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.