Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Concept of Repairing Arguments

The Guide of Repairing Argument explains that, in order for an argument to be repaired, you must add a premise or conclusion only if it meet with the three requirements:

The argument become stronger or valid.
The premise is plausible and would seem plausible to the other person.
The premise is more plausible than the conclusion.

Here is an example: All cows says moo. Therefore, Bob says moo.

In order to repair this argument a premise need to be added to make this argument stronger. The premise should be, “Bob is a cow”, which will meet the requirement for repairing an argument and make this argument much better than before. It’s an obvious claim because people can only assume that either Bob is a cow or a person that imitating a cow saying moo. The premise that is added is to clarify the argument so that people don’t get confuse. Without the added premise the argument will be much weaker and people could misunderstand it.

1 comment:

  1. I found your blog post quite amusing because when I read your example I thought of the first thing that came to my mind, a human being mooing. And you also said that your readers would possibly imagine either a cow mooing or a person mooing. But you also clarified the situation by adding another premise, "Bob is a cow" which makes the argument stronger and valid. The three requirements to repair an argument were met. Your example was simple and clear; it made it easier for me to see the difference between what an incomplete argument was and how to repair it with just one more premise.

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