CHAPTER 8

IDENTIFYING ARGUMENTS

8.1 WHAT IS AN ARGUMENT?

In ordinary usage, an argument is often taken to be a somewhat heated dispute between people. But in logic and critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the others are the premises or assumptions of the argument. An example:

It is raining.

So you should bring an umbrella.

In this argument, the first statement is the premise and the second one the conclusion. The premises of an argument are offered as reasons for accepting the conclusion. It is therefore irrational to accept an argument as a good one and yet refuse to accept the conclusion. Giving reasons is a central part of critical thinking. It is not the same as simply expressing an opinion. If you say “that dress looks nice,” you are only expressing an opinion. But if you say “that dress looks nice because the design is very elegant,” then it would be an argument indeed. Dogmatic people tend to make assertions without giving arguments. When they cannot defend themselves, they often resort to responses such as “this is a matter of opinion,” “this is just what you think,” or “I have the right to believe whatever I want.”

The ability to construct, identify, and evaluate arguments is a crucial part of critical thinking. Giving good arguments helps us convince other people, and improve our presentation and debating skills. More important, using arguments to support our beliefs with reasons is likely to help us discover the truth and eliminate errors and biases.

8.2 IDENTIFYING PREMISES AND CONCLUSIONS

Here is an example of a short argument made up of three statements. We use a straight line to separate the premises at the top from the conclusion at the bottom. Call this the standard format for presenting an argument:

You can also number the premises and the conclusion to make it easier to refer to them in a discussion:

It is a good idea to present arguments using the standard format. It is neat and tidy, and everything is presented clearly at a glance. This makes it easier to understand and evaluate the argument, since we know exactly how many premises there are and what they say. Of course, the premises and conclusions of real arguments are rarely laid out explicitly. So how do we identify them? There are no easy mechanical rules, and it depends on the context. But remember these two points. First, in a passage that contains an argument, the conclusion is usually the most important point the author is trying to put across. The premises would be the evidence the author uses to convince the readers that the conclusion is true. In addition, see if you can find indicator words expressing logical connections between premises and conclusions:

• Every wizard has a wand and Harry is a wizard. Thus Harry has a wand.
• Every wizard has a wand. Harry is a wizard. It follows that Harry has a wand.
• Harry has a wand, since he is a wizard and every wizard has a wand.

The conclusions in the arguments are underlined. The first two conclusions are preceded by “thus” and “it follows that,” respectively. Although the third example is a single long statement, we can still take it as an argument because it is combined from shorter statements. It is obvious that the underlined part is supported by the statements after since. Here are some typical indicator words or phrases:

However, these are just guidelines and there are plenty of exceptions. We need to look at the actual context carefully:

• I have been here since noon. (Not an argument—since does not link to a statement.)
• You should not drink. You are going to do brain surgery afterward. (The first sentence is the premise and the second one its conclusion. No indicator words at all.)
• How can you believe that corruption is acceptable? It is neither fair nor legal!

In the last example, the conclusion is expressed by a rhetorical question. The real argument might be reformulated explicitly as follows:

8.3 EXTRACTING AND FORMULATING ARGUMENTS

Many if not most of the arguments in real life are more difficult to analyze than the ones we have seen so far. It might be because the discussion is about complicated issues. Or the author mixes background information together with the argument itself. The structure of the argument might not be clearly indicated, and the same point might be repeated more than once. Or perhaps the author was busy or even confused and did not write as clearly as we would like. The upshot is that it takes a lot of effort to remove the superfluous information, distill the main ideas, and extract the central argument. But this is something worth doing because this makes it easier to understand, evaluate, and remember the argument. If we do this often enough, it will also help us improve our critical thinking skills.

Take this passage taken from the website of the Economist magazine:

Voltaire once wrote, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Leaving aside whether we actually did, can the same be said of religion? Most of the world’s population professes religious feelings of some sort, and these beliefs in turn underpin many strong communities, happy individuals and tremendous acts of charity.

Yet the world can be a very nasty place despite its preponderance of religious inhabitants. When faith curdles into dogmatism it often leads to arrogance, intolerance and violence. In other words, religion is a force for bad as well as good and there is no simple metric with which to measure its net effect (Economist, 2010).

The passage is very clearly written, and we can easily see that it contains an argument with the conclusion indicated by “in other words.” But it can be condensed a lot further if we analyze it a little bit. Take the first paragraph. The quote in the first sentence sets the topic of discussion but does not contribute to the argument at all. The second sentence is a question and also not part of the argument. The third sentence does include a crucial premise about the positive effects of religion, but it can be simplified further. Going through the second paragraph in the same way, we can rewrite the argument in the standard format as follows:

We are now able to present the central argument even more clearly and succinctly. This makes it easier to explore the argument further. First of all, the argument seems quite acceptable. The premises seem true and they support the conclusion. Of course, the premises do not exhaust all the good and bad consequences of religion. Religion can also give rise to great art and culture (such as paintings and architecture), but it can also result in superstition and ignorance.

As we can see, extracting and reformulating an argument helps us identify the central ideas so we can think more deeply and systematically. This analytical approach is particularly suitable for reading articles that aim to present arguments, evidence, and information. Here are the main steps involved:

• Identify the premises and conclusions in the target passage.
• Leave out superfluous material and focus on the main ideas. Delete anything that does not affect the central argument or the main points.
• Reformulate and simplify the central ideas in your own words to make them easier to understand.
• Identify the logical structure of the argument.

We have not said much about the last step of the process. After identifying the premises and the conclusion of an argument, we can go further to analyze the nature of the logical relation between them. This is the topic we shall focus on in the next few chapters.

EXERCISES