Friday, October 22, 2010

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 discusses general claims and their contradictories. General claims are a statement or statements that entail a discussion in a general way about a part of or all of an entire group of subjects. But these types of claims are not always true. For example, if one were to say, “I love Red Bull. Red Bull gives me energy and keeps me awake. Therefore, I am a healthy person.” This is quite a stretch. Just because Red Bull does what is stated, and an individual drinks Red Bull, does not automatically mean the person is in good health. There is not enough evidence to support such a claim.

Precise generalities are often seen with stereotypes. This occurs when a general statement is made that lists a quantity, but is not necessarily true. Let’s take a common stereotype: “70% of Asians are bad drivers. I am Asian. Therefore, I am a bad driver.” Regardless of whether or not the statistic is true, this is a general claim. Is it possible that I do not fall into the 30% of Asian drivers that may be deemed a good driver? This is not a strong claim.

1 comment:

  1. I have heard similar claims like this. Joke or no joke, this claim is obviously not strong like you said because we do not know what the claim is saying about the other 30% people. the first two sentences of the claim were really true (70% asians are bad drivers and you are asian), the entire claim could be strong if "therefore, I am a bad driver" was changed into "therefore, i am a bad driver if i fall in the 70%." The fact that it concluded that you were a bad driver (you probably are not though, just saying xD) without being aware of the other 30% made the argument weak.

    ReplyDelete