Interesting About Cause and Effect

What I found interesting about the chapter is that if a cause is true, then the effect cannot be false. To break it down more into detail, the example used from the text is "Spot's barking caused Dick to wake up." What's already established is that Spot's barking woke Dick up (true) so Dick's waking up because of Spot's barking cannot be false. What is already understood is that Spot's barking is the main cause of waking the person up so there is no other obvious reason for Dick to wake up. Causal claims are made almost every day by everyone. An example from the text is "Smoking causes cancer." I know I make these kind of claims on a daily basis, though I'm not always aware of doing so. Things that I say that are causal claims are "I didn't get any sleep, so I'm tired." As usual, examples from the text are what I unconsciously use every day.

Useful Information From The Mission Critical Website

What I found useful about the Mission Critical website was that it talked about how statements and other forms of sentences can be broken down to mean ambiguous things. For example, a person can say "I like good food." This can mean more than one thing: all food is good, everything I like to eat is good, etc. The website also talks about how some sentences can be worded differently but can also mean the same thing. An example would be "Some apples are red" or "some red things are apples." Also in regards to vague and ambiguous sentences, I learned that vague sentences can be elaborated more on while ambiguous sentences can have more than one interpretation. Vague sentences are not clear in context and ambiguous sentences can have at least two specific meanings. Overall, I felt that this website presented most of the concepts we have been reading in our texts and provides good examples.

Cause and Effect Website

What I found useful about the cause and effect was that it basically presented three different ways to look at a situation. It showed that there is no black or white to a situation; there are gray areas as well. I found the website useful because it used a real-life situation that could relate to almost anyone. I learned that situations can be broken down into such small details, that they may completely change the opinions of others. For example, the website talked about how a bike rider had to swerve onto the traffic lane to avoid hitting the truck blocking the bike lane and doing so caused a driver to brake suddenly. The driver hitting the brakes then caused a rear-end collision. A person could think that the driver was not at fault for the accident because he or she had no choice but to brake suddenly. But then a lawyer defending the person who rear-ended the first driver could argue that the first driver has a history of braking so suddenly that it has caused accidents in the past or that person's lawyer could argue that the person who rear-ended his or her client has a history of tail-gating. There are always many sides to a story that in most cases, there is no one right answer. I thought the website made this clear and presented the idea really well.

Interesting From Chapter 12

Judging Analogies caught my attention, especially the examples from the chapter. The example of outlawing gay marriage because it goes against the traditional acceptance of a marriage between a man and a woman was followed by the analogy of making divorce against the law because this also goes against the sanctity of marriage. Because the first analogy was presented, it was refuted by another analogy that implemented the same type of reasoning about marriage and what it stands for. Sure, marriage is traditionally accepted between a man and a woman but divorce is also against the idea. So why should gay marriage be considered illegal but divorce legal? Gay marriage calls for the same equal rights of a traditional marriage and it is primarily based on love between two people, yet it is not entirely accepted in society? Divorce is against the sanctity of marriage. It seems hypocritical to condemn something based on love and accept something that makes marriage seem like something that's easy to get out of. These two analogies are good ones because they are both based on the same idea. If this is wrong, then this must be wrong.

Difficult To Understand

Overall, all of the reasonings seemed easy to understand but if I had to pick the most difficult out of the list, I would choose reasoning by criteria. I found this reasoning to be the most difficult to understand, even though I just established that all of them seemed easy to understand, because the link on the professor's website was a little vague. I only understood it after I read examples from the link given. I guess I found it more difficult to understand out of the list because its title seemed the most vague. Everything else seemed straightforward. By establishing legitimate reasoning through criteria, it will help to make logical decisions based on this criteria. It is something that I had to read a couple of times in order to properly understand it but other than this one type of reasoning, everything else seemed straightforward and easy to comprehend. 

Reasoning By Analogy

A comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it's part of an argument: One on side of the comparison, a conclusion is drawn, so on the other side, the conclusion's the same. Reasoning is a cognitive process of looking for reasons, beliefs, conclusions, actions, or feelings.

An example would be the legal age to drink and enlisting in the army. If we're old enough to enlist and risk our lives for our country, then we should be old enough to drink.

Sign Reasoning

An argument by sign asserts that two or more things are so closely related that the presence or absence of one indicates the presence or absence of the other.

An example would be the

Causal Reasoning

When events of one situation is systematically related to the events of another situation. The first set of events is what causes the second set.

An example would be individuals of Middle Eastern and South Asian descents being targeted by hate groups after 9/11.

Criteria Reasoning

Criteria which appeal to common values are likely to be easily accepted.

An example would be "Since your mom dresses well, maybe she'll think this purse would go great with her outfit."

Exemplar Reasoning

Exemplar reasoning is the use of examples in argument. The example may be told as a story or may be a short comparator. It may be a duplicate of the situation or may be a relatively distant metaphor. It may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person.

Inductive Reasoning

It's a kind of reasoning that draws generalized conclusions from a finite collection of specific observations.

An example would be every dog I've come across barks. Therefore, all dogs bark.

Deductive Reasoning

Reasoning in an argument is valid if the argument's conclusion must be true when the premises (the reasons given to support that conclusion) are true. One classic example of deductive reasoning is that found in syllogisms. 
An example would be baseball players are hot. Tim Lincecum is a baseball player. Therefore, he is hot.

Interesting Appeal to Emotion

What I found interesting is how every day things that we do not even realize we do are labeled as certain actions. For example, the using of fear as an appeal to emotion did not even cross my mind as something that is used every day. Maybe it is because I do not use this sort of appeal myself but when the text described how politicians and advertisers manipulate people, I thought of the examples that I have seen on TV or newspapers as well as other forms of media. An example would be shows such as Law & Order: SVU. I personally love this show because it depicts the atrocious crimes that have happened in the past or ones that could potentially happen in the future. It evokes such strong emotions that you cannot help but get hooked. The show focuses on detectives that investigate sexual crimes against men, women, and children. In some episodes, I have seen organizations that spread the word of child molesters as well as other sexual offenders living in neighborhoods where children are always present. These organizations/neighborhood watch groups invoke the fear of others in order to keep their neighborhoods safe. They invoke fear by revealing the identities of sexual offenders, where they live, what crimes they have committed, etc. Fortunately, groups do this to protect themselves as well as those around them. Even though this show is fictional, it does depict how life is in certain parts of the country. Not all places are safe and it does seem plausible to bring others to see reality as it is by bringing out the fear of people in order to protect the innocent.

Exercise 1, pg. 195

An example of a bad argument that calls for affirmative action whose only premises appeal to pity is giving money to someone that does not work hard for it. The reason why you would pity this person is if he/she does not have a job or the person can actually put you on some sort of guilt trip by making excuses for why he/she does not have money. It would seem plausible to give money, especially if they are going through a financial crisis but at the same time, if the person is not making any effort to get a job and be self-sufficient, it would be implausible to give money. Giving money is basically at your expense and who knows if you will see a cent back. It would only seem plausible to give money if you knew exactly what it was going to, if you trusted the person, and if you had the money to spare. Other than that, giving money only babies the person and he/she will not appreciate the value of money if he/she does not make it on his/her own.