These type of arguments use words like: all, some, or no. These words are used to reason valid arguments.
There were many ways of doing so. The two I will be discussing is:
- The direct way of reasoning with all
The valid argument goes like this:
All cows moo. Larry is a cow. So Larry moos.
The invalid argument goes like this:
All cows moo. Larry moos. So Larry is a cow.
These arguments were hard to understand but I enjoyed reading the examples because that’s how I was able to understand it. The chapter uses diagrams to prove the validity of the arguments. Checking the validity means making sure the parts of the diagram of over lap and it draws a picture that gets the point across to the person trying to understand the argument.
http://www.thinkingshop.com/Clarion/logic/images/AProp-4-6.jpg
The above would be what an argument daigram that would be used to check the validity.
There were many ways of doing so. The two I will be discussing is:
- The direct way of reasoning with all
The valid argument goes like this:
All cows moo. Larry is a cow. So Larry moos.
The invalid argument goes like this:
All cows moo. Larry moos. So Larry is a cow.
These arguments were hard to understand but I enjoyed reading the examples because that’s how I was able to understand it. The chapter uses diagrams to prove the validity of the arguments. Checking the validity means making sure the parts of the diagram of over lap and it draws a picture that gets the point across to the person trying to understand the argument.
http://www.thinkingshop.com/Clarion/logic/images/AProp-4-6.jpg
The above would be what an argument daigram that would be used to check the validity.
Hi Catalina,
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was very clear and easy to understand. I find and appreciate the fact that your posts are consistently very organized; this makes it much easier for me to understand. As you mentioned, I too learn from reading examples. Your example helped me to better understand the topic you were presenting. I also liked how you incorporated the explanation of the diagram into your post; this was a confusing part of the chapter and the diagrams, and your further explanation of the diagrams, really helped to make the concept easier to understand. I thought you did a really good job!
I too thought your post was very clear and organized. You lay out your points in such a way that it feels like we are reading directly from the text. I also appreciated the addition of the argument diagram you provided. I don’t think that the concept is that hard to grasp in terms of what is and is not valid, but I do agree that when we move quickly through readings we can miss the subtle differences. I wrote about the word all, and my example shows how I mistook a direct and valid statement for something it was clearly not.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteLike what the other two mentioned, your post was very clear and very easy for me to understand. You were able to explain how there using “all” in a statement can either make or break an argument depending on how the writer uses it, which in your case for the example, mentioned that very clearly and got the idea across for us to comprehend easily. At first I also got confused with using “all” effectively since like how you showed in your example there are two ways to go with it. Thank you for also posting up a website that supports your post, which I think would be a greater help in understanding it. All in all, another great post. Keep up the great work! :)