Cause and Effect

After a re-read Chapter 15,  I like this chapter because it was pretty short.  I found many concepts that were pretty interesting.  The one that I was most interested in was the section about I causes and effects.  Epstein starts off talking defining exactly what a cause was and what an effect was.   He also states “Whatever causes and effects are, we can describe them with claims.” I believe this concept is simple because I learned about this when I was in elementary school or middle school.  Basically a cause leads to an effect.  For example, I wake up to an alarm everyday.  So if the alarm rings, it causes me to wake up.  The cause is the alarm, and the affect is that it wakes me up.  We use cause and effect in everyday life and I feel that it is a pretty easy concept. 

Course Assignment: Critical Thinking in News and Politics

The course assignment “Critical Thinking in News and Politics”  seemed like an overall good assignment.  Basically we had to find an editorial or letter, and analyze it using critical thinking.  We had to figure out the major claim of the editorial and we also had to mention premises/claims that support the main claim.  My groups editorial was about NFL and concussions.  It was basically saying that the NFL needs to be more aware of those kinds of injuries and how they can affect players in the long run.  I think that the assignment wasn’t easy.  It took alot of work because we had to find the right editorial or letter to choose from and there were hundreds of them.  I believe that this assignment was good for me because I had a chance to analyze the editorial deeper so I understood what the author of the editorial was trying to say. 

Chapter 13: Graphs

In Chapter 13, I read about many concepts.  For example, misleading claims with number, graphs, and averages.  The chapter was basically talking about how certain stats and numbers can fool people and mislead them.  One concept that I was really interested in was the section about graphs.  Epstein talks about how graphs are useful at times, but we have to be careful when reading graphs because some of them are wrong and can give us the wrong information.  You have to even pay attention to the angles of the lines  because some can either be too narrow or too wide.  Or a company can exaggerate their numbers just to persuade the customers that their business is progressing.  So basically what Epstien is trying to say is to do more research on companies to make sure their statistics are correct.  I see graphs all the time, and now I will make sure to look at them more carefully.  

Chapter 12: Reasoning by Analogy

In Chapter 12, I read about Reasoning by Analogy, Judging Analogies, and Analogies in the Law.  The one that I found most interesting was Reasoning by Analogy.  Epstein says that a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: On one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same.  Basically, an analogy is a statement of a logical relationship between two similar things that are compared with each other.


A good example of Reasoning by Analogy would be:
Firemen and fires are like soldiers and war.


This is a good comparison because they both have a lot in common.  They both wear uniforms, they both put their lives at risk, and they both fight (Fires/wars). I believe that people reason by analogy everyday when they are trying to compare a certain subject.   

Appeal to Fear Advertisement (Question 7)

This week out of questions 1-7 I chose to do number 3.  It ask to find an advertisement that uses an appeal to fear.  Appeal to fear is basically a company using fear to win their customers over.  Trying to scare them in order to convince them to buy their product or to agree with them.  An advertisement that I found was on this website. http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/08/29/createive-fear-appeal-ads-from-wwf/

It is the first picture.  Basically it says "Stop climate change before it changes you" and it has a picture of a man turning into some kind of creature.  This is appeal to fear because the company is basically trying to scare people by saying if climate change doesn't stop then this will happen.  I believe that almost all appeal to fear advertisements are not true because the company is lying their way through the customers mind just to get them on their side.

Appeal to Emotion: Prescriptive and Descriptive

 Appeal to emotion means to decide on a certain subject, due to your emotions.  For example, certain diet food companies try to win people over by saying they will lose 20 pounds if they eat and drink their products.  They will also add that everyone will be attracted to you, and if your a man, women will be constantly staring at you (Vice Versa).  This will cause people to be persuaded by their emotions, and what they feel.


While reading the "Too Much Emotion" chapter, I found many different kinds of Appeal to emotions.  For example, one that I found that was pretty interesting was, appeal to emotion with a perscriptive conclusion and descriptive conclusion.  Appeal to emotion with perspective conclusion can be good or bad.  On page 194, Epstien states "Being alert to use of emotion helps clarify the kinds of premises needed in such an argument, so we can more easily analyze it"  Epstein says that a descriptive conclusion used in an appeal to emotion argument is “wishful thinking”.  An appeal to emotion with a descriptive conclusion isnt usually a good thing.  Wishful thinking is about believing someone’s description of something and we believe it because it interferes with our emotions. 

General Claims & Their Contradictories

In Chapter 8 I read about a lot of interesting concepts but one that was most interesting to me was the section about General Claims and Their Contradictories.  Epstein starts off talking about how we need to know how to reason using general claims that assert something in a general way.  This relates to real life situations because we are always using claims in our conversations.  An example of a general claim would be "Dedicated football players practice hard everyday. John practices hard everyday. So John is a dedicated football player." This would be an example of a general claim that we may use often.  Even though this may sound like a valid claim, it is not.  It doesn't say "All" dedicated football players, so therefore John may not practice hard everyday.  To make this more clear Epstien talks about how "All" means every single one. "Some" means At least one, and  "No means not even one."

Aristotelian Logic: Syllogisms

In this weeks reading, I read both the Truth Tables and The Aristotelian Logic chapters.  I found alot of interesting things in both chapters.  The concept that I found most useful was the section in Aristotelian Logic, "Syllogisms".  My definition of a Syllogism is an argument that has many parts with two statements which are most of the time true, and they eventually lead to a conclusion.  In the chapter Epstein talks about Categorical syllogisms.  He states "A categorical syllogism is an argument composed of three categorical claims (two premises and a conclusion)."  An example that Epstein gave in the chapter for a categorical syllogism is: 
No Police officers are theives.
Some theives are sent to prison.
So no police officers are sent to prison.


The first two are claims, and then the last sentence is the conclusion.  I believe categorial syllogisms are used in everyday life because it is often where these kinds of situations come up in an argument.

Chapter 8: Precise and Vague Generalities

In this weeks reading I found a couple of concepts that were interesting to me.  My favorite one that I thought I knew the best were the two generalities; Precise generalities, and Vague generalities.  Epstein first talks about how there are a lot of quantities between one and all.  All means “Every single one, no exceptions.” It can also mean “Every single one, and there is at least one.” Some means “At least one,” but can also be interpreted as “At least one, but not all.”  An example of All would be. "All sports are fun".  An example of some would be "Some games are not fun".

Precise generalities and vague generalities are both specifying a claim.  Precise generalities specifies a claim so that we can understand it clearly.  Vague generalities specifies a claim where it can be understood in many different ways if it is not clear.  I believe this applies to real life because usually high school students and some college students use vague generalities because we usually use slang.  Educated adults like teachers usually use precise generalities, to get their point across clearly when they are teaching.