Chapter 1: Reconstructing and analyzing arguments

As we have seen, arguments often have complex structures including  subarguments (recall that a subargument is an argument for one of the premises  of the main argument). But in practice people do not always give further  reasons or argument in support of every statement they make. Sometimes they  use certain rhetorical devices to cut the argument short, or to hint at a further  argument without actually stating it. There are three common strategies for  doing this:

We will discuss these in order, starting with assuring. Why would we want to  assure our audience? Presumably when we make a claim that isn’t obvious and  that the audience may not be inclined to believe. For example, if I am trying to  convince you that the United States is one of the leading producers of CO2

emissions, then I might cite certain authorities such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as saying so. This is one way of assuring our  audience: by citing authorities. There are many ways to cite authorities, some  examples of which are these:

Another way of assuring is to comment on the strength of one’s own  convictions. The rhetorical effect is that by commenting on how sure you are  that something is true, you imply, without saying, that there must be very strong  reasons for what you believe—assuming that the audience believes you are a  reasonable person, of course. Here are some ways of commenting on the  strength of one’s beliefs:

Yet another way of assuring one’s audience is to make an audience member feel  that it would be stupid, odd, or strange to deny the claim one is making. One  common way to do this is by implying that every sensible person would agree  with the claim. Here are some examples:

Another common way of doing this is by implying that no sensible person would  agree with a claim that we are trying to establish as false:

Assurances are not necessarily illegitimate, since the person may be right and  may in fact have good arguments to back up the claims, but the assurances are  not themselves arguments and a critical thinker will always regard them as  somewhat suspect. This is especially so when the claim isn’t obviously true.

Next, we will turn to guarding. Guarding involves weakening a claim so that it is  easier to make that claim true. Here is a simple contrast that will make the  point. Consider the following claims:

The weakest of these claims is E, whereas the strongest is A and each claims  descending from A-E is increasingly weaker. It doesn’t take very much for E to  be true: there just has to be at least one U.S. President who was monogamous.  In contrast, A is much less likely than E to be true because it require every U.S.  President to have been monogamous. One way of thinking about this is that  any time A is true, it is also true that B-E is true, but B-E could be true without A  being true. That is what it means for a claim to be stronger or weaker. A weak claim is more likely to be true whereas a strong claim is less likely to be true. E  is much more likely to be true than A. Likewise, D is somewhat more likely to be  true than C, and so on.

So, guarding involves taking a stronger claim and making it weaker so there is  less room to object to the claim. We can also guard a claim by introducing a  probability clause such as, “it is possible that…” and “it is arguable that…” or  by reducing our level of commitment to the claim, such as moving from “I know  that x” to “I believe that x.” One common use of guarding is in reconstructing  arguments with missing premises using the principle of charity (section 1.9). For  example, if an argument is that “Tom works for Merrill Lynch, so Tom has a  college degree,” the most charitable reconstruction of this argument would fill  in the missing premise with “most people who work for Merrill Lynch have  college degrees” rather than “everyone who works for Merrill Lynch has a  college degree.” Here we have created a more charitable (plausible) premise  by weakening the claim from “all” to “most,” which as we have seen is a kind of  guarding.

Finally, we will consider discounting. Discounting involves acknowledging an  objection to the claim or argument that one is making, while dismissing that  same objection. The rhetorical force of discounting is to make it seem as  though the argument has taken account of the objections—especially the ones  that might be salient in a person’s mind. The simplest and most common way of  discounting is by using the “A but B” locution. Contrast the following two  claims:

Although each statement asserts the same facts, A seems to be recommending  the worker, whereas B doesn’t. We can imagine A continuing: “And so the  manager decided to keep her on the team.” We can imagine B continuing:  “Which is why the manager decided to let her go.” This is what we can call the  “A but B” locution. The “A but B” locution is a form of discounting that  introduces what will be dismissed or overridden first and then follows it by what  is supposed to be the more important consideration. By introducing the claim  to be dismissed, we are discounting that claim. There are many other words  that can be used as discounting words instead of using “but.” Table 2 below  gives a partial list of words and phrases that commonly function as discounting  terms.

Table 2

although	even if	but	nevertheless
though	while	however	nonetheless
even though	whereas	yet	still

 

 

                                                       

³ This characterization and discussion draws heavily on chapter 3, pp. 48-53 of Sinnott Armstrong and Fogelin’s Understanding Arguments, 9^th edition (Cengage Learning).