PHIL 150 Lecture 6: SP-Charity.doc
Document Summary
Suppressed premises: premises that are not explicit in the argument, but are required in order to make it valid. Anyone who thinks the argument is valid is committed to these premises. The principle of charity: interpret an argument to make it as strong and as convincing as possible. To attack a straw man: to attack a weak version of the argument, when clearly there are stronger versions around. If you attack a straw man, you are attacking a weak version of the argument, when clearly there are stronger versions around. Either you don"t know about those versions, or you are pretending they do not exist. So that"s a straw man means, bluntly either you are incompetent or you are dishonest. A strong argument and the inference is a valid one. : an argument that is difficult to refute. It"s hard to cast doubt on the premises, : one that commits the author to a lot.
