SSH 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Rationality

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: Klaas Kraay

Document Summary

Arguments are encountered when we read, talk, and think to ourselves. The claim an argument is intended to establish is its conclusion. The reasons that are supposed to support the conclusion are the premises. What can make this hard is the fact that people don"t always express their arguments clearly, sometimes leaving premises unstated because they think the listener will know what they have on their mind. Argument analysis is the process that consists of 3 elements, figuring out if it"s an argument or not, reconstruction the argument and evaluating the argument. The process of interpreting and clarifying an argument is called reconstructing the argument. A decision to whether or not the author has given good reasons to support their claim can be done after interpreting the argument, which is evaluating the argument. Popular discussions of arguments often focus on issues having to do with persuasiveness and verbal competition.