Inferring and Explaining

26 InferrIng and exPlaInIng topics. As an active participant in shared gover- nance, I take sides, advocate positions, and occa- sionally lead the charge for particular causes. All this demands that I defend my views. In these cases, it is my name on the argument, and there is a heightened sense not just of ownership but of personal and professional responsibility. I needmy arguments to be as strong as they can be not just convincing but plausible and hopefully pointing in the right direction. Your lifemay not be as argument-intensive as mine, but if you stop to refect a bit, I think you’ll fnd arguments all around you. Advertisersmake arguments for why you should buy their prod- ucts and politicians for why they deserve your vote. You may need the advice from accountants and economists, hopefully backed up with argu- ments, to plan for a major business investment or your retirement. And you are a producer of arguments as well.Tat memo youwrote to your boss for a change in the way things are done or the case you just made to your partner about the need to buy a new car is an argument. Tis book is about arguments and a suggested technique for distinguishing good arguments from bad ones. Tese general hints are intended to be of use both when you fnd yourself in the position of the consumer of an argument and when you must make some decision about the quality of its evidence as well as when you are the producer of the argument and desire to pres- ent the strongest evidence you can. I don’t claim to have a magic bullet that will automatically show the truth about complicated issues. But I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how ofen this technique proves useful for think- ing through these issues, fnding out where you stand, and even beginning the process of formu- lating your own arguments about them. What Is an Argument? One potentiallymisleading aspect in some of my previous examples is that when it comes to con- troversial issues such as abortion or the death penalty, tempers can be high. And trust me, debates about curriculum or university policy can be just as emotionally explosive. Tere is a perfectly fne use of the word argument that basically means a verbal fght. Joe and Sally got into a terrible argument about his failure to do his share of the house cleaning. Tat is not what we will mean by the term, however. Sure, there will be times when arguments are very impor- tant, and disagreements about their strength or weakness will touch our emotions as much as our reason. Tere will be many other times, however, when arguments are simply there for our consideration, and we can assess them free of any passion or personal commitment. Indeed, as much as is possible, I would recommend adopting themore dispassionate approach, even when you feel strongly about what is at issue. It is useful to see an argument as a com- plex arrangement of three quite different things. There will be what logicians call a conclusion —some theory, hypothesis, or position that the argument seeks to defend. Tere will be premises —facts, data, or evidence that the argu- ment uses to support the conclusion. And there will be a relationship between the premises and conclusion whereby the conclusion follows from the premises. We can schematically represent an argument as follows: