Week 4 Philosophy

What is civility?

• engaging in debates with ethics, humility and humanity

• Choosing to se others as moral equals worthy of being heard and understood

• Recognizing civil disagreement as healthy and necessary

What is argumentation?

• Difference in interest driven and truth oriented argumentation

• Productive only when seeking shared moral ground

What is productive agreement?

• Requires self awareness and intentional reflection on if a discussion or argument is worth having and with whom

• Reflecting on personal motives for engaging

Why do we engage in civil debate?

• to consider judgments about complex issues

• highlighting key arguments and objections of both sides

• Assessing which arguments after all things have been considered, is stronger and most defensible

What are strong premises?

Acceptability is not the same as absolute truth

• Credible sources / statistics, common knowledge, possible without contradiction, lack of counterexample, proper testimony and authority (relevant and credible, expertise if accepted / unchallenged)

What are weak premises?

• Negate the conclusion

• Contradict another premise and are inconsistent

• Grounded in false or controversial assumptions, beg the question, circular reasoning

• refutable using common knowledge or a counterexample, vague or ambiguous

What is critical thinking?

• Involves informal logic, not simply criticizing, questioning, media literacy or being open minded

• Careful and skeptical analysis

• Focus is on argument strength, not validity

• Goal: epistemic responsibility

How does formal logic differ from informal logic?

Formal:

• Deductively necessary relationships, mathematically based, focuses on argument validity and what we can know by thinking

Informal:

• Critical thinking, reflective /independent, focuses on argument strength

How has the history improved critical thinking?

• Distinguishing correct and flawed thinking, involving the study of the connections between statements

• Influence from aristotle: Conceptual clarification, careful observation, Empricisim advocate, scientific method

How do we identify arguments?

• a set of claims where one or more of the claims known as premises, are put forward to offer reasons for another claim, known as the conclusion

• Premises → justify a conclusion (since, because, for) , reasons are supporting the conclusion (therefore, thus, hence)

What is not an argument?

• An explanation or opinion.

• Questions, commands and promises are not arguments

What makes an argument cogent?

Acceptability to whom the argument is addressed, relevant to it’s conclusion, offers sufficient or adequate grounds for its conclusion.

ARG

• Acceptable, relevant, good grounds

Start with the conclusion, then move to the ARG’s.

• Epistemology plays a role in acceptability, relevance to the conclusion, are there good grounds and support for the conclusion?

Why do we use cogency when challenging an argument?

• When we determine an argument is not cogent, we can engage in argument repair to fix it by adding new premises of removing unacceptable / irrelevant premises

• Establish, justify, identifying objections, dealing with objections

• Helps us assess our own arguments to see if we are actually supporting the conclusion we wish to argue → self check