Understanding the Stimulus: Truth vs. Validity: • Primarily concerned with validity. ○ The logical relationship of the pieces of the argument and how well do the premises if accepted prove the conclusion? • Not concerned with real world truthfulness of either the premises or the conclusion. • Relative truthfulness - you are only concerned about whether the conclusion is true relative to the premises, not whether the conclusion is true in an absolute, real world sense. Argument Analysis: • You must determine if the argument is good one or a bad one. • Primary Objective: if the stimulus contains an argument, determine whether the argument is strong or weak. How to determine the strength of the argument? • Consider the relationship between the premises and conclusion ○ Do the premises strongly suggest that the conclusion would be true? ○ Does the conclusion feel like an inevitable result of the premises? ○ Does the conclusion go beyond the scope of the information in the premises? ○ Do the given facts support the conclusion? • An argument can be valid without being true • Example: all birds can fly. An ostrich is a bird. Therefore an ostrich can fly Examples of Argument: The Jacksonville area has just over one million residents. Cincinnati has almost two million residents. The New York area has almost twenty million residents. Therefore, we should move to Jacksonville. • The last sentence: therefore we should move to Jacksonville is the conclusion. This is what makes it an argument. • You are forced to consider whether the premises have proven the given conclusion. ○ The author asks you to accept that a move to Jacksonville is in • The last sentence: therefore we should move to Jacksonville is the conclusion. This is what makes it an argument. • You are forced to consider whether the premises have proven the given conclusion. ○ The author asks you to accept that a move to Jacksonville is in order based on the population of the city. • The reasoning/argument in this example is weak. The reason for this is because there are questions to point out flaws in the argument. ○ Why not a city that is even smaller or larger? ○ What is so important about population? Trees that shed their foliage annually are deciduous trees. Black Oak trees shed their leaves every year. Therefore, Black Oak trees are deciduous. • Two premises in this example, lead to the conclusion. • The strength of the argument is based solely on the degree to which the premises prove the conclusion. ○ The truth of the premises is not an issue in determining whether the argument is valid or invalid. • The premises in an argument do not have to prove the conclusion for the conclusion to be valid ○ There are many conclusions which are just probably true based on the evidence provided. ○ This is not a flaw because the author believes there is a good chance that the conclusion is true. § Example: The Post Office on Main Street has been closed every Sunday since 1956, so it will probably be closed this Sunday as well. □ The word probably allows for possibility of other outcomes.