Tacit Premises and Strengthening Arguments

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts around tacit premises and the processes of strengthening and weakening arguments.

Enthymeme

An argument with a missing premise and/or conclusion.

Tacit Premise

An unstated assumption that must be included for a conclusion to follow from given premises.

Inductive Argument

An argument where the premises provide some degree of support for the conclusion but do not guarantee it.

Strengthening an Argument

Adding premises to make the conclusion more likely.

Weakening an Argument

Adding premises that make the conclusion less likely.

Rhetorical Conditional

A conditional statement that implies a relationship between two statements in an argument.

Paraphrase

To restate a statement in one’s own words, often to clarify or simplify the original statement.

Charity Principle

The practice of interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible.

Argument Map

A visual representation of an argument, showing the relationships between premises and conclusions.

Conclusion

The statement that an argument is trying to prove.