My Favorite and least favorite thing

My favorite thing about this class was that it was online. I loved the fact that I did not have to get up and go to the class and sit and listen to a lecture twice a week. This was my first online class that I have ever taken. I thought I wasn't going to like it at first but I actually did. I also liked that I was able to do my work when I wanted to. I didn't have to do it at a specific time like I would have it we had to go to the class. I also liked that the test were online and we didn't have to come to a class and take them, so that meant that we could use our books.
What I didn't like about the class was having to do the last group project in person at the end. It was so hard for everybody to be available at the same time. The first two I really didn't mind because we didn't have to meet in person and we could communicate online or whatever way we chose. At first I also didn't like that we had to make a blog and post on it every week because it was very easy to forget about. I didn't like how our post had to be 150 words because sometimes the topics were kind of short so it was hard to write about that much. I did not like how we had to wait 12 hours apart to do each post. We should have been able to do them whenever we wanted. Because if you forgot about them all week and remember on friday night or saturday you were screwed because of the 12 hours. 
Suggestion: No more time limit on the post. Other than that great class

Something I found Interesting and Useful

Something in chapter 14 that I found useful and interesting is Generalizing. We as people generalize things everyday. Epstein says that generalizing is how we make sense of our world. He also states how poll takers and scientists generalize also not just us. Generalizing: We are generalizing if we conclude a claim about a group, the population, from a claim about some part of it, the sample. To generalize is to make an argument.
Sometimes the general claim that is the conclusion is called the generalization; sometimes we use that word for the whole argument. Plausible premises about the sample are called the inductive evidence for the generalization. It also says that to evaluate whether a generalization is good, we need to see it as an argument. Something that was also useful was statistical generalization. That means that sometimes the generalization we want and we're entitled to isn't "all" but "most" or 72%: The same portion of the whole as in the sample will have the property.

What I learned

I have learned a lot from this class. I have learned many different concepts. Some that were hard and some that were not so hard. This class was way more easier than my other critical thinking class. One thing I will remember from this class was the appeals to emotion section. Appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says roughly you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way. When I watch TV now I point out when a commercial is trying to make you feel a certain way. I have realized that a lot of commercials and advertisements make you appeal to pity. They always want you to feel bad about something. Another appeal to emotion that will stick with me is appeal to fear. People are always trying to make you scared so you could do something. Politicians and advertisers always appeal to fear because they want to manipulate you. They will sometimes use arguments that don't even link the fear to the conclusion. So in general they are bad arguments. I have also learned about many different fallacies. Some of them are still a little hard to understand and recognize.

Something I found Interesting and Useful

Something I found interesting in chapter 15 was the criteria for cause and effect. In this chapter I learned that there are necessary conditions for there to be cause and effect once we describe the cause and effect with claims.  The necessary criteria for cause and effect are:
1. The cause happened (the claim describing it is true).
2. The effect happened (the claim describing it is true).
3. The cause precedes the effect.
4. It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal conditions.
5. The cause makes a difference if the cause had not happened (been there), the effect would not have happened (been true).
6. There is no common cause.
What I also found interesting and useful was two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect. The first one is reversing cause and effect.  The second one is looking too hard for a cause. In that section they talked about post hoc ergo propter hoc which is after this, therefore because of this.

Something I found Interesting and Useful

Something I found interesting and useful in chapter 12 was Judging Analogies. I learned in reading this section that "just saying that one side of the analogy is like the other is too vague to use as a premise." Epstein states that unless the analogy is very clearly stated, we have to survey the similarities and guess the important ones in order to find a general principle that applies to both sides. He says we must also survey the differences to see if there isn't some reason that the general principle might not apply to one side. This section also talks about the fallacy of composition which is to argue that what is true of the individual is therefore true of the group, or that what is true of the group is therefore true of the individual. Epstein gives seven ways in evaluating an analogy which are:
1. Is this an argument? What is the conclusion?
2. What is the comparison?
3. What are the premises? (one or both sides of the comparison)
4. What are the similarities?
5. Can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides?
6. Does the general principle really apply to both sides? Do the differences matter?
7. Is the argument strong or valid? Is it good?

Examples

There are all kinds of reasoning. There is reasoning by analogy , sign reasoning, casual reasoning, reasoning by criteria, reasoning by example, inductive and deductive reasoning. I am going to give an example of each type of reasoning.
1. Reasoning by analogy: Jamie likes to read. Bill also likes to read. Therefore everyone likes to read.

2. Sign Reasoning: Its raining outside. It must also be cold outside. If you tried to flip this and say Its could outside. So it must be raining. That would be a weak argument because it can be cold outside without it raining.

3. Casual Reasoning: If you smoke cigarettes. You can possibly get lung cancer.

4. Reasoning by Criteria: Amy loves reading books. For her birthday you should get her books.

5. Reasoning by Example: James does really well on all of his test because he has good study habits. If you want to do good on test you should have the same study habits as James.

6. Inductive Reasoning: Chris eats an apple everyday. Chris will eat an apple today.

7. Deductive Reasoning: When you first get a job you are on probation for 90 days. Drew is on probation. Drew just got a job.

Something I found Interesting and Useful

Something I found interesting in chapter 10 was Appeal to pity. Appeal to pity is when the someone or an advertisement makes you feel bad about something. They do this so that you would by their product or donate something. Appeal to pity can sometimes be implausible. I find this interesting because I see commercials and advertisements all the time that appeal to pity. They make you feel all sad for someone or a group of people. For examples the commercials late at night about the starving children in other countries. They make you feel bad so that you will go and send money to this organization that says they will send the money to the children. Most of the time those are just scams to just get your money. The reason they work is because they are making you pity the so called starving children you see on television. I find this useful because now since I read this chapter I know what they are trying to do.

Appeal to Emotion

Chapter 10 is about Appeals to Emotion. Epstein states that a appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way. The type of appeal to emotion that struck me the most was appeal to fear. Politicians and advertisers use appeal to fear to manipulate people all the time. They can sometimes be bad arguments because it does not link the fear to the conclusion. Epstein also talks about how an appeal to fear is bad if it substitutes one legitimate concern for all others, clouding our minds to alternatives. I liked this one because I realize that a lot of advertisements use appeal to fear when they want you to do something. It is just interesting to see how may people actually do what the advertisement says.  

Chapter 8

In Chapter 8 Epstein talks about General Claims. He states that a general claim asserts something in a general way about all or part of a collection.
An example of a general claim is All people wear boots in the rain. This is not a valid claim because all people do not wear boots in the rain. Some people wear tennis shoes.
I also learned that in general claims "some" and "all" can be ambiguous. All means "Every single one, no exceptions." Sometimes "all" is meant as "Every single one, and there is at least one." Which reading is best may depend on the argument.
Some means "All least one." Sometimes some is meant as "At least one, but not all." Which reading is best may depend on the argument.
I also learned that another word used in general claims is no and only. No means "not even one," "every single one is not." Only is "Only S are P" means "All P are S."

Usefulness of 1st or 2nd Assignment

I found both assignments useful.  I really found the first assignment useful. I found it useful because it made us really have to understand claims. It also made us understand what a strong and valid claim was or was not. If you did not understand it you had a hard time doing the assignment. It was useful when we had to find out what the main claim or the news article we picked was. That part showed whether you knew what a claim was or if you did not. Sometimes the reading just doesn't make you understand as well as putting it to the test and doing an assignment. It also helped to know what a valid and strong argument was. My particular part was to determine whether the claim was valid or strong. It was very useful because I had to know the criteria in determining that. So that meant that I had to already know what that was to be able to use it. This assignment was very useful to me. 

Something I found Interesting and Useful

After reading chapter 6 I found conditionals interesting and useful. I found it useful because they gave examples on what conditionals were. For example they talked about if your instructor told you "If you do well on the final exam, the I'll give you an A in this course. In the example the instructor is not promising to give you an A, its only a conditional promise.
Epstein states that a conditional claim is "a claim is conditional if it can be rewritten as an If....then....claim that must have the same truth-value."
He also states that in a conditional (rewritten as) "Of A, then B, the claim A is the antecedent, and the claim B is the consequent.
I also learned what a contradictory of a conditional If A, then B has contradictory A but not B. The contradictory of a conditional is not another conditional.

Chapter 7

In chapter 7 I learned about raising objections. Raising objections is a way to show that an argument is bad. I also learned about Refuting an Argument. There are two ways you can refute an argument and that is directly or indirectly. The direct ways of refuting an argument is:
Show that at least one of the premises is dubious.
Show that the argument isn't valid or strong.
Show that the conclusion is false.
Refuting indirectly means that you can not find any one premise that is false, but you know there is something wrong with the premises. Refuting indirectly leads to reducing to the absurd. Epstein states that "to reduce to the absurd is to show that at least one of several claims is false or dubious, or collectively they are unacceptable, by drawing a false or unwanted conclusion from them. The book also talks about one form of reducing to the absurd which is refuting by analogy. That means vary only some of the premises while retaining the crucial ones to get an absurd conclusion.

Chapter 6

There was a lot of information in chapter 6. The first thing I learned was compound claims. Epstein states that a "compound claim is one composed of other claims, but which has to be viewed as just one claim." I learned from reading the chapter is that "or" is one word that can link two claims that can make it become a compound claim. For example "I'll wash your car or I'll take it to the car wash." Chapter 6 also talks about alternatives. Epstein states that "Alternatives are the claims that are the parts of an "or" claim." Not every sentence with two or more claims is compound.
I also learned about The contradictory of a claim in chapter 6. Epstein states that "The contradictory of a claim is one that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances. Sometimes a contradictory is called the negation of a claim. There are two different types of contradictory claims.
1. Contradictory of an "or" claim: A or B, not A and not B
2. Contradictory of an "and" claim: A and B, not A or not B

Repairing Arguments

In Epstein ch 4 he talks about repairing arguments. In his guide to repairing arguments Epstein stats "that since the person is supposed to be able to reason well, we can add a premise to his or her argument only if it makes the argument stronger or valid and doesn't beg the question." The Guide to Repairing Arguments: Given an argument that is apparently defective, we are justified in adding a premise or conclusion if it satisfies all three of the following
1. The argument becomes stronger or valid.
2. The premise is plausible and would seem plausible to the other person.
3. The premise is more plausible than the conclusion.
An example would be "Alcohol is bad for pregnant women."
That statement would need to be repaired because it does not state why alcohol is bad for pregnant women and would live the people guessing and trying to understand. For this to be a strong or valid argument you would need to put Alcohol is bad for pregnant women. When pregnant women drink alcohol it can cause birth defects.

Something I found Interesting

Something from the reading I found interesting was in chapter 5 Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises. I found it interesting that many people often make mistakes in evaluating premises. In the section they talk about arguing backwards. Arguing backwards is: its a mistake to reason that because we have a strong or valid argument with a true conclusion its premises must be true. Some people get confused because they think that just because the argument is valid or strong and that the conclusion is true means that the premises must be true.  When you are evaluating an argument it is supposed to convince us that the conclusion is true not that the premises are true. That is definitely arguing backwards when someone is trying to convince you that the premises are true instead of the conclusion. We already no that when an argument is valid and conclusion false that there must be at least one false premise.

Structure of Arguments

I picked number 2 for the structure of arguments.1. I'm on my way to school. 2.I left five minutes late. 3.Traffic is heavy. 4.Therefore, I'll be late for class. So I might as well stop and get breakfast.
Argument: yes
Conclusion: So I might as well stop and get breakfast.
Additional premises needed: Yes, The person does not state why they are even running late in the first place. They also don't mention whether it is a accident on the freeway that's why there is traffic or if it just always like that.
Identify any subargument: That the person thinks they could go get breakfast because they are already late.
Good argument: its a good argument but it is not strong.
The exercise was a little useful to me. Even after I finished it I still find some things kind of hard to get. This is one thing that I am going to have to really work on to be able to really understand it.

Something I found Interesting

I found chapter 4 of the small group text to be interesting and helpful. Chapter 4 talks about communicating in organizations. I talks about the need for effective communication. I found that kind of interesting and to be true. We as a people need to learn how to communicate effectively in an organization. We need to know how to communicate because organizations are everywhere. There are many different organizations you could be apart of in this world. In the small communication book they state that organizational communication is a process that involves the exchange of messages between organizational members or among members of different organizations. Throughout the chapter I found it useful that they talked about organizational culture, organizational systems, and organizational relationships. It also talks about how when you learn about organizational communication you will improve your chances of success. I think the whole chapter 4 was useful because it was something that everyone needs to know. Everyone at one point in their lives will be in some type of organization. So it would be very helpful if they knew some ways to communicate will in that organization.

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

I am choosing to discuss begging the question. In ch 11 Epstein states that Begging the question is "The point of an argument is to convince that a claim is true. So the premises of an argument have to be more plausible than the conclusion. " Begging the question means that your first statement has to be true so the argument can be strong and valid. The premises have to be plausible so the conclusion can be true. If the premises are not plausible then the argument is going to be weak. And nobody is going to believe a weak argument.
An example of begging the question in my life is when I was trying to convince my mom and grandma to get me my first cell phone. I told them that I needed a cell phone for when I had to walk home from school just in case something happened to me and I needed to call somebody. I also said that I needed a cell phone for when I went out with my friends and may have needed to get in contact with them. I also argued that a cell phone was quick and reliable and made it easy for me to keep in touch with them. My argument was strong and believable. The premises of my argument were true and I explained to them why it would be better and safer for me to have a cell phone.

Strong v. Valid Arguments

In ch 3 Epstein talks about what a strong and valid argument is. A valid argument is a argument were both the premises and conclusion are true. There is no way for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. As Epstein had stated before "the conclusion follows from the premises" which means the argument is valid or strong.
For example: Adam just turned 8. He got a lot of gifts. So Adam just had a birthday.
Adam just turned 8 so that means he would have had to have had a birthday. He would not have turned 8 and got gifts at the same tie if he did not just have a birthday. A argument can be strong if the premises are true and the conclusion false. But that usually doesn't happen.
For Example: Adam had a party and got a lot of gifts. Therefor Adam just had a birthday. The premise is true but the conclusion could be false. It could have been Christmas and Adam could have had a party and received a lot of gifts. 

Test for A Good Argument

In chapter 3 Epstein talks about the three test for a good argument. The three tests to determine whether the argument is good or not is.
 1. The premises are plausible. This means that the argument gives you a good reason to believe the premises are true.
2. The premises are more plausible than the conclusion. This means that if the premises are strong and true than the conclusion should more than likely be true.
3. The argument is valid or strong. This means if the premise are false or week then the argument is not valid or strong.
For Example: Its summer and the sun is out. When the sun is out its hot outside. Therefor its hot outside so the sun is out.
In this example the premise are plausible. The second premise could be false because the sun can be out and it not be hot outside. With both premises being true then the conclusion is true. But with the second premise also being able to be false then the conclusion can also be false. This is a good argument, but not very strong.

Subjective and Objective claims

Subjective and objective claims are very different from each other. A subjective claim is ones opinion about something. Its how you feel not really what you know is true or a fact. An objective claim is a factual claim. It's a claim that has an answer. We as people use subjective and objective claims all the time. I used a subjective claim the other day when talking to my roommate. We were talking about basketball teams. My roommate is from San Francisco and she likes the warriors. I am from Los Angeles and prefer the Lakers. "So I was like the warriors suck". That right there was a subjective claim because I was just giving my opinion about the warriors. An objective claim would have been "when was the last time the warriors won a championship" because you can get a factual answer for that question.  That is the difference between subjective and objective claims.

Introductory Post

Hi class I am from Los Angeles, California. I don't have that much experience in communications as a class. I like to hang out with my friends and boyfriend when I go home to visit. I also like to go to the movies and shopping.

Introductory Post

Hi class I am from Los Angeles, California. I don't have that much experience in communication as a class. My major is Health Science with a minor in Nutrition. I like to hang out with my friends and boyfriend when I am at home. I like to go to the movies and shop.