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.