The main thing that interested me about this chapter is how an argument can be so complex and dense. Even in my POLS 20 Controversial Legal Issues course, I never had to dismantle any argument so deeply. The farthest I have gotten was vagueness and ambiguity.
When it came to learning that a premise must follow a conclusion, I started to get confused, but the more examples I read about it I started to understand. The book says that a conclusion must follow from the premise; this is another confusing way to say that the premise as well as the conclusion must be true, likely, or unlikely in order for the argument to be valid, strong or otherwise. I honestly feel that there should be a cliff notes version of this book, because there are some unintended contradictions in this text, differentiating valid from strong arguments which is really confusing.
Yeah I totally agree with you, this book is very complex and dense. This book is not one that you read and are able to understand immediately. I've read the text a couple of times now and I am just starting to understand what a valid or invalid argument is and a what a strong or weak argument is as described by Epstein. I kind of feel like Epstein tries break down arguments so deeply and pull every aspect apart, which may be the reason for all the confusion. I just hope that the whole book is not this hard to understand haha.
ReplyDeleteYou both are absolutely correct. This book definitely takes some time to analyze and comprehend. It is not your average or ordinary college textbook, and yet with the examples it makes it a little easier to understand the points that Epstein is trying to make. Who knew that arguments and the statements we make could be so complex and have a stronger or deeper meaning than what we are trying to state in the first place. I do love learning this information though, I feel like at the end of this class I am going to be analyzing my own thoughts and statements before I state them.
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