "Right, and I'm the queen of England."

Although there is a difference between a declarative sentence used to make a statement and the
statement made with that declarative sentence, this book will often not honor that fine distinction
and will speak of declarative sentences themselves as being statements.
 26

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Is the following sentence a statement?

The biggest question your pre-historic ancestors faced was, "Is that thing behind the
bushes my next meal, or am I its next meal?"

──── 10

You can’t spot the claims if you don’t speak the language. In the passage below from a famous
Valley girl, try to decide whether the phrase in italics is (used to make) a claim. You won't be able
to figure this out if you don’t understand a little Valley-girl-ese.

So, I loan Whitney my copy of GQ, right, and she drops strawberry yogurt right on the
cover, and like I could totally be so edged, but I tried to be cool.

To tell whether it's expressing a claim, you don't have to be able to figure out whether it's true,
but only whether it could be true─whether it's the sort of thing that might be true or might be
false. The passage does make the claim. Its claim is that the speaker could be upset by Whitney's
dropping strawberry yogurt on her copy of GQ Magazine.

In spotting statements or claims, you need to pay close attention to language. One of the following
is a claim and the other is not. Which is which?

10 Answer: The question itself is not a statement, but the larger sentence containing the question
is. The larger sentence is used to make a statement about the question. It is not easy to tell
whether it is true, though. There are other serious competitors for the biggest question.
 27

I promised to give you $5. I promise to give you $5.

What is an Argument?
The word argument has more than one meaning. In this book we will not use the word in the sense
of being something you express when you are being unpleasantly argumentative. Instead, it will
mean at least one conclusion supported by one or more reasons, all of which are statements.

It takes only one person to have our kind of argument, not two. Saying that two people are "in an
argument" means that there are two arguments, not one, in our sense of “argument.” Each of the
two persons has his or her own argument. In short, our word argument is a technical term with a
more precise meaning than it has in ordinary conversation.

Statements that serve as reasons in an argument are also called premises. This has nothing to do
with the yard sign that says, “Keep off the premises.” Any argument must have one or more
premises. And it will have one or more "inference steps" taking you from the premises to the
conclusion. The simplest arguments have just one step. Here is an example of a very simple
argument that takes you to the conclusion in just one inference step from two premises:

If it's raining, we should take the umbrella.

It is raining.

So, we should take the umbrella.

Our course will concentrate on your ability to detect arguments, identify their premises and
conclusions, understand their structure, and distinguish arguments from explanations and
descriptions. The best arguments are the ones that help us understand the world differently, but
this book will let your other courses present those arguments.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Match the numbers with the letters.

a. Only a claim, with no reasons given to back it up.

b. An argument using bad reasons.

c. An argument using good reasons (assuming that the arguer is being truthful).

d. None of the above.

1. What time does the movie start?

 28

2. This card can save you a lot of money.

3. Vote Republican in the next election because doing so will solve almost all the world's
problems.

4. John Adams was the second president of the United States. My history teacher said
so, and I looked it up on Wikipedia with my phone.

──── 11

To find out whether an argument is present, you need to use your detective skills. Ask yourself
whether the speaker gave any reason for saying what was said. If you get a satisfactory answer
to your own question, then you probably have detected an argument, and you’ve uncovered its
conclusion and premises. In detecting an argument, your main goal is to locate the conclusion,
then the reasons given for that conclusion, while mentally deleting all the other sentences and
phrases that are not part of the argument.

For any conclusion, the premises used directly to support it are called its basic premises. In a
more complicated argument, there may be reasons for the reasons, and so on. But these reasons
for the reasons are not part of the core. The core of the argument is the conclusion plus its basic
premises.

Every argument has to start somewhere, so it is not a good criticism of an argument to complain
that all its premises have not been argued for.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Select the one best choice for the conclusion of Sanderson's argument in the following
disagreement.

Sanderson: Do you realize just what sort of news you get on a half-hour American TV news
program?

Harris: Yes, newsy news. What do you mean?

Sanderson: Brief news, that's what.

Harris: Brief news like boxer shorts?

11 d 1, a 2, b 3, c 4. Passage (1) is a question, not a claim. A claim is an assertion that something

is true, and it is usually made with a declarative sentence.
 29

Sanderson: Ha! Look at a time breakdown of the average half-hour news program
broadcast on American TV. It is nine minutes of news!

Harris: What's the rest?

Sanderson: Eleven minutes of commercials, six of sports, and four of weather. You can't do
much in nine minutes. I say nine is not enough if you are going to call it the "news." What
do you think?

Harris: It is enough for me. News can be boring. Besides, if the American public didn't like
it, they wouldn't watch it.

Sanderson: Now that's an interesting but ridiculous comment. But I’ve got to go now; we
can talk again later.

Sanderson’s conclusion is

a. If the American public didn't like brief TV news, they wouldn't watch it.

b. Do you realize just what sort of news you get in a half-hour American TV news
program?

c. That's an interesting but ridiculous comment [about the American public's taste].

d. There is not enough news on a thirty-minute TV news program in America.

e. An average half-hour American TV news program is eleven minutes of commercials,

nine of news, six of sports, and four of weather.

After choosing Sanderson's conclusion from the above list, comment on the quality of his
argument for that conclusion.

──── 12

12Answer (d) is correct. Sanderson's conclusion is that more time should be spent on the news
during a thirty-minute TV news program. Answer (e) is wrong because it is simply a fact that
Sanderson uses in his argument. It is something he wants the reader to believe, but it is not
something he is arguing for. Regarding the quality of Sanderson's argument, saying only "I
don't like his argument" is insufficient; it doesn't go deep enough. This kind of answer is just
opinion. To go deeper, the opinion should be backed up by reasons. The weakest part of
Sanderson's argument is that he isn't giving us good enough reasons to believe his conclusion.
He makes the relevant comment that news occupies only nine minutes out of thirty. He then
suggests that you cannot "do much in nine minutes," and he evidently thinks this comment is a
reason to believe his conclusion, but by itself it is weak. He probably believes it is obvious that
 30

What is the Issue?

We argue in order to settle issues. Issues arise when there is uncertainty about whether to accept
or reject a claim, or about what to do or not do. For example, someone argues for the claim that
you ought to quit eating strawberry yogurt because it causes cancer, and you wonder whether it
really does cause cancer. You are wondering about the following issue:

whether eating strawberry yogurt causes cancer.

It's common to express an issue by using the word "whether" to indicate the uncertainty involved.
You don’t want to express the issue by taking just one side of the issue. It is also common to
express an issue by asking a question:

Does eating strawberry yogurt cause cancer?

The question, properly expressed, brings out the uncertainty and doesn't take a side. It would be
a mistake to say the issue is that eating strawberry yogurt causes cancer. That way of presenting
the issue destroys the uncertainty and presents only one side of the issue.

When two people are "in an argument," they are divided on the issue. The metaphor is that they
are on opposite sides of the fence.

nine is brief, but he ought to argue for this. It's not obvious to his opponent, Harris. Harris could
respond by saying, "You can do nine minutes' worth of news in nine minutes. What do you
want instead, ten minutes?" Sanderson should have mentioned that too much important news is
left out in nine minutes and then tried to back up this remark.
 31

The issue is not the same as the topic. The topic is food and health. Topics are more general than
issues; issues are more specific than topics. When you find an argument, the issue is whether the
argument’s conclusion is correct.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

The following sentence shows that the writer is confused about the difference between an issue
and a claim:

The issue of whether an oppressive government is better than no government is a claim

open to refutation.

What is the best way to rewrite the sentence in order to remove the confusion?

a. The claim of whether an oppressive government is better than no government is an

issue open to refutation.

b. The issue of whether an oppressive government is better than no government is a

refuted claim.

c. The claim that an oppressive government is better than no government is controversial

and open to refutation.
 32

d. The issue of whether an oppressive government is better than no government is a

position open to refutation.

──── 13

Our example above used the slippery term “refutation.” If you claim what somebody just said is
false, then you aren't refuting their claim; you are simply disagreeing with it. In order to refute it,
you'd have to make a successful case that what they said is false. You can’t refute someone’s claim
merely by contradicting it.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

What is the issue in this argument?

You politicos keep arguing that institutions can't be changed when, in fact, they change all
the time. Haven't they ever heard of the institution of slavery? It’s gone from this continent,
isn’t it?

a. Can institutions be changed?

b. Whether the institution of slavery changed.

c. That institutions can be changed.

d. That institutions can't be changed.

──── 14

The notion of an issue is explored more deeply in a later chapter.

13The topic is oppressive governments. The issue is whether an oppressive government is better
than no government. One position on that issue is the claim that an oppressive government
actually is better than no government. This claim is controversial. Thus you should select c as
the answer to the above question. That answer is the only one that isn't using one of the
following terms incorrectly: issue, position, claim.

14 Answer (a). A yes answer and a no answer would be giving opposite answers to this issue.
 33

What is a Proof?
People often argue in order to prove something. But that word “proof” is a tricky word. There
are different standards of proof in different situations. You have to meet a higher standard if you
are proving a new theorem in mathematics than if you are proving to your neighbor that you saw
the same film he did last week. Basically, though, a proof is a convincing argument, an argument
that should convince your audience, not simply an argument that does convince them.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Suppose you cannot locate that favorite blue shirt you want to wear. You’ve looked in the closet
where you usually keep your shirts. You remember washing it at the Laundromat in your
apartment building last week. Maybe you hung it back in the closet after that, or maybe you
didn’t. You can’t remember. You don’t remember any other time it has been out of the apartment
recently. Could you be having a memory problem? You do remember your worst case of bad
memory; last year you were sure your apartment key was on the kitchen table, but then you found
it an hour later on a shelf in your refrigerator. But after thinking about this you decide that is
very unlikely the shirt loss is because of memory failure. You decide to do a more careful search.
You look through each item of clothing in your closet, on the closet floor, and in the drawers in
your dresser where you place other clothes. You look a few more places in your apartment. Then
you remember that occasionally you hang clothes in the closet on top of other clothes hanging
there because you don’t have enough coat hangers. So, you search your closet one more time
looking under everything hanging there. Still no shirt. So you conclude, “This proves the shirt
was stolen.” You start thinking about your three friends who have been in your apartment since
the last time you saw that blue shirt. David was there when you went out for an hour to get party
supplies. The shirt would fit him. That proves the shirt was stolen.

A logical reasoner hearing this story might say, “That’s not really a proof,” and this judgment
would be correct. What else would it take for you to have a real proof the shirt was stolen by
David?

──── 15

15It is more likely you lost your shirt in the Laundromat than to a thief in your apartment. You
can’t have a proof without being sure that the shirt wasn’t lost at the Laundromat or on your
travels back from there. If you could rule this out, then you’d have a stronger case that it was
stolen. Even so, that evidence about the Laundromat is not going to be available to you. Also,
for a decent proof you’d need some more direct evidence of a thief, such as a friend telling you
he saw David wearing it yesterday, or a neighbor telling you she noticed someone leaving your
 34

Indicators
Spotting an argument and evaluating whether the argument is any good are two distinct
abilities. Usually you use them both at the same time. Before you can evaluate an argument, you
have to identify it, so let’s begin with this skill. When you are reading a passage, ask yourself,
"Is the writer intending to prove something? Am I being given any reasons intended to
convince me to believe something or do something?" Detecting arguments can be difficult
sometimes, but there are verbal clues to look for. The start of a conclusion is often indicated by
the word therefore, so, or thus. In addition to these conclusion indicators, the terms because and
suppose-that signal that a reason is coming. Since the technical term for reasons is premises, the
terms because and suppose-that are called premise indicators. The logical reasoner is always on
the alert for premise indicators and conclusion indicators.

Often, however, arguers are not so helpful, and we readers and listeners have to recognize an
argument without the help of any indicator terms. And even when we have indicator terms, we
can’t rely on them 100%. Those same terms might have other uses. For example, do you see why
the conclusion indicator "so" is not working as a conclusion indicator in the following?

Air contains molecules. Dirt does, too. So does water.

There is no argument here, just a sequence of claims. The word “so” is indicating another term in
the sequence. It is working as the word “and” usually works, not as a conclusion indicator of an
argument.

Premise indicators are verbal clues that you are being given a reason or premise. Then ask
yourself, "What are the reasons for the conclusion?" or "How is this point being supported?"
Your answers supply the premises. There are verbal clues for finding premises, too. The words
"since" and "because" are the most common premise indicator terms, but there are many
others.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Does this sentence by Albert Einstein contain a conclusion indicator word that is actually working
to indicate a conclusion?

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thing, and
we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

apartment yesterday carrying a blue shirt. Most probably you’ll never get a proof your shirt was
stolen even if it was, because having a proof requires having a totally convincing case.
 35

a. yes b. no

──── 16

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Do all strong arguments have two or more premises plus at least one conclusion?

a. yes b. no

──── 17

When looking for an argument within a passage, you need to be alert that sometimes the
conclusion is stated before the premises, sometimes after the premises, and sometimes embedded
in the middle of the premises. Often, sentences are included that are neither premises nor
conclusions; they are there for elaboration or for some other purpose, such as to entertain, to
describe, to explain, to discount a possible complaint, and so forth.

Here is an example of an argument from authority that contains both kinds of indicator phrases:

Because the encyclopedia says that the whale shark is the biggest fish in the ocean, it
follows that the whale shark really is the biggest fish on Earth.

The word Because indicates a premise, and the phrase it follows that indicates the conclusion.
Indicators come before what they indicate. After identifying this argument, you might go on to
evaluate it as being fairly strong, but as leaving out the crucial information about whether there
are freshwater fish bigger than any fish in the ocean. Can you think of one? There aren’t any.

Here are lists of some more indicator phrases:

16Answer (a). Einstein is giving an argument, and he is using the word “thus” to indicate his
conclusion that the human race is drifting toward unparalleled nuclear catastrophe. (If you are
reading this sentence, then the chances are that we haven't arrived there yet, even if we are
drifting there.)

17Answer (b). Some good arguments have only one premise. Here is an example: "Viruses are
the simplest life forms, so that virus you are looking at with your microscope is simpler than
other life forms."
 36

Premise Indicators

since

because

for the reason that

assuming

suppose

as indicated by

is implied by

given that

in view of the fact that

for

granted that

one cannot doubt that

Conclusion Indicators

therefore

consequently

thus

this means

so

it follows that

shows that
 37

implies that

proves that

leads me to believe that

hence

in conclusion

for this reason

accordingly

the moral is

means that

we can infer that

as a result

can only be true if

The following phrases by themselves are not indicator phrases:

if on the contrary

yet and

nevertheless also

So, do not trust these words to reliably indicate either a premise or a conclusion. Occasionally
words that could be indicators do not function as indicators. Look at the word “since” in this
example:

Since November when the inflationary spiral ended, state taxes have been high. State farm
subsidies will therefore continue to rise.

This passage does contain an argument, and the conclusion indicator word therefore signals the
conclusion, but the premise indicator word since isn't functioning to indicate a premise. It is
working as a time indicator. Because since has multiple meanings, you need to determine whether
it is functioning as a premise indicator in the particular situation you are looking at. The good
 38

news is that when it is a sign that some element of an argument is present, it always indicates a
premise and never a conclusion.

Notice how different these two arguments are.

She’s not here, so she’s gone to the supermarket.

She’s not here, since she’s gone to the supermarket.

The two arguments have different conclusions, don’t they? One of the arguments is much
stronger than the other. Which one is that?

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Identify the indicator phrases in the following passage:

I’ve been in love with you ever since you began going out with my friend Charles. So you
shouldn't say no one loves you now that he doesn't love you anymore.

──── 18

When you are suspicious that an argument is present in a passage, the best strategy for finding
it, besides simply asking the arguer whether they are arguing, is to ask yourself which statements
in the passage would be reasonably convincing premises for which other statements.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Do these passages contain arguments? If so, locate the conclusion. Identify each indicator phrase
as being either a conclusion indicator or a premise indicator.

18 So is a conclusion indicator. Since is not operating as a premise indicator.

 39

a. Never pick up a recently killed rattlesnake, because its nerve reflexes enable it to bite for
some time after death.

b. Never pick up a recently killed rattlesnake. Its nerve reflexes enable it to bite for some
time after death.

c. In a country with a billion people, even if you're a one-in-a-million type guy, there are still
a thousand just like you.

d. Though rare on Earth, plasmas are the most common form of matter in the universe, even
more common than gases.

──── 19

19(a) This is an argument. The conclusion is that (you should) never pick up a recently killed
rattlesnake. Because is the premise indicator. (b) This is an argument with the same conclusion
as in (a). Notice that the word because appeared in (a) but not in (b). Consequently, you have to
work harder to locate the argument in (b). Good writers use indicator words to show their
intentions to the reader. (c) This is not an argument. If there are a billion people, then being one
in a million is not very special, is it? (d) This is not an argument. This kind of plasma has
nothing to do with blood plasma. Besides solids, liquids, and gases, matter also takes the form
of plasmas. A plasma is super-ionized in the sense that every electron has been stripped away
from the nucleus. There are no ordinary atoms in a plasma. All stars are made of plasma. So are
electric sparks.
 40

Discount Indicators
It is very common for passages containing arguments also to contain claims that are neither
premises nor conclusions but instead send a signal that another claimed should be de-
emphasized or discounted. Here’s an example where the phrase “Even though” is added to
suggest that the cost of the sofa should be de-emphasized:

Even though that sofa is very expensive, we should buy it anyway because we need one
and this one is already here in the apartment we are going to rent.

The claim “The sofa is very expensive” normally would be taken as a reason not to buy the sofa.
That claim is discounted with the phrase, “Even though.” That phrase is called a “discount
indicator.”

A discount claim is not a premise.

Discount indicators point to relevant factors that would normally count against the conclusion
being drawn; the discount claim is there to reject the factor or de-emphasize it. Discounting often
increases the psychological persuasiveness of the argument because it shows that the arguer has
paid attention to all the relevant factors.

The following terms are frequently used as discount indicators:

even though

I realize that..., but

in spite of the fact that

while it may be true that

 41

Rewriting Arguments in Standard Form

Can you spot the conclusion and premises in this argument?

All machines have a finite working lifetime, and even though that big tree doesn’t look
like a typical machine it is really just a biological machine; therefore, I believe it will stop
working someday, too.

The claim “That big tree doesn’t look like a typical machine” is a discount claim. The argument’s
conclusion is "That big tree will stop working someday." This conclusion does not occur explicitly
in the passage. The conclusion is slightly hidden in the words that follow the indicator word
therefore. We readers have to figure out that the word it is referring to "that big tree," and we must
also mentally strip away the word too and the phrase I believe. The reason to remove “I believe”
is that it is clear the arguing isn’t trying to convince that he or she believes the conclusion, but is
trying to convince you that the conclusion is true. After appreciating all this, we can give the
following more explicit picture of the argument:

All machines have a finite working lifetime.

That big tree is really just a biological machine.
─────────────────────────────
That big tree will stop working someday.

Creating this clear list with the conclusion below the line is called rewriting the argument in
standard form. In place of a line, if you add the symbol ∴ before the conclusion, then that is also
putting the argument into standard form. The term “standard form” means standard format.

The argument we’ve been analyzing was originally a single sentence, but this one sentence now
has been shown to be composed of four statements, one being a discount claim and the other
three being the core argument.

The process of transforming an argument into its standard form is like the subconscious mental
process that occurs when a logical reasoner "sees the argument” in a passage. Normally, you
would take the trouble to display the argument in standard form only when confronted with an
especially complicated argument that you must figure out very carefully. Nobody is suggesting
that from now on you sit down with the morning newspaper and rewrite all its arguments into
standard form. However, trying your hand at rewriting a few simpler arguments will help build
up your skill so you can succeed with more complicated arguments when the stakes are higher.

Here is a list of what you should pay attention to when rewriting an argument in standard form:

• List the premises, followed by the conclusion

• Remove extraneous sentences including discount phrases
• Remove indicator phrases
• Replace pronouns with their antecedents if possible
 42

• Draw a line between the premises and the conclusion (or else place a ‘1∴’ before the
conclusion)
• Add implicit premises
• Remove ambiguity wherever possible
• There is no need to number the premises because premise order should not make any
difference

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Rewrite the following explicit argument in standard form. Do not bother with unstated
assumptions.

Even though you might be tempted, never pick up a recently killed rattlesnake, because
its nerve reflexes enable it to bite for some time after death.

──── 20

Conditionals and the Word If

The word if is not in the list of premise indicator words. You cannot rely on if to indicate a
premise. Here is why. In argument A below, the word if is followed by a premise, but in
argument B it is part of the conclusion.

A. If, as we know, all men are mortal and Jeremiah is a man, not a god, then he is mortal, too.

20It is important to remove the first pronoun from the premise. Here is the standard form of the
explicit argument:

The nerve reflexes of a recently killed rattlesnake enable it to bite for some time after
death.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You should never pick up a recently killed rattlesnake.

One implicit assumption here is that you don’t want to be bitten; another is that you
should act in a way that avoids what you don’t want.
 43

B. If a mercury thermometer is given prolonged heating, it will break. This is because prolonged
heating will cause the mercury to expand a great deal. But the thermometer will break apart
whenever the mercury expands this much.

Let's examine argument B more carefully. Does it assume that a mercury thermometer is actually
given prolonged heating? No. Notice also that the conclusion is not that the mercury thermometer
will actually break, but only that it will break if heated. The conclusion is an if-then statement: if
the thermometer is heated, then it will break. So, the if is not indicating a premise, nor is it
indicating a conclusion; it is performing another function. These if-then statements are called
conditional statements or conditionals. When we say, “If we cancel the picnic, I’ll be happy,” we
are offering a conditional, but not offering an argument.

Worse yet, the occurrence of the word "if" in a sentence is not a reliable indicator that the sentence
contains a conditional. For example, the sentence, "If you don't mind, you're standing on my foot"
is not a conditional. It is a special idiom in English and is not a conditional because it cannot be
rewritten equivalently as "P implies Q."

A statement can be a conditional even if the companion word then is not present. For example:

If the Campbell's Soup Company puts less salt in its soup, sales of Campbell's soup will
increase.

Does it follow from this conditional claim that Campbell's Soup Company does put less salt in its
soup? No. Is the speaker committed to the claim that sales of Campbell's soup will increase? No,
the commitment is only to an increase on the condition that the company does something about
the salt. That is why conditionals are called "conditionals."

Should you conclude from the original conditional statement that, if Campbell's sales do not
increase, then the company failed to put less salt in its soup? Yes, this last conditional statement,
follows with certainty from the original conditional statement. It is the contrapositive of the
original statement. We will explore contrapositives in more detail in Chapter 11.

Conditionals have a standard form which is “If A, then B.”

 44

Often conditionals are expressed in other ways. For example, here is a conditional that contains
neither an “if” nor a “then:”

The larger a star the quicker it burns up and dies.

Rewriting it in standard form produces:

If a star is larger, then it burns up and dies quicker.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

The Governor of Alaska (on left)

Suppose you were to learn for certain that if a person is the governor of Alaska, then he or she is
a U.S. citizen. If so, can you be absolutely sure that if somebody is not a U.S. citizen, then he or she
is not the governor of Alaska?

──── 21

Is the following conditional making a true statement about the real world?

If President John F. Kennedy was born in Bangladesh, then he was born in Asia.

21 Yes, you can be sure. This is the contrapositive of the original conditional.
 45

Yes, it is true, and it is true even though both the if-part and the then-part are false. There’s a big
lesson with that example:

The truth of a conditional does not

require the truth of its parts.

We will explore the logic of conditionals in more depth in Chapter 11.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Answer "yes" or "no, not always" to these conditional claims:

a. If it's an apple, then it's a fruit.

b. If it's a fruit, then it's an apple.

c. It's an apple if it's a fruit.

d. It's a fruit if it's an apple.

e. It's not a fruit if it's not an apple.

f. It's not an apple if it's not a fruit.

g. If the current president of the United States were also the leader of Pakistan, then the
president would be the leader of an Asian country.

h. If the tallest building in the U.S. is only 15 feet tall, then there is no building in the U.S.
taller than 30 feet.

i. If Joshua Dicker or his dad, Stuart, are invited, then Joshua Dicker's dad is invited.

──── 22

22(a) yes (b) no (c) no (d) yes (e) no (f) yes (g) yes (h) yes (i) no. In (i), if the or were and, then the
answer would be yes.
 46

Deductively Valid and Inductively Strong

The primary goal in argumentation is for the conclusion to follow from its basic premises either
with certainty or with high probability. Technically, this means the arguer desires the argument
to be deductively valid or to be inductively strong.

The concept of deductive validity can be given alternative definitions to help you grasp the
concept. Below are five different definitions of the same concept. It is common to drop the word
deductive from the term deductively valid:

An argument is valid if the premises can’t all be true without the conclusion also being
true.

An argument is valid if the truth of all its premises forces the conclusion to be true.

An argument is valid if it would be inconsistent for all its premises to be true and its
conclusion to be false.

An argument is valid if its conclusion follows with certainty from its premises.

An argument is valid if it has no counterexample, that is, a possible situation that makes
all the premises true and the conclusion false.

This argument is valid:

All emeralds are green.

The stone placed in the safe deposit box is an emerald.
So, the stone placed in the safe deposit box is green.
 47

Here is a very similar argument that is not valid. Can you see why?

All emeralds are green.

The stone placed in the safe deposit box is green.
So, the stone placed in the safe deposit box is an emerald.

That last argument has a counterexample. You can imagine a situation where all emeralds are
green and the stone placed in the safe deposit box is green jade. That’s a situation where the
premises are true but the conclusion isn’t. That situation is a counterexample.

An argument that is not valid is called invalid or deductively invalid. In deductive arguments,
the arguer intends for the argument to meet the standard of being deductively valid. There are
other, unrelated uses of the word “valid” such as when we say that word is not valid in a Scrabble
game, or that is a valid way to travel from Paris to Amsterdam.

In inductive arguments, the arguer intends the argument to satisfy another standard, that the
conclusion follow with high probability but not certainty from the basic premises. If it does, the
argument is said to be inductively strong. Inductive strength is a matter of degree, unlike with
deductively validity.

The distinction between deductive and inductive argumentation was first noticed by the Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.E.) in ancient Greece. Since arguers don’t always have clear intentions about whether
their goal is to create a deductive valid or an inductively strong argument, it is very often up to
the logical analyst to decide which treatment works best. 23

When we study inductive arguments in later chapters we will see that an inductive argument can
be affected by acquiring new premises (evidence), but a deductive argument cannot be. For
example, this is a reasonably strong inductive argument:

Today John said he likes Romina.

So, John likes Romina today.

23 The term “inductive argument” is ambiguous. In some other books, what we call an
“inductive argument” is called a “non-demonstrative argument,” and in those books an
inductive argument is required to use premises that state a series of observations that exhibit a
pattern of some kind, and it has to use a conclusion that says the pattern holds more generally
beyond the specific series of observations. This second kind of inductive argument is what in a
later chapter we will call an “induction by enumeration” and an “empirical generalization.” On
any proper definition of “inductive argument,” an inductive argument does not logically imply
its conclusion.
 48

but its strength is changed radically when we add this premise:

John told Felipe today that he didn’t really like Romina.

With inductively strong

arguments there is a small
probability that the conclusion is
false even if all the premises are
true, unlike with deductively valid
arguments.

Several later chapters are devoted to exploring deductive validity and inductive strength, but it
is important to note that even if your argument is deductively valid or inductively strong, it
should not succeed in convincing people of your conclusion unless they know that its premises
are true. If you are a critical thinker who is faced with such an argument, and you don’t know
whether one of the premises are true, then you will suspend judgment about whether the
argument is successful until you find out whether all the premises are true.

Uncovering Implicit Premises

Reasoners often leave parts of their reasoning unstated. Emilio left something unsaid when he
argued that "If the stream were poisonous, everything in it would look dead. There are water
spiders and plants in the stream. It's no death trap." Emilio meant for Juanita and you to assume
that the water spiders and plants in the stream are not dead. He just didn't say so explicitly. It
was too obvious.

Implicit premises are the unstated claims or unstated assumptions of the argument. For instance,
suppose a biologist argues that there is nothing ethically wrong in the fact that about thirteen
animals per day are killed in her laboratory, because the deaths further her scientific research. In
this argument, she uses the unstated assumption that, if something done to animals furthers
someone’s scientific research, then it is not ethically wrong. In this case, by exposing the implicit
premise we analysts can get a clearer idea of what sort of reasoning is going on. How did we
figure out which assumption she was making? We mentally noted that with this assumption the
argument would be deductively valid, and so we used the principle of charity and said this is
what she must have been assuming. Of course, we could be wrong. To know for sure what she is
assuming, we would have had to ask her.

The researcher also believes that 1 + 1 = 2, but this is not an implicit premise in her argument
because it is not a premise intended to support the conclusion.
 49

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Here is a small argument. What is the key implicit premise?

This is a members-only court, so you cannot play here. 24

────

You are not pulling implicit premises out of thin air. You can't just make up any claim and call it
a missing premise. It is not missing unless it is needed to make the argument work properly, and
also, given what is said explicitly by the author, the premise is some claim the author would be
likely to believe. Yes, guesswork is involved, but you are not being wildly arbitrary.

Let's talk about directions. Is New York to the right of Chicago? Or would you say it’s to the left?
If you think about what you know of U.S. geography, this isn't a difficult question. Chicago is in
the interior of the U.S., and New York is on the Atlantic Coast, the East Coast. New York is east
of Chicago, but how about right of Chicago? That's not quite the same thing, is it?

Whether New York is to the right depends on what you can safely assume about your perspective.
The answer is "Yes, it's to the right" if you can safely assume directions are to be judged by
someone above the U.S. and facing north and looking down onto Earth because from that
perspective the directions of east and right are the same direction.

But suppose you make a different assumption. If you were standing on the North Pole, you could
say New York is left of Chicago. If you were standing inside the Earth at its center, you could say
the same, but it would be very odd though to assume that the judgment is to be made from either
of these perspectives.

So, the bottom line here is that it's correct to say New York is to the right of Chicago if you make
the normal assumptions about perspective, and logical reasoners make the usual assumptions
unless there’s a good reason not to. Critical thinkers are charitable and not overly picky; they
always pay attention to what assumptions are appropriate for the situation. But they aren't so
charitable that they overlook significant errors. Some arguments require making an assumption
that really is not acceptable, and this is a sign that the argument is faulty or fallacious. 25

Common sense assumptions are almost always safe assumptions. Common sense is the collection
of common beliefs shared by nearly every adult in your civilization. Here are some more
examples:

24 You are not a member.

25 The two words faulty and fallacious say about the same thing.
 50

• rain is wetter than dust

• you shouldn’t stick a knife in your eye

• sons are younger than their fathers

• a week is longer than a minute

• mountains are too heavy to carry in your pocket

• the U.S.A. has a president, not a king.

When an argument relies on an assumption that is part of common sense or common background
beliefs or what you can see right in front of you, then the assumption is normally left implicit in
the conversation. Why bother stating the obvious?

Here is a definition of “implicit premise.” Look for the word “intended.”

Definition An implicit premise of an argument is a statement that does not appear

explicitly but that is intended by the arguer to be a premise to help make the conclusion
follow from the premises.

The phrase intended. . .to help plays a crucial role in identifying the implicit premise. Notice how
you immediately think about the author’s intentions when you hear the following argument:

Tantalum can be melted, too, because all metals can be melted if you raise their temperature
enough.

melted tantalum

Choose the implicit premise from the following list:

a. Some metals melt.

 51

b. Tantalum can be melted if all metals can.

c. Tantalum is not a metal.

d. Tantalum is a metal.

e. All metals melt.

Not everything the arguer believes at the time counts as a premise in the argument, only the
beliefs needed to make the conclusion follow--with certainty or with probability. For example,
the arguer undoubtedly believes statement (a)—that some metals melt—but the arguer is not
assuming this in order to get her conclusion to follow from her premises. Instead, she needs to
assume that tantalum is a metal. With this premise, her argument is deductively valid. Without
the implicit premise, her argument is deductively invalid. So, the answer is (d), not (a). Here is
her deductively valid argument rewritten in standard form, a format that makes it easier to see
all at once, with premises above the line and conclusion below the line:

All metals can be melted if you raise their temperature enough.

Tantalum is a metal. (implicit premise)
───────────────────────────────────────
Tantalum can be melted.

The argument is now more clearly deductively valid, thanks to your detective work at uncovering
the author’s intentions about what is being assumed.

Arguments don’t come to us with labels as being deductive or inductive. We who are trying to
understand an argument will look to see if the argument meets either standard─being
deductively valid or being inductively strong─and we will look for implicit premises that are
needed for the argument to meet that standard. For example, do this with the inductive argument
in the following concept check.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

What is the missing premise in this passage?

Most soft minerals will make a compound with tantalum, so baxalite will, too.

──── 26

26 Implicit premise: Baxalite is a soft mineral.

 52

The most common implicit premises are definitions of words, principles of grammar, rules of
semantics 27, theorems of mathematics, and the commonly held beliefs of our civilization. We
might argue that because Dwayne loves Jesus, Jesus is loved by Dwayne. This deductively valid
argument depends on a grammatical principle about passive voice transformation that we rarely
need to spell out. Everybody who speaks English can follow the inference, even though few of us
could actually write down this or the other grammatical and semantical rules of our own
language.

There is another important, implicit assumption in the above argument. The word Dwayne names
the same person throughout the argument. If we violate this assumption or tentative agreement
among speakers, then we are said to be equivocating. Logical reasoners avoid equivocation, but
a writer who bothered to explicitly remind us of this fact about the word Dwayne would be
cluttering up the argument with too many details.

Many jokes turn on who holds what assumption. In the following joke, Suzanne says essentially
that one of Jack's assumptions is mistaken:

Jack: Get those drugs out of this house; nobody is going to risk my daughter's sanity.

Suzanne: You can't risk what's not there, Jack.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

If you understood that joke, then you saw that (pick one):

a. Jack assumed that his daughter is sane.

b. Jack assumed that Suzanne is insane.

c. Suzanne assumed that Jack's daughter is sane.

d. Jack assumed that Suzanne's daughter is insane.

e. Suzanne assumed that Jack is insane.

27This book does not emphasize your knowing the difference between grammar and semantics.
“He him ignored” contains a grammar error. The grammatically correct sentence, “He ignored
yesterday who is knocking at the door tomorrow,” contains a semantic error because it violates
the meaning of words about time, but it is grammatically OK.
 53

──── 28

Locating Unstated Conclusions

Just as we detect missing premises by using our knowledge of indicator terms and of what is
needed for deductive validity and inductive strength, so we can also use that knowledge to detect
missing conclusions. What is the implicit conclusion in the following argument?

All insects have exactly six legs, but all spiders have exactly eight legs, so now what do we
know about whether spiders are insects?

You, the reader, have to figure out the conclusion for yourself: that spiders are not insects.

People who are unwilling to do this detective work will miss the point of many passages. Here is
a slightly more difficult passage that expects you to find the implicit conclusion. What is it?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed, in 1927, with a brief “to
raise the cultural, educational, and scientific standards” of film. That noble purpose was
sustained until July 12, 2013, the release date for the film “Grown Ups 2,” in which a

28Answer (a). Suzanne assumed that Jack’s daughter is insane, but that wasn’t one of your choices;
the joke also turned on Jack’s assuming that his daughter is sane, which is choice (a). Both
assumptions are needed to make the joke work, however.
 54

frightened deer urinates on Adam Sandler’s face. In the animal’s defense, one could argue
that it was merely taking movie criticism to a higher and more clarifying level.

A “brief” is a directive. That final comment about the deer taking movie criticism to a higher and
more clarifying level was a humorous remark, not meant to be taken literally. The implicit
conclusion is that the noble purpose of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was no
longer sustained after July 12, 2013. One of the major reasons in support of this conclusion is also
implicit: that the deer’s urinating on Adam Sandler’s face in the film “Grown Ups 2” on July 12,
2013 did not achieve the noble purpose of the Academy.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

What is the implicit conclusion you are supposed to draw in the following joke?

My father had a lot of patience with me when I was growing up. Whenever he got mad at
me he would slowly count to ten. Then he'd lift my head out of the water.

a. All people have fathers.

b. My father had a lot of patience with me when I was growing up.

c. My father was impatient with me when I was growing up.

d. My father would lift my head out of the water after a slow count to twenty.

──── 29

Unstated premises are very common. Unstated conclusions are less common and more difficult
to uncover. If you were presented with the following conditional and knew nothing else, then it
wouldn’t be an argument. It would just be a claim. But let’s suppose you can tell from the
background situation that an argument is intended. If so, what’s the conclusion and the key
missing premise?

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck.

29 The argument is an indirect way of saying my father was impatient, so the answer is (c).
 55

The unstated conclusion is that it’s a duck. All you have explicitly is one premise. The other
premise is that it does look like a duck, walk like a duck, and quack like a duck.

What is the unstated conclusion you are supposed to draw from the following piece of reasoning
by an upset American?

I can't feed my kids, and whitey’s on the moon. Rats bit my little sister. Her leg is swelling,
and whitey's on the moon. The rent is going up. Drug addicts are moving in, and whitey's
on the moon.

The unstated conclusion is that the government’s spending priorities are faulty, specifically that
the government, which is run by white people, spends too much on moon shots and not enough
on social services for poor non-white people. It can be very difficult to distinguish a jumble of
statements from a group of statements intended to have a conclusion that you draw yourself.
 56

There is no mechanical way of telling which is which. However, it often can be done, and in this
group of statements about whitey on the moon, no one would have said them this way unless
they expected their reader to draw that conclusion about the government’s spending priorities.

Later in this book we will be analyzing arguments and not simply finding them, but while we
have this argument in front of us, let’s briefly analyze it. At a deeper level, the argument is one-
sided because it finds many reasons for why we should think the spending priorities are faulty
while paying no attention to reasons for why the government might be making the right decision
in sending a person to the moon. A high-level analysis would try to uncover what those reasons
might be, then weigh the pros and cons of changing government spending priorities. Also, a good
reasoner will not simply attack the argument in the passage, but also should mention how the
arguer could make an improved case for the conclusion. We won’t stop here to make that
improved case. If we turn now from analysis to rhetoric, it should be pointed out that the
argument is very eloquent, not the kind of dry writing one finds in a philosophy journal. This
eloquence will help a reader remember the argument long after a similar argument written in the
usual newspaper-ese is forgotten.

OK, let’s return to the problem of uncovering arguments. Occasionally a clever or diabolical
speaker, will present all sorts of reasons for drawing an obvious conclusion but will never quite
draw that conclusion for you. The speaker is disguising an argument. On the other hand, the
speaker could get defensive and say, "I didn't make that argument, you did." Speakers who are
good with innuendo do this to you.

When you are in that situation and faced with some statements that could constitute an argument
with an implicit conclusion, but maybe do not, then how do you tell whether you have an
argument or not? There is no simple answer to this question; it is a matter of the delicate
application of the principle of fidelity. If it is clear what conclusion the writer hopes you will
draw, then there is an argument; if not, there is no argument. But there can be borderline cases
where it is just not clear what the answer is, and so you need more information.

Detecting Obscure Argumentation

It takes detective skills to detect the essence of an argument among all the irrelevant remarks that
people make while they argue. Speaking of detective skills, I was 14 years old when my mother,
a second-string member of the Folies Bergère dance group in Paris, was dancing for the troops of
the French Foreign Legion in Morocco. She had left me back in Paris with Mathilde, an indifferent
governess and a veteran of the French Resistance. One dark and stormy night, Mathilde came up
behind me, reached into my.... But I've gotten off the subject, haven't I?

────CONCEPT CHECK────
 57

photo by Fernando de Sousa, Melbourne, Australia

Two people are sitting in a dark movie theater a row behind you, and you hear this conversation.

Man: Do you have the two snakes we brought in with us?

Woman: No, I thought you had them.

Man: Oh!

You should draw a conclusion from this conversation, even if no speaker is asking you to draw a
conclusion. What conclusion?

──── 30

Another difficulty in spotting arguments is that they can differ greatly in their structure. Instead
of backing up a conclusion by only one package of reasons, an arguer might give a variety of lines
of argument for the conclusion. That is, the arguer could produce two or more sets of reasons in
support of the conclusion, and might even add why the opposition's argument contains errors.
Jones did this in our earlier courtroom story. He gave a set of reasons for acquittal by arguing
that there is an alternative explanation of all the facts about the robbery. In addition, he argued
that the prosecution's strong reliance on the clerk's testimony is no good because the clerk stole
from her sorority.

30 Snakes have gotten loose near you in the theater.

 58

Arguments can have other complexities, too. Often arguers defend one or more of their reasons
with reasons for those reasons, and even reasons for those reasons, and so forth. An arguer may
simultaneously argue for several conclusions, or draw a second conclusion from a first
conclusion. So, the structure of an argument can become quite complex. However, just as
molecules are composed of atoms, so complex arguments are composed of "atomic" arguments,
each with its own single conclusion and basic reasons to back it up. Breaking down complex
arguments into their simpler elements in this way can make the complex arguments more
understandable.

Mathematics professors who create a proof rarely state every step in their proof. However, if the
argument is correct, that is, sound, then the reasoning from any one step to another can be
reconstructed as a deductively valid argument. For math experts, the reconstruction process is
easier than for the rest of us.

In mathematical reasoning, it is
customary to assume implicitly all
the principles of mathematics you
need to carry out the reasoning.

Here is an interesting dialogue that contains an obscure argument. Evidently this dialogue
occurred several centuries ago.

King: I told you to bring me a head of a witch, and you’ve given me the head of a
necromancer.
 59

Executioner: The Inquisition has declared that all necromancers are witches.

King: Oh, all right then.

By saying, "Oh, all right then," the king infers that he has in fact been given the head of a witch.
In his reasoning, he uses the following deductively valid, but implicit, sub-argument:

All necromancers are witches.

---------------------------------------------------------------
All heads of necromancers are heads of witches.

Let’s do more exploration of how arguments have sub-arguments. If you were asked whether the
statement, "She probably won't be here to chair the meeting," is a premise or a conclusion in the
following argument, the right response would be to say "Both" because it is a basic premise, but
it is also argued for.

She's got the flu again, so she probably won't be here to chair the meeting. Therefore, I'll
have to do it. Damn!

The word so is a conclusion indicator of the sub-conclusion, and the word therefore is a conclusion
indicator of the final conclusion, or last conclusion. Here are the two arguments:

She's got the flu again.

So, she probably won't be here to chair the meeting.

She probably won't be here to chair the meeting.

So, I'll have to chair the meeting.

Now it is clearer how the same sentence is both a premise and a conclusion.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

The word so is a conclusion indicator in the following passage. Is it an indicator of the final
conclusion or only of a sub-conclusion on the way to the final conclusion?

It's safe to conclude that all the patients given the AIDS antidote now have red hair.
Remember, Janelle had red hair before the experiment, and there has been no change in
her hair color; Rudy has fairly red hair; and Sam's hair has now changed to red, hasn't it?
So, all three have red hair. But these three are the only patients that were given the AIDS
antidote.
 60

──── 31

Descriptions and Explanations

Critical thinkers need to pay close attention to language. What is a language? As we all know, a
language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

More seriously, a language is a tool we use for many purposes. We use it to intimidate, to promise,
to perform marriages, to forgive, to apologize, and to insult. But most of our reasoning occurs
when we use language to describe, explain, or argue, which is why this book concentrates on
these three uses: we use language to describe a situation, to explain why an event occurred, and
to argue that our conclusion should be believed.

But it can be difficult to distinguish these three uses from each other. Here is a quick summary of
the differences among the three:

•A description says that it's like that.

•An explanation says how it came to be like that.

•An argument tries to convince you that it is like that.

Arguments aim at convincing you that something is so or that something should be done.
Explanations don't. They assume you are already convinced, and they try to show the cause, the
motivation, or the sequence of events that led up to it.

Explanations of events often indicate the forces or causes that made the event occur. In the case
of events that are human actions, such as Dwayne's unscrewing the lid on a jar of peanut butter,
the explanation of Dwayne’s action might appeal to his intentions, such as his wanting to satisfy
his hunger. Intentions are mental causes.

In some explanations, we simply are trying to say how some remark came to be said, that is,
what caused it to be said. Let's talk about this. But first, I have a question for you. Why did God,
when He created the world, create lawyers before snakes?

Hmm. Think about it.

31Sub-conclusion. This sub-conclusion is a basic premise for the final conclusion that all the
patients given the AIDS antidote now have red hair.
 61

He needed the practice.

I used this joke to talk about explanations because to understand the joke you had to take what
was said and use the principle of charity and come up with an explanation of what caused me to
say what I said. In doing this, you saw quickly that the joke would make sense if I were
assuming that lawyers are snakes. I was, and I was playing on the ambiguity in the word "snake,"
which means a reptile and also a treacherous person. If you did this little bit of reasoning, then
you're in on the joke and you laugh because you also know that it's a stereotype that lawyers are
snakes. That's how the joke works.

Notice that in this reasoning there wasn't any argument present. There was just a process of
explanation, which was enough for you to get the joke.

Explanations are not quite like arguments. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything, as I
would be if I were arguing. Getting the joke was simply about finding the explanation.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

What is the explanation behind this joke?

Question: What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?

Answer: One is a bottom-dwelling garbage-eating scavenger. The other is a fish.

──── 32

Let's try another concept check.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Is this an argument or an explanation?

Let me explain myself more clearly. The car will explode if you drop the match into the
gas tank. You don’t want that, do you? So, don’t drop the match in there.

──── 33

32The explanation behind this joke is that the person asking the question is assuming that all
lawyers are bottom-dwelling garbage-eating scavengers.

33This is an argument for the conclusion that you should not drop the match in the gas tank.
The speaker misused the word “explain.” Instead of using the phrase, “explain myself,” the
speaker should have said, “spell out my argument.”
 62

To appreciate the difference between a description and an explanation, consider one of the current
limits of medical science. Scientists do not know what causes pimples, but they do have a clear
understanding of what pimples are. That is, they can provide a detailed description of pimples,
but they can offer no explanation of why some people get them and some do not. Regarding the
topic of pimples, scientists can describe but not explain.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Is this an argument or an explanation?

Shut up!

──── 34

When we explain, we normally explain events, not persons or objects. Historians don't explain
Napoleon. They explain why he did what he did.

Arguments are different still. An argument is designed to convince someone to do something or

to believe something, which it does by giving specific reasons. For example, we could argue that
Napoleon became emperor of France because history professors say so. Notice that this argument
doesn't describe the event (of Napoleon's becoming emperor of France) or explain it. The
argument simply gives a reason to believe that it occurred.

The main goal in a good argument

is for the conclusion to follow
from the premises.

Although descriptions need not be explanations, and although arguments are different from both,
in real life they get jumbled together. This is fine; we don't often need them to occur in their pure
form. However, it's hard to appreciate all that is going on in a jumbled whole unless we appreciate
the parts.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Below are three passages about the same topic. Say which one is the argument, which is the
description, and which is the explanation.

34 Neither.
 63

a. It’s raining cats and dogs. If we go on the picnic today, we will get really wet, and
probably be unhappy.

b. We shouldn’t go on the picnic because we will get really wet and probably be unhappy.

c. It’s raining cats and dogs there at the picnic area because the thunderstorm finally blew
in from the North.

──── 35

If Betsy Ross says, "The new flag I designed has red and white stripes with thirteen stars," is she
explaining the flag? No, she is just describing it. She is not explaining where the flag came from
or what motivated her to make it. She isn’t talking about causes. Nor is she arguing about the
flag. However, if Betsy Ross says something a little more elaborate, such as "The new flag I
designed has red and white stripes with thirteen stars for the thirteen new states," she is
describing the flag and also explaining why it has thirteen stars instead of some other number.

35(a) description, (b) argument, (c) explanation. The word “because” appears in both the argument
and the explanation, which should tell you that the word “because” is not a reliable indicator of
whether an argument or an explanation is present. However, if an argument is present, then the
word “because” indicates a premise and not a conclusion; but if an explanation is present, then the
word “because” probably indicates a cause or motive.
 64

If Betsy Ross says, "I designed the flag because I wanted to help our new nation," she is only
explaining why she designed it; she is not arguing that she designed it, nor is she describing the
flag.

Couldn't you say that when Betsy Ross says, "The new flag I designed has red and white stripes
with thirteen stars" she is explaining what the flag is like? Well, people do say this, but they are
being sloppy. She is just describing.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Is the following passage most probably an argument, an explanation, or a description?

The most striking thing about Beijing, indeed about all of China, is that there are people
everywhere. You need to imagine yourself in a never-ending Macy's sale. There are lines
to everything. You have to get in a line to find out which line to be in. 36

36 From Cheri Smith, Suttertown News, Sacramento, CA, March 19, 1987.
 65

──── 37

There are several good reasons to learn to distinguish arguments from explanations. You would
be wasting your time explaining what caused some event if the person you were speaking to did
not believe the event ever occurred. Instead, you should be directing your comments to arguing
that the event did occur. Or, suppose you take an author to be arguing when in fact she is
explaining. If you complain to yourself about the quality of her argument and dismiss her passage
as unconvincing, you will have failed to get the explanation that is successfully communicated to
other readers of the same passage.

An argument and an explanation are different because speakers present them with different
intentions. Arguments are intended to establish their conclusion. Explanations aren't. They are
intended to provide the motivation of the actor or the cause of whatever it is that is being
explained.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

For each passage, indicate whether it is most probably an argument, an explanation, or a

description.

a. The apple fell because the drying stem was no longer strong enough to resist the weight
of the apple.

b. You should eat an apple a day because doing so will keep the doctor away.

──── 38

Suppose you and your friend Edward are standing in an apple orchard looking at an apple that
just fell to the ground in front of you. Edward, who is a scientist, explains that the apple fell

37It is most probably only a description. It is at least a description because it describes Beijing as
being a crowded city containing many lines. Nothing is explained. There is no explanation of
why Beijing has so many people, or why it has so many lines. You might try to conceive of the
passage as being an argument for the conclusion that Beijing is crowded and has lines, but no
reasons are given in defense of this claim. It probably would be a mistake to say the passage
uses the reason that Beijing has many lines to conclude that it is crowded. This would probably
be a mistake, because the comments about lines seem to be there to illustrate or describe in more
detail the crowded nature of the city, not to make a case for the claim that the city is crowded.

38(a) This is an explanation of the apple's falling, (b) This is an argument concluding that you
should eat an apple a day.
 66

because the force of gravity pulling down on the apple caused tension in the apple stem and
eventually broke it once the stem had dried out and got brittle; gravity then was able to pull the
apple toward the center of the Earth until the resistance of the ground stopped the fall. His
explanation is not an argument that the apple fell. It is taken for granted that the apple fell; what's
in doubt is why this occurred. When Edward appeals to the existence of gravitational force and
to the structural weakness of the apple's stem to explain why the apple fell, he is giving a possible
explanation of why it happened, perhaps even the right explanation. Nevertheless, he doesn't
defend his explanation. He doesn't argue that his is the right explanation. He doesn't give any
reasons why the apple's falling should be explained this way instead of by saying that "It was the
apple's time" or by appealing to magnetic attraction between the apple and the iron core at the
center of the earth.

Let’s now investigate how to distinguish explanations from arguments when they are jumbled
together. You create both when you explain why event E occurred and then argue for why this
explanation of E is better than alternative explanations. For example, articles in science journals
are often devoted to arguing that one explanation of a phenomenon is better than a previously
suggested explanation. Sometimes arguments are offered as to why someone's explanation of an
event is the right one, and sometimes the argument is intermixed with the explanation.
Nevertheless, the argument and the explanation are distinct, not identical. Even if an argument
 67

does not accompany the explanation, every scientist who claims to offer the explanation of some
event has the burden of proving that their explanation is the best one.

────CONCEPT CHECK────

You remember the dinosaurs, don’t you? They appeared on Earth back in the day when New
Jersey was next to Morocco. Construct an argument for the fact that dinosaurs became extinct 65
million years ago without explaining that fact. According to the theory of evolution, this is
approximately the time that the Rocky Mountains and European Alps were created. And it was
at about this time that the world got its first plants with flowers. (Don't worry too much about
the quality of the argument; just make sure that it is an argument and not an explanation.)

──── 39

A velociraptor 40

39Argument: The experts in geology and biology confirm this, and they generally agree among
themselves, except for a few lone wolves such as the creationists. (Note: That was an argument,
not an explanation.)

This photo from Wikipedia Commons Graphics is licensed under the Creative Commons
40

Attribution 3.0 Unported license to Salvatore Rabito Alcón.

 68

────CONCEPT CHECK────

Construct an explanation, but not an argument, for the fact that dinosaurs became extinct 65
million years ago. (Don't worry too much about the quality of the explanation; just make sure that
it is an explanation and not an argument.)

──── 41

The topic of distinguishing arguments from explanations will be given its own chapter later in
this book.

Review of Major Points

We briefly explored the differences among descriptions, arguments, and explanations.
Descriptions state the facts, report on states of mind, express values, and so forth. Arguments aim
at convincing you that something is so or that something should be done. Explanations don't.
They assume you are already convinced and instead try to show the cause, the motivation, or the
sequence of events that led up to it. We noted that some arguments are strong enough to be called
proofs.

Arguments are normally given to settle an issue one way or the other. An argument’s topic is
more general than the issue it addresses.

Premise and conclusion indicator phrases serve as guideposts for detecting arguments. Almost
all arguments have some implicit elements. The most common implicit premises are statements
of common knowledge, definitions of words, principles of grammar, and elementary rules of
mathematics. Rewriting arguments in standard form is a helpful way to display their essential
content. Arguments can have quite complex structure; for example, there are often sub-
arguments within longer arguments.

41Here is one explanation. A six-mile-wide rock crashed into our planet 65 million years ago,
knocking up so much dust that the planet was dark for about a month. During this month the
weather turned very cold, and the dinosaurs' main food died. The dinosaurs could not quickly
adapt to the new conditions, and they died. (The air sure must have smelled bad that month!)
Another explanation might not point out that a rock crashed into our planet but instead might
blame dinosaur deaths on their gorging on psychotropic plants. Other explanations could blame
their death on their choking on volcano ash and dust, or their catching a special disease, or their
being killed for food by extraterrestrial space aliens who landed on our planet.
 69

Arguments can be evaluated as being deductively valid or inductively strong. With inductively
strong arguments, the premises support the conclusion with high probability, but there is a small
probability that the conclusion is false even if the premises are true, unlike with deductively valid
arguments. If an argument has a counterexample, then it can’t be valid. All the topics of the
present chapter get more detailed treatment later in the book. We humans seem to be better at
detecting errors in other people’s reasoning than in our own, so it takes careful self-monitoring
in order to reason logically about our own beliefs.

Glossary
argument A conclusion plus one or more basic premises.

basic premises The basic premises for a conclusion are those premises that directly support the
conclusion rather than indirectly support it. Indirect premises are premises in support of other
premises, such as those in support of the basic premises.

conclusion indicators Words or phrases that signal the presence of conclusions but not premises.
Examples: So, therefore, thus, it follows that.

conditional statement An if-then statement. An assertion that the then-clause holds on the
condition that the if-clause holds.

counterexample to an argument a possible situation that makes the premises true and the
conclusion false. A possible situation is a logically possible one. A situation in which half of my
ancestors died childless is not a possible situation.

deductive argument An argument intended to meet the standard of being deductively valid.
[Later chapters are devoted to deductive and inductive argumentation.]

deductively valid An argument is deductively valid if its conclusion follows with certainty from
its basic premises. [This chapter introduced four other, equivalent definitions.]

description A statement or sequence of statements that characterize what is described.

Descriptions state the facts, report on states of mind, make value judgments or explain the
situation. A pure description does not argue.

discount indicator A term in an argument that indicates the presence of a claim that discounts or
de-emphasizes a relevant factor. That claim is neither a premise nor a conclusion.

equivocating Changing the reference of a term from one occurrence to another within an
argument.
 70

explanation A statement or sequence of statements designed to show the cause, the motivation,
or the sequence of events leading up to the event that is being explained. Pure explanations do
not describe. Nor are they designed to convince you that something is so or that something should
be done.

final conclusion In a chain of arguments, the last conclusion, the conclusion that isn’t used as a
premise.

implicit premise A statement that does not appear explicitly in an argument but that is intended
by the arguer to be a premise to help make the conclusion follow from the premises.

imply A statement P logically implies a statement Q if Q has to be true whenever P is. Informally,
speakers might say “P means Q” instead of “P implies Q.”

indicator term A conclusion indicator term is a word or phrase in an argument that is usually
followed by the conclusion; a premise indicator term is usually followed by a premise.

inductive argument An argument intended to meet the standard of being inductively strong.

inductively strong An argument is inductively strong if the conclusion would be very probably
true if the premises were to be true. Inductive strength is a matter of degree.

invalid Not deductively valid. Even strong inductive arguments are deductively invalid.

multiple argumentation A passage containing more than one argument.

premise A claim that is used as a reason in an argument.

premise indicators Words or phrases that signal the presence of premises but not conclusions.
Examples: Because, since, for the reason that.

standard form A single argument rewritten with its basic premises above the line and its
conclusion below the line. The premises and conclusion should be expressed as complete
sentences. Pronouns should be replaced with their antecedents (the nouns themselves) wherever
possible. The order of the premises is not important. Indicator words and other fluff words are
stripped away. When an argument is in standard form, it is supposed to stand alone with
everything significant stated explicitly so that the reader can view the whole argument and
understand what it is without needing additional information from the context.

sub-conclusion The conclusion of an argument that occurs among other arguments.

 71

Exercises

General Exercises

1. If two people disagree with each other, then one of them is not a critical thinker.

a. true b. false

■ 2. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Drug Administration, the four
major food groups are corn, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows. Which food group
is preferred by future Italian diplomats?

a. corn
b. pork
c. beer
d. Jell-O salad with marshmallows. 42

3. Consider each of the following four sentences and say whether they would typically be used
to make a statement or not to make a statement:

Where is it? There it is! Watch out! It's coming toward us too fast!

4. Ok, you math geniuses, a farmer had 17 sheep, and all but 9 died. Then the farmer was given 2
from his brother but both died. How many of the farmer's sheep were left? [Hint: Not 8.]

5. Briefly describe what is going on in the following paragraph by answering these questions:
What is its main purpose? Is there an argument? Is anything explained? What? Is there any
description? The paragraph is about Catherine the Great’s wedding in Russia in 1745. She was a
sixteen-year-old bride-to-be of the seventeen-year-old future emperor.

Catherine’s premarital nervousness did not come from fear of the nocturnal intimacies
that marriage would demand. She knew nothing about these things. Indeed, on the eve of
her marriage, she was so innocent that she did not know how the two sexes physically
differed. Nor had she any idea what mysterious acts were performed when a woman lay
down with a man. Who did what? How? She questioned her young ladies, but they were
as innocent as she. One June night, she staged an impromptu slumber party in her
bedroom, covering the floor with mattresses, including her own. Before going to sleep,
the eight flustered and excited young women discussed what men were like and how
their bodies were formed. No one had any specific information; indeed, their talk was so
ill-informed, incoherent, and unhelpful that Catherine said that in the morning she would
ask her mother. She did so, but Johanna—herself married at fifteen—refused to answer.
Instead, she “severely scolded” her daughter for indecent curiosity.

42 You can distinguish a serious question from a joke, can’t you?

 72

–Robert K. Massie

6. Views, questions, opinions, statements, assertions and declarative sentences are various kinds
of claims—except one of these. Which one?

Detecting Single, Explicit Arguments

■ 1. What is the conclusion indicator term in this argument?

If it rains, then it’s a bad time for a picnic. So, we shouldn’t go there for a picnic since
Svetlana knows it’s raining there now. At least that’s what she heard.

a. If

b. Then

c. So

d. We shouldn’t go there for a picnic

e. None of the above 43

■ 2. What is the premise indicator term in this argument?

We already know the solution to Rafael’s third math problem is a number which is divisible by
8. I think the answer is probably 32. At any rate, we can suppose that for any number, if it is
divisible by 8, then it is divisible by 16. So, the solution to his third problem is divisible by 16.
Isn’t 32 divisible by 16?

a. I think
b. at any rate
c. we can suppose that
d. if
e. so 44

■ 3. Which sentence below probably is not being used to make a claim (that is, a statement)?

a. I wonder if we should turn back.

b. Financial ruin from medical bills is almost exclusively an American disease.

43 Answer (c).

44 Answer (c).
 73

c. I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do the operation on
someone else, not you.

d. My bumper sticker asks, “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I drive by
again?” 45

4. Identify all the conclusion indicators and premise indicators, if any, in the following passage:

The Philadelphia company’s letter said they would place their call to us here in Los Angles
at 2pm their time. They are in a time zone that is three hours east of us; therefore, we
should expect their call at 11am our time, but if they don’t call then let’s go to plan B.

■ 5. The sentence below is quite likely

a. an argument or explanation b. neither an argument nor an explanation

Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips were once the popular choice for
memory storage on personal computers since, unlike the SRAM chip, they were less
expensive per byte and the DRAM design essentially required using only one transistor
per bit. 46

■ 6. The following passage contains

a. an argument b. a report of an argument c. neither

Through a process of trial and error, early people slowly learned that some contaminated
food made them sick, while other contaminations improved the flavor, made an
exhilarating fruit drink, or helped preserve the food for longer periods of time. In modern
times, scientists learned that the contaminations are due to bacteria, yeast, and molds. 47

7. The sentence below is quite likely

a. an argument b. not an argument

45Answer (a), assuming you are going to take this question seriously, but the jokes in c and d
might be a reason to doubt this assumption. Usually declarative sentences are used to make
claims, but not always. The declarative sentence “I promised to meet you” is true or false, but
the declarative sentence “I promise to meet to” is neither.

46Answer (a). This is probably an explanation. It is explaining why dynamic random access
memory (DRAM) chips were once the popular choice for memory storage on personal
computers.

47 Answer (c). It is just a description.

 74

The life of a respected technical professional has few spare moments because there's all
that work from running labs to teaching to speaking at colloquiums to writing grant
proposals to selling research programs to administrating or managing to maybe even
finding a few minutes to think about what to do.

■ 8. Which are the premise indicators in the following list?

if, then, yet, nevertheless, on the contrary, but, thus, suppose that 48

■ 9. Which are the conclusion indicators in the following list?

if, then, yet, nevertheless, on the contrary, but, thus, suppose that 49

■ 10. Does this argument contain any premise indicators that are working to indicate premises?
If so, identify them.

President Kennedy was smart to have approved the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961
since he could be reasonably certain the USSR wouldn't physically intervene to help Cuba,
and since he wanted to do something that could overthrow the left-wing government. 50

11. Is the word since working to indicate a premise or conclusion in the following?

Since 5 p.m. I’ve been hungry.

12. Add a premise indicator, remove the conclusion indicator (without replacement), and rewrite
the following argument as a single sentence.

Ever since the inflationary spiral ended, state taxes have been high. State farm subsidies
will therefore continue to rise.

13. Is the word suppose working as a premise indicator in the following?

I suppose you're right that the New York Giants have a better passing game than the L.A.
Rams.

14. Add a premise indicator, remove the conclusion indicator (without replacement), and rewrite
the following argument as a single sentence.

48 Suppose that.

49 Thus.

50 Yes, the word since is used twice as a premise indicator.

 75

The average length of an ear of popcorn has been longer ever since the 2010 planting
regulations were adopted. State sales of popcorn will therefore continue to prosper.

■ 15. Is this really a statement?

Ah, America, the land of catastrophic wealth imbalance, may its flag ever wave. 51

■ 16. Consider the following argument:

All those containers contain petroleum since each one has a blue top and all petroleum
containers have blue tops.

Let A = All those containers contain petroleum.

B = Each of those containers has a blue top.
C = All petroleum containers have blue tops.
D = Everything with a blue top is a petroleum container.

Which one of the following would be a symbolic representation of the argument in standard
form?

a. A b. D c. C d. C e. A
B C A B D
--- --- --- --- ---
C A B A C 52

17. Is the argument in the previous question deductively valid?

■ 18. Does the following contain an argument, and if so what are its conclusion and premises?

By the age of seven, Snow-White had grown more beautiful than her stepmother, the Queen.
Then the Queen asked her mirror: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?”
and it answered: “Queen, thou art the fairest in this hall, But Snow-White's fairer than us all.”
Horrified, the envious Queen called a royal hunter and said: “Take the child into the forest.
Kill her, and bring me her lung and liver as a token.” 53

51Yes, it is a making two statements, that America is a land of catastrophic wealth imbalance
and that America’s flag should continue to wave. The second statement is probably meant
sarcastically.

52 Answer (d). To get this answer you had to remember that premise order is irrelevant.

53 Not an argument. Could it be interpreted as an argument for the conclusion that Snow White
is the fairest of them all? Couldn't the reasons for this conclusion be that the mirror said so? No,
 76

19. Which of the following sentences contain explicit argumentation—that is, explicitly contain
the two elements required to be any argument (a conclusion plus one or more premises)?

a. Among all creatures, humans are distinguished by the extent to which they wonder about
things that do not immediately affect their subsistence.

b. Every man is a potential killer, even if he believes otherwise. What I mean to say is, every
man is capable of taking a life. And man is not the only creature on Earth who is a potential
killer.

c. If you were to pick an apple at random from that basket, then you'd probably get one
without a worm in it.

d. Stop right there, Jack; it's not raining today, so you won't need to take that umbrella. Put it
back.

20. The following passage is most likely

a. an argument b. not an argument

Although rattlesnakes are the most common poisonous snake in North America, there are
four types of poisonous snakes on the continent: rattlesnakes, copperheads, moccasins, and
coral snakes. The first three belong to the pit viper group, and the most reliable physical trait
by which to identify them is the pair of pits between the eye and the nostril. These pits are
heat sensitive and allow the snake to sense its prey. Keep in mind that a snake's venom is
designed for catching food, not attacking people.

■ 21. Is the following passage an argument? Why or why not?

If you get lost in the woods and no one responds to your calls, walk downhill until you
come to a stream. Then walk downstream; you'll eventually come to a town. 54

what is happening in the passage is not an argument trying to convince the reader or the queen
of this conclusion. Instead, the queen asked a question about who is the fairest, and the mirror
answered that it is Snow White and proceeded to describe Snow White. The passage is a
narrative, a story. The passage does give sufficient information to draw the conclusion that
Snow White is the fairest for the reason that the mirror said so, yet the reader is not expected to
do this kind of reasoning. The reader can tell from the rest of the passage that the writer's intent
is merely to provide the information that Snow White is fairest and then to elaborate on the
point by providing the information about the mirror.

54No argument. The passage is giving you advice, not reasons for the advice. You could
imagine someone creating an argument from this. It might be that the advice should be taken
 77

■ 22. Identify the discount claim and the discount indicator in the following passage.

Svetlana came over this afternoon in an even worse state than this morning. She is so mad
at Li that I worry what she’s going to do. She asked for the knife back that she loaned us.
I realize that we did promise to give it back soon, but she’s so agitated right now that, if
we return it, I think she’s going to use it on Li. So, let’s lie to her and say we can’t seem to
find the knife. 55

23. What is the role of the last sentence in the argument of this passage?

If it rains, then it’s a bad time for a picnic. So, we shouldn’t go there for a picnic since
Svetlana knows it’s raining there now. At least that’s what she heard.

24. Identify the implicit conclusion in this argument:

Robert Smalls was assigned to the slave crew of a Confederate ship at Charleston, South
Carolina during the U.S. Civil War. When all the officers had gone ashore, he seized
control of the ship, put on a Confederate officer’s hat to hide his black face and sailed past
the unsuspecting Confederate canons of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. Upon reaching
the Union Navy off the coast of South Carolina, he turned over the ship to them. He later
was made a captain in the Union navy and given command of the ship until the end of
the war. So, are you so sure you were correct when you said, “There were no black heroes
during that war”?

■ 25. (a) Identify the conclusion of this argument. (b) Assuming the premises are true, is the
argument strong or weak?

No, table tennis could not have been invented before the American Revolution. This is
because table tennis needs plastic balls, but plastic wasn’t invented by 1775 when the
Revolution began. 56

■ 26. Identify the conclusion indicator term, if there is any, in the following argument:

because it will lead you to safety in this situation, and you ought to accept advice that will do
this.

55The discount indicator is “I realize that … but” and the discount claim is “We did promise to
give the knife back soon.”

56(a) Table tennis could not have been invented before the American Revolution. (b) Strong. This is
a good argument.
 78

According to the New Encyclopedia of the People of Russia, King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella united Aragon and Castille into the modern country of Spain in 1469. They
founded the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 as a branch of the government and appointed
Torquemada to be the grand inquisitor. This government agency caused all sorts of official
terror, and was generally bad for Europeans, although it brought certain short-term
benefits to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, King Ferdinand and especially Queen
Isabella paid for Christopher Columbus’ trip west to find Asia, and this was very
beneficial for the European world because it opened up new sources of wealth, adventure,
and knowledge, although there may have been some negatives for the local tribes in the
New World. So, Ferdinand and Isabella’s marriage had both good and bad consequences
for Europe. Nevertheless, when you weigh the pros and cons, you’ve got to admit that the
good heavily outweighs the bad─for Europeans. 57

a. according to
b. nevertheless
c. on the other hand
d. so
e. There is no conclusion indicator

27. The sentence “I now pronounce you man and wife,” when said by an American judge (justice
of the peace) to a couple who have applied for a license to be married, is

a. a claim but not an argument

b. an argument

c. none of the above

28. He’s so good at chess he doesn’t even refer to that piece as the horse.

Argument for the conclusion that he doesn’t even refer to that piece as the horse.

Argument for the conclusion that he’s good at chess.

A claim.

Neither an argument nor a claim. 58

29. Identify the conclusion indicator and the conclusion in this argument:

57 Answer (d).

58 Answer (c).
 79

Slavery in Saudi Arabia was officially abolished in 1962. That means that if they still have
slaves it’s under the legal “radar.”

a. The indicator is “That means” and the conclusion is that slavery in Saudi Arabia is under
the legal “radar.”

b. The indicator is “That means” and the conclusion is that slavery in Saudi Arabia was
officially abolished in 1962.

c. There is no conclusion indicator, but the conclusion is that if Saudi Arabia still has slaves,
then it is under the legal “radar.”

d. The indicator is “That means that if” and the conclusion is that Saudi Arabia still has
slaves, and this is under the legal “radar.”

e. None of the above.

30. Describe the following numbered passages by placing the appropriate letter to the left of each
number.

a. Merely a claim or statement with no reasons given to back it up.

b. An argument using bad reasons.

c. An argument using good reasons (assuming that the arguer is being truthful).

d. None of the above.

1. You said that all deliveries from your firm would be made on Mondays or
Tuesdays and that you would be making a delivery here one day this week. Since
it is Tuesday morning and we've had no deliveries this week, your firm should
make a delivery today.

2. That night, over icy roads and through howling winds, Paul Revere rode the 60
miles, and even before the British got into their transports, word had come back to
Boston that the King's fort at Portsmouth had been seized and His Majesty's
military stores stolen by the rebellious Americans.

3. Will you or won't you take me and Johnny Tremain across the Charles River?

4. Not a word to the old gentleman, now; not a word.

31. Arguments in newspaper editorials, unlike ordinary arguments, are usually presented in
standard form.

a. true b. false
 80

Conditionals

1. Does the following sentence express a conditional statement?

An ostrich is a bird; some birds can fly; but an ostrich cannot.

a. yes b. no c. can't tell

■ 2. Is the following conditional true?

If kids who are abused usually become abusive parents when they have children, and
John Drew is being abused by his mother, then when he grows up he is likely to abuse his
own children.

a. yes b. no c. need more information to tell 59

3. If the if-part of a conditional claim is true, and if the conditional claim itself is true, will the
then-part have to be true?

4. Is the following statement an argument?

If you had struck this match when it was dry, even though it's now wet, then it would
have burst into flame.

Implicit Elements of Arguments

■ 1. If there is an argument present, then there will always be at least one premise present, even
if all the other premises are implicit.

a. true b. false 60

2. According to this textbook, if a premise or a conclusion is implicit, then it is:

a. very probably true.

b. always uncertain.

59 Yes. Then then-part follows from the if-part.

Answer (a). If all the premises were left unstated, there would be no arguing and instead
60

merely the making of a claim.

 81

c. unstated.

d. none of the above.

■ 3. Identify the implicit conclusion of the following argument, then indicate whether the
argument is inductive or deductive.

AIDS will kill everybody who gets it, and your mother has gotten AIDS so you can draw
your own conclusion. 61

4. What is the conclusion of this argument by analogy?

To say that TEX, the scientific word processor language, takes a little effort to learn is like
saying that with a little effort you could build your own full-scale, working Challenger
spacecraft and run your own space shuttle program. Surely you don't believe you can do
this, do you?

5. Rewrite this argument in standard form so that it is deductively valid: "Joshua, quit that! Justine
isn't bothering you!" There is at least one implicit premise.

6. When the senator says, "Murder is wrong," and the reporter says, "Well, then you must think
capital punishment is wrong, too," the reporter is making an argument, but she is leaving a lot
unsaid. Her most significant implicit premise is that the senator thinks

a. Murder is a kind of capital punishment.

b. Capital punishment is a kind of murder.

c. Capital punishment is neither right nor wrong.

d. If capital punishment is wrong, then murder is wrong.

7. Identify the principal implicit element (and say whether it is a premise or a conclusion) in the
following argument regarding the correctness of the theory of biological evolution.

According to the fossil record as it is interpreted by evolutionists, spiders have been on

earth for 300 million years but have not changed. Yet, if evolution were really working,
surely they would have changed by now, wouldn't they?

8. Identify the most significant implicit premise used in the following argument:

61Conclusion: Your mother, too, will be killed by AIDS. The argument is deductive; and it is
deductively valid.
 82

All good Americans hate cancer and love the first lady. So, Roberto Salazar Rodriguez
loves the first lady.

■ 9. Give the standard form of this deductively valid argument, adding the significant implicit
premises, if there are any:

If the moral thing to do is always whatever your society says, then Nazi brutality was
morally OK in Nazi Germany. Therefore, the moral thing to do is not always whatever
your society says it is. 62

10. What premise is probably being assumed to make the following argument be deductively
valid?

Tom New is running for state treasurer of Indiana, so he knows a lot about public finances.

a. If a person knows a lot about public finances, then the person is running for state treasurer
of Indiana.

b. If a person is running for some public office, then the person probably knows a lot about
public finances.

c. Tom New is a candidate with financial savvy.

d. Anybody who runs for state treasurer of Indiana is financially ambitious.

e. All candidates for federal office know a lot about public finances.

f. If a person is running for state treasurer of any state, then the person knows a lot about
public finances.

g. People who know a lot about public finances often run for state treasurer in Indiana.

■ 11. The following statement is not an argument, but the reader most probably can assume that
the speaker believes what?

Stick your hands up or I'll blow your head off.

62 Here is the standard form:

If the moral thing to do is always whatever your society says, then Nazi brutality
was ethically OK in Nazi Germany.

Nazi brutality was not morally OK in Nazi Germany.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The moral thing to do is not always whatever your society says it is.
 83

a. The hands of the person being spoken to are not up.

b. If you stick your hands up, I will blow your head off.

c. The two people have guns.

d. If I blow your head off, then your hands were up.

e. I will blow your head off. 63

12. Rewrite the conclusion of this argument as a declarative sentence.

What do you mean "We should let a pregnant woman decide whether she has an
abortion"? If you let them decide, then you are letting people commit murder. You can't
let them do that, can vou?

13. What implicit premises are being used in this argument?

In these pandemic times, why trust health officials to make society’s decisions? They weren’t
elected!

Multiple Arguments

1. What is the most significant implicit premise used in the first sub-argument of this argument
chain?

She's got the flu again, so she probably won't be here to chair the meeting. Therefore, I'll
have to do it. Damn!

■ 2. Write out the standard form of the first sub-argument in the following argument.

Galileo said good science uses mathematics, yet Charles Darwin's work on evolution uses
no mathematics. Therefore, Darwin's work on evolution is not good science. 64

63 Answer (a).

64 The sub-argument in standard form is:

Galileo said good science uses mathematics.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Good science uses mathematics.
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3. In the following passage, (a) does Alice argue? If so, what is her conclusion? (b) Does her
employer argue? If so, what is his conclusion?

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Alice said as her eyebrows bulged. “But that’s beside the point. He
should not be allowed anywhere near that project. Keep him out of there. Get somebody
else,” she said. Her employer had other ideas, evidently. He responded, “Listen Alice, you
might be in charge of that project, but you’re wrong, dead wrong. Think about it.” “Look,”
said Alice, biting through her words, “there is no way in hell that I’m going to permit him
to do that, and if you don’t like it, you know what you can do with it.” After several days,
things quieted down between the two of them, but last week Alice received her
termination notice. That was the day she bought the poison.

a. Alice is arguing that he should not be allowed anywhere near that project.

b. Her employer is arguing that she bought the poison.

c. Her employer is arguing that he should be permitted to work on the project.

d. Nobody is giving anybody reasons.

■ 4. In this complex argument, one of the statements is an intermediate conclusion rather than the
final conclusion. Identify it.

You should do well, since you have talent and you are a hard worker. I know you have
talent, even though you don’t believe it, because I’ve seen you perform and you’re better
than most people I’ve seen do this. Besides, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé both say you’re
talented.

a. You should do well.

b. You have talent.
c. You are a hard worker.
d. I’ve seen you perform and you’re better than most people I’ve seen do this.
e. Lady Gaga and Beyoncé both say you’re talented. 65

65 Answer (b). Here is the main argument:

You have talent.

You are a hard worker.
---------------------------------
You should do well.

Its first premise is not basic because it is argued for. Here is that argument:

I’ve seen you perform and you’re better than most people I’ve seen do this.
Lady Gaga and Beyoncé both say you’re talented.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5. Consider the following complex expressions which are composed of simple claims. The simple
claims are abbreviated as A and B and C. For each of the complex expressions, say whether it is
an argument or merely a claim:

a. A, but not B.

b. A, but not B, and consequently C.

c. A, which is why B, but not C.

d. A and B follow from C.

e. A and maybe B, or perhaps C. 66

Creating and Improving Arguments

1. Research the issue of whether the United States can afford to expand its space program. Take
a side and create a 200- to 300-word argument in defense of your position. Give credit to your
sources (that is, use footnotes to say where your information came from).

■ 2. Lesley and Rico say they’ve found a deductively valid, simple argument that, when rewritten
in standard form, is a mixture of true and false sentences in which the premises are all true. Why
is this unusual? 67

3. The following passage is an argument. Construct a new argument that defends the opposite
conclusion but that devotes about half its attention to countering the points made in the first
argument.

America should have more alcoholics. Here is why. Drinking alcohol makes you feel
good, and Americans deserve to feel good, if anybody does. Legislators who are alcoholics
will be off playing golf or hanging out in bars; they will be preoccupied and therefore
won't pass so much harmful legislation that rips off us taxpayers. Besides, if I want to be

You have talent.

66 (a) claim, (b) argument. Try to work (c) and (d) and (e) on your own.

67In a valid argument with true premises, the conclusion has to be true, too. So, there couldn’t
be any false statements. What Lesley and Rico are saying is contradictory.
 86

an alcoholic and don't do anything to harm you, then you shouldn't be telling me what I
can do with my body; it's my body, not your body, right?

You will be graded on the clarity of your argument, your ability to foresee counters from your
opponents, and the absence of silly, naive, or irrelevant comments. The upper limit on your new
argument should be two pages, typed double-spaced.

4. Construct an argument defending your position on the issue of whether there ought to be a law
permitting the county public health department to start a needle exchange program. Under this
program, drug addicts would be given new or clean hypodermic needles in exchange for their
old or used needles, no questions asked. The purpose of the program would be to slow the spread
of AIDS in the county.

Background: Assume that it is a misdemeanor to possess a hypodermic needle that has not been
prescribed by a doctor and that it is a misdemeanor for a doctor to prescribe or give away
hypodermic needles and other drug addiction paraphernalia except for certain listed problems,
such as diabetes and allergies.

You will be graded not on what position you take but on the clarity of your argument, your ability
to foresee counters from your opponents, and the absence of silly, naive, or irrelevant comments.
Keep your argument to two pages, typed, double-spaced.

5. This is an exercise to be done by four students working as a group. The group chooses an issue
to debate in front of the rest of the class, but the issue must be approved by the instructor. The
group meets outside of class to research the issue. A typical issue might be whether the college
should spend more money on athletic scholarships and less money on other projects. Another
issue might be whether U.S. defense spending should be cut. Two students agree to argue for a
yes position on the issue; the other two students agree to argue for the no position. During the
class debate, all four students speak alternatively, each for five minutes or less. Speakers may use
their time either to present arguments for their own position or to attack arguments presented by
the opposition. When the four are done, the rest of the students in the class get to ask them
questions or otherwise enter into the debate. The goal of the exercise is to show a significant
understanding of the issue and to carry out good logical reasoning on the issue. Depending on
your instructor, students who are not in the group of four may be required to summarize and
discuss the quality of the reasoning of the group.

Descriptions, Explanations, and Arguments

1. Are the following three passages most probably expressing arguments, explanations,
descriptions, or what?
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a. A quartz crystal oscillator is very small and contains a crystal of the mineral silicon
dioxide that can be made to vibrate when stimulated electrically.

b. A clock's quartz crystal oscillator is a fascinating device that is not as complicated as it

may seem to be. Here is how it works. Power from a small battery makes the crystal
vibrate, and when this happens the crystal gives out pulses of current at a very precise
rate, a fixed electrical frequency. A microchip reduces this rate to one pulse per second,
and this signal activates the time display mechanism for the second hand.

c. Many clocks and watches contain a quartz crystal oscillator that controls the hands or the
time display. Power from a small battery makes the crystal vibrate, and it gives out pulses
of current at a very precise rate—that is, a definite frequency. A microchip reduces this
rate to one pulse per second, and this signal activates the time display mechanism. 68

2. Suppose you asked someone to explain why tigers eat meat but not plants, and you got the
answer, "Because a zookeeper once told me that's what they eat." You should consider this to be
an incorrect answer. Why?

a. You asked for some sort of explanation of why tigers eat meat but not plants, yet the
answer mentioned nothing about plants.

b. You requested an explanation but got an argument instead.

c. Zookeepers usually have no idea what tigers eat.

d. Nobody thought to mention that meat is not made out of plants.

3. Suppose you have asked your English instructor why Ernest Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel
Prize for literature, and suppose she answers, "He won because the Swedish Nobel Committee

68 a. Description of a quartz crystal oscillator. Not an explanation.

b. This is an explanation of how a quartz crystal oscillator works in a clock. The passage
also provides some additional description of the inside of a clock that uses the oscillator.

c. Like passage (b), this one describes the inner workings of a certain kind of clock.
Compared to (b), it is harder to tell whether any explanation is present, but probably one is
present. To tell whether an explanation is present, the reader must look at what is said, then try
to reconstruct the intentions in the mind of the speaker. If the intentions were to say (1) what
causes what, (2) what motivates an action, (3) what purpose something has, or (4) what origin
something has, then an explanation is present. Otherwise, there is only description.
 88

liked his short stories and novels about his own experiences in World War I and in the Spanish
Civil War of the late 1930s." She is

a. explaining but not arguing.

b. explaining and arguing.

c. only describing.

d. describing and arguing.

e. only arguing. 69

4. When Betsy says "I'm angry," she is reporting information about her state of mind, not arguing
for a conclusion. But is she explaining or not explaining here state of mind?

5. The following passage is primarily

a. a description

b. an argument

c. a request

About two-thirds of the salt in sea water is sodium chloride. Other substances present are
magnesium chloride, sodium sulfate, potassium chloride, and calcium chloride. In the
remaining one percent of salts are tiny traces of about forty different elements, including
iron, uranium, silver, and gold. The percentage of gold is so small that you would have to
process tons of seawater to get even a tiny amount. If the salt were taken out of all the
seawater in the world and distributed across the land, it could cover all the land areas on
Earth with a layer 500 feet thick. 70

6. The following passage is primarily

a. a description

69 Betsy Ross is describing, but she might or might not be explaining, depending on the context.
If she just makes this statement out of the blue, she is not offering a cause for some event, nor
offering a motivation for what happened. She is simply describing the state of her body or
mind. However, if the context were that she has just been asked to explain why she ripped her
new flag to pieces, her response would count as an explanation of this action.

70Answer (a). The passage is describing the constituents of sea water; it is not giving reasons for
some conclusion nor requesting anything of the reader.
 89

b. an argument

c. a request

The sun's rays do not fall vertically outside the tropics, even at noontime. June 21 in the
northern hemisphere is the day of the year with the longest daytime. On this day, the
perfectly vertical fall of the sun's rays is farther north than on any other day of the year.
This special, farthest north place is actually a line of places around the earth at 23.5° north
latitude. It is called the Tropic of Cancer. The day when the sun reaches the Tropic of
Cancer is called the solstice, and it begins the summer. Hawaii is the only part of the U.S.
that is south of the Tropic of Cancer.

7. Is this passage primarily an argument or an explanation?

Mayfield is guilty because the FBI report says that his fingerprints match those on the
countertop beside the cash register.

8. Is this passage primarily an argument or an explanation?

The passenger died because the driver was drunk and speeding on the freeway.

9. Take a least two of the following sentences and work them into an argument on the issue of
which computer your office should purchase.

a. The Apple clone is cheaper than the Cray-Sinclair, although both are within our budget.

b. The Cray-Sinclair computer is faster than the Apple clone.

c. The Cray-Sinclair won't run Word, and the Apple clone runs all the software we want
right now.

d. The Cray-Sinclair has a better service contract than the Apple clone.
 90

Evaluating Arguments

Although much of the rest of this book is devoted to the topic of evaluating arguments, here are
some initial exercises.

1. How good is this argument? Is it inductively strong? Is it valid?

Anytime you murder someone you are killing that person.

So, if a pilot kills someone during the battle, the pilot is murdering that person during the
battle.

■ 2. How good is this argument? Is it inductively strong? Is it valid?

Anytime you murder someone you are killing that person.

So, if a pilot murders a person during the battle, then the pilot kills someone during the
battle. 71

3. Evaluate the quality of this argument:

Nathan was arrested for breaking and entering. At the trial two witness who didn’t know
each other or know Nathan testified that Nathan committed the crime. The defense
attorney said Nathan was 10 miles away at the time, but the only evidence for this was
Nathan’s own claim that he was 10 miles away at the time.

4. Evaluate the quality of this argument:

All ice eventually melts when heated to over 47 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice in the
refrigerator of the President of France was heated to over 47 degrees Fahrenheit that day.
So, the ice in the President’s refrigerator eventually melted. 72

■ 5. Does this argument have any counterexamples? If so, find one.

All cats are interesting animals.

All cats have fur.

71This is a very strong argument. It is deductively valid and all its premises (there’s just one) are
true.

72The argument meets the standard of being deductively valid. But you’ll have to suspend judgment
about whether the argument is a good reason to believe the conclusion because you don’t know
whether one of its premises is true. You don’t know whether it is true that the ice in the refrigerator
of the President of France was heated to over 47 degrees Fahrenheit that day.
 91

So, all interesting animals have fur. 73

6. Does this argument have any counterexamples? If so, find one.

All cats are interesting animals.

All interesting animals have fur.
So, all cats have fur.

■ 7. Does this argument have any counterexamples?

Either Juan is coming to the party and bringing the beer or Tom is staying home and
watching his favorite program. Juan is definitely coming to the party. Therefore, Juan is
bringing the beer. 74

8. Discuss the following argument. At the very least, describe it and evaluate it. Are some reasons
better than others?

Drinking alcohol causes kidney disease, traffic accidents, and other serious problems. In
addition, the singer Michael Jackson says drinking is an undesirable habit. Your older
brother says no one will kiss a person whose breath smells like alcohol. Therefore, no
sensible, intelligent person should ever drink.

73The following situation is a counterexample: a situation where all cats and crocodiles are
interesting animals and all cats have fur but crocodiles don’t. In this situation the premises are both
true but the conclusion is false, so we have a counterexample that shows the argument was
deductively invalid.

74You can imagine a situation where Juan comes to the party without the beer, while Tom says
home and watches his favorite program. In that situation the premises are true while the
conclusion is false. So this is a counterexample, and the argument is deductively invalid.