A) Raising Objectives
Instead of evaluating the argument, many people come up with objectives. This is a common way for people to show that a premise in the argument is dubious and can make the agrument weak. It's good to look at all the possible counterarguments there would be for your permise so that when you respond with your counter-counteragruments' it is clear that your aware of the objections, but know how to fix them.
B)Refuting an Argument is when you find all the ways an argument is unrepairable.
There are two ways of refuting an argument, directly and indirectly. By directly refuting an argument, you show that one of the premise is dubious, the conclusion is false and this reveals that the argument is not valid. Indirectly refuting is usually used when the problem with the premise is not clear, but you know something does not add up. During this time you may notice that the premises are not consistent. This happens when there are many claims, and you need to find on that is false.
Hello Steph Powers,
ReplyDeleteI like that your explanation of both raising objectives and refuting an argument are well organized and easy to understand. I agree that raising objectives is useful when it comes to evaluating whether an argument is valid or not. Today, for example, my little brother claimed that if an animal has wings then it must be a bird. Knowing that was not true I refuted his argument by giving him counterarguments like "bats have wings but they are not birds. Or a lot of insects have wings but they are not birds either." I find this is useful in making the arguer see that their argument is not necessarily plausible instead of directly telling them they are wrong.