Week 10 Discussion: Post 2

This ad was used to display that smoking is bad for you by appeal to fear. It describes appeal to fear by using the quote “Smoking. Pleasure for you. Poison for your family”. The part “poison for your family” was used to scare the smoker that you are not only hurting yourself but POISONING your harmless family as well. The strategic move of having the innocent young child pose as the cigarette shows that second hand smoke can harm your family or anyone around you. I also found another advertisement against smoking that I found really powerful. It states on the ad “No killing area” then states “Thank you for not giving us cancer”. It uses the appeal to fear by invoking fear to those who smoke, stating that they are killing people, themselves and others when they smoke. I think that if this sign was posted instead of the regular no smoking signs it would scare more people from smoking in public, as well as make them feel ashamed. 

Week 10 Discussion: Post 1

Appeal to Emotion

Appeal to emotion is an argument that strikes to believe something because you feel a certain way. There are may different aspects of Appeal to Emotion including appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, and a feel good argument. One appeal to emotion aspect that strikes you is the appeal to spite. Appeal to spite is happens when someone feels against something or doesn’t do something out of spite. It is used in hopes of revenge or to get on even grounds with someone who has rejected the other person in another situation.

Example

            Mom: Share your chips with your sister.

            Daughter: Why should I share with her mom? She never shares anything with me!

In this example, the daughter conducts her argument out of spite since her sister never shares with her. Her argument is invalid and her judgment was made to basically get even with her sister. 

Week 9 Discussion: Post 2

Usefulness of major course assignments

I think the skills that we were supposed to retain from our first and second course assignment was learning to work as a group. Having students in an online class have to meet up work together on a paper is probably the hardest thing for someone to fit in their schedule. I would imagine that the reason why people would take this class online was because the class times wouldn’t fit into their schedules and that this option would be more convenient to them. I found that meeting with the group was very hard and inconvenient. Being that we are an online class it was kind of awkward first meeting because we don’t see these people face to face and it seemed like when we did meet it was strictly business. When doing evaluations for the group paper I found that I was referring back to the roles and duties of group members described in “The Essential Guide to Group Communication”. I gained skills on how to be an effective group member as well as a little bit of a leadership role.  

Week 9 Discussion: Post 3

Precise Generalities

Precise generalities are defined by using a number or percentage to make a claim or argument valid.

Example: 70% of children like to play outside. John is a child therefore he likes to play outside.

* In this example, the claim is not valid. There is a 30% possibility that John does not like to play outside since it is only stated that 70% of children like to play outside.

To make a claim or argument strong, you have to use a very high or very low percentage.

Example: 98% of Students at San Jose State University think school should be free.

*Using 98% eliminates the 2% of students that think school should be free sine the percentage is so small. With such a high percentage, the claim is viewed as strong and valid.

Example: 2% of students at San Jose State University think that school should be paid for.

*2% compared to 98% is a very small percentage. Using the numbers provided we can conclude that 98% of students think school should be free. 

Week 9 Discussion: Post 1

General Claims

General claims were the main topic of Chapter 8 of Critical Thinking by Richard Epistein. One of the main ideas supported in this section was defining claims using the key terms all, some, no, and only.

ALL: means every single one, with no expectations

                  Ex. All Asians are good at math.

·       This claim is not a strong or valid. In this claim ALL applies that every Asian is good at math. I am asian…but I’m not very good at math.

SOME: implies to at least one, but not all

                  Ex. Some boys like the color pink.

·       In this claim, the subject is implied that SOME boys like pink but only some. Some only has to include one person but not all.

NO: none, not even one.

                  Ex. No one likes vegetables.

·       Nobody implies NOT ANY at all, not even one single person.

ONLY: means only this and that not anything else.

                  Ex. Only associates are allowed to be in the break room.

                  * The word only implies that nobody but the associates are allowed in the break room. 

Week 7 Discussion: Post 3

Reasoning in a chain

                  One subject that I found interesting was reasoning in a chain. I often times reason in a chain with my boyfriend. Just this past weekend I reasoned in a chain with him so that we could both do what we wanted to do. So I told him that I would come visit him if he would take me to a movie. Then he reasoned that if he took me to a movie then we would have to get dinner after. Then I reasoned that that if we went to dinner then he would have to treat me. So in conclusion, if I come to visit him he would have to take me to dinner and a movie. All of the premises were conditional and depended on the claim before. Reasoning in chain requires steps. For my example, I broke it down into steps:

If I come to visit him (A), then he would have to take me to a movie(B).

If he takes me to a movie (B), then we would have to get dinner after (C).

If we go get dinner (C), then he would have to treat me (D).

If A a is true then we can conclude that D will happen. They are all conditional steps. 

Week 7 Discussion: Post 2

Counterarguments

                  Raising objections is common when people state arguments. By raising an objection you are finding ways to make an argument bad.  It is everyday reasoning by calling to question of an argument. For example if you have the argument, “Everyone should get a dog. Dogs are way more fun than cats. They can even do tricks too”, you question why are dogs better than cats and can’t cats do tricks too? Since most of the claims are subjective or false, you can say the argument is invalid and bad. There was also a big section in chapter 7 about refuting an argument. You can refute and argument in 2 ways, directly and indirectly. To directly refute and argument you can prove that at least on of the premises is dubious, invalid or weak, or prove that the conclusion is false. To indirectly refute and argument, you must find a way to prove that one of the premises are false. For example, when you use the argument above, you know that the premise “dogs are more fun than cats” is something that is completely based on personal preference. That premise raises a question on if the argument is bad or good. 

Week 7 Discussion: Post 1

Compound Claims

Chapter 6 was bout compound claims. A compound claim is a claim made up of other claims but is viewed as one claim.  For example, if I said, “We could make dinner or I’ll buy you dinner” there are two claims in the statement but it is still views as one claim. Compound claims have several different components. One component is false dilemmas. False dilemmas occur when people exclude the possibilities for the “or” claim to be false. When I was in high school, my best friend was in a very bad situation selling drugs. I was so fed up in his lifestyle that he said he “had” to do and I felt that the only way to guide him into the right direction was by giving him an ultimatum. I told him, “You could quit selling drugs or we could stop being friends.” This was a false dilemma. By giving him a bad argument, his options to making the right decisions were reduced since I didn’t give him a list of possibilities. Another component to look out for when evaluating compound claims are conditionals. Conditional claims are basically if-then statements. For example, Jake’s mom said if he cleans his room, then he will be able to go outside with his friends. The statement is conditional because if he does not clean his room to his mother’s standards then she is not obligated to let him play outside. Conditional claims are very common and are easy to depict in any situation.