Week 4 - 2 of 3

For chapter 7, the topic that I find most interesting and useful is the section on raising objections. I found this helpful because it is the most common way to determine if an argument is bad. In order to do so, another argument must be made to question the premises, show that a premise is dubious, or show why the argument is weak. An example of raising objections with an argument would be: Ally wants to get another credit card. She says that by getting another one she can pay off the first credit that she maxed out. Ally says that by paying off her old credit card with another one she will build her credit score back up. Billy says thats not a good idea. He says that while Ally is paying off her old credit card that she will get behind on payments with the new one and will be in debt all over again. And also he brings up the fact that she was in debt to begin with because of her addiction to shopping and a new credit card will not help the addiction. This example shows an argument being argued by a counterargument. Ally wants a new credit card but Billy says that getting a credit card is not a good idea because of multiple reasons.

Week 4 - 1 of 3

In chapter 6, I think the most useful information is the explanaition of conditionals and what they are. A conditional claim is one that can be rewritten as an "if...then..." claim that must have the same truth-value. "If A, then B", the claim A is the antecedent, and the claim B is the consequent. An example of a conditional claim would be: If you pay for me then I'll go with you to the movies. the antecedent is " You pay for me" and the consequent is "I'll go to the movies with you". A conditional claim can also be done in a reversed way. For example: I'll go to the club, if I can drink before we go. The antecedent is "Drink before we go" and the consequent is "I'll go to the club". Yes a conditional is only a claim, but it defines a specific type of claim. When in an argument or even a conversation, being able to pick out the conditional claims can be very useful. For instance, in example 1 you can try to reason or come up with another way to get she or he to go to the movies if they don't want to pay. Watch a movie at home.

Week 3 - 3 of 3

What I found useful and interesting from this weeks reading assignments were in Chapter 9. In section C. subsections 1 and 2. I realized that when I argue I usually exaggerate words, phrases, and meaning to make them sound more extreme or less to win an argument. Euphemisms, for instance, are words or phrases that make things sound better that a neutral description (182). Dysphemisms, on the other hand, are words or phrases that make things sound worse than a neutral description (182). As for exaggerating, down playing a claim means minimizing the importance of it (183). And up playing a claims means exaggerating the importance of it (183). These different types of cheating styles to manipulate an argument one way rather than it should be is unjust and not fair. I am beginning to process my thoughts more carefully and over think what I will say to justify an argument before I say it. Not only to argue correctly but for myself as well.

Week 3 - 2 of 3

I decided to pick an Internet ad on smoking. Here is the link: http://gal.darkervision.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/tipalet-cigarette-ad.jpg

This ad claims that if a man is to smoke this cigarette and blow the smoke into a woman's face, she will come running after him anywhere. For this claim, I chose to reject it. I believe that it is false. Just because I don't believe this ad does not necessarily make it false. But in this case it does. I am a woman and I do not follow men if they blow smoke in my face, nor do my other female friends. This knowledge and observations come from my own personal experience. Since this is an older ad, possibly earlier they did not know that cigarettes cause cancer, or if they did they did not release that information. But even earlier on women did not run to men when the blew smoke in their faces. I have asked a dozen women, in their sixties and seventies and they said that they did not do such a thing.

Week 3 - 1 of 3

I decided to talk about Section D, Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion. This concept of fallacy has to do with an argument that is taken the wrong way or intentionally misleading. There are several different types of these violations:

~ Begging the question: The premises have to be taken more seriously and questioned more carefully than the conclusion. That is, they have to be reasonable and credible.

~ Strawman: Instead of owning up to loosing an argument, a person can put down someone else's argument and put words into his or her mouth.

~ Shifting the burden of proof: Giving someone else the responsibility of your argument instead of taking it upon yourself to back up.

~ Relevance: An opinion that premises are not important for the argument that makes the argument very weak and not fixable.

A real world example that I have heard is an argument that I had with my firend. We were talking about God existance. He claims that God does not exist. I said, "Prove that God doesn't exist". I am putting the responsibility of proof onto my friends hands.

Week 2 - Post 3 of 3

I am new to Critical Thinking and Reasoning, so almost everything I read is something new to me. What I found the most interesting in the readings this week was the section on Content Fallacies (Epstein, 201). In this section, I learned that even though an argument may need some work upon, making the premises stronger and/or the conclusion clearer that it is not necessarily a bad argument. In order to find fallacies, I must look to the supporting statements for the conclusion. Some fallacies are based off of these kind of premises:
~ Mistaking the person or group for the claim.
~ A bad appeal to authority.
~ A bad appeal to a common belief or practice.
~ A false dilemma.
These are just a few premises that are mistaken for and considered fallacies when put into an argument.
I also found interesting that at the end of the chapter, the book speaks about wisdom. I agree with the book that people should try to step away from being the best, being right, and join together; have discussions not fights. Arguments are a part of human nature, but we can be civil and arguments can actually helps advance humans not just break them apart.

Week 2- Post 2 of 3

A valid argument is an argument that its premise and conclusion are both true at the same time. As for a strong argument, both the premise and conclusion aren't true or false at the same time. I was talking with my mom on the phone and the subject of bike riding. I told her that the faster you ride a bike, the easier it is to stay on a line. The reason being, the more speed you have the more control you can have of the bike to keep it on a straight line. (This is an example of a valid argument) "In order to be an elite gymnast, one must be in the gym every single day for at least seven hours". Yes some gymnasts around the world train seven hours every single day, but that does not make them an elite gymnast. Vice versa, some elite gymnasts only work out 3-4 hours a day only 4-5 days a week. And of course there are those elite gymnasts who do train seven hours a day seven days a week. There are more ways than just one to become an elite gymnast and other reasons to train seven hours a day than just being an elite gymnast. (This is an example of a strong argument)

Week 2- Post 1 of 3

Subjective claims are based off of a person's personal beliefs or standards. Objective claims on the other hand, are not based off of one person's beliefs or standards, instead it is impersonal. I was talking with my uncle the other day and we came across the subject of education and college. Though he thinks people need to go to college, he thinks it is the most stupid idea ever. He says that once people graduate they will be more stupid and have less common sense than before they even went to college. The reason being is he believes that in college they only teach people to become greedy, unthoughtful people. My uncles thoughts on "greedy" and "unthoughtful" people is all personal and can be different for other people. (This is my example of a subjective claim) One day, my boyfriend and I were conversing about almost everything. We began to talk about religion. My boyfriend claimed that religion is geographically based. His examples to back up his claim were: it depends on where a person was born, and what kind of culture a person was raised in. If we look at the world, the Middle Easts main religion is Islam, Europes main religion is Christianity, and China's main religion is Buddhism. Not only does my boyfriend believe this but so do numerous people. Even I do now. (This is an example of an objective claim)

Self Portrait (A little about myself)

Hello everyone! My name is Sonia Wymiarkiewicz. I am a native San Franciscan! I am fluent in Polish. I've done gymnastics for 16 years, and competed for 10. I chose SJSU for a couple of reasons: they have a gymnastics team, and a great communications program. (Unfortunately I am not on the gym team) My experience with communications is quite small, but I intend to expand my knowledge as well as experience with it. I have traveled to numerous places such as Poland and Greece making friends and memories that will last a life time. I love interacting with people and so I thought Communications, specifically PR would be a good choice for me. I love eating, sleeping, swimming, dancing, talking, the color green, and frogs! I would like to be an events coordinator and keep coaching gymnastics as a side job. Most of all, I want to be with someone, be somewhere, and do something that makes me happy!