What i found interesting

In this week's discussion, i found something quite amusing. I found that generalizing in chapter 14 is the same thing as cause and effect. The examples that epstein gives is quite similar. For example, when Lee says "Every time i have gone to Luigi's, it has taken over 30 minutes to get our pizza. So let's not got there tonight because we are in a hurry." I say this is similar to cause and effect because the cause is them going to that particular restaurant, and the effect would be waiting for 30 minutes for a pizza. It takes that long probably because it is very good and it is a popular restaurant. I think this is true in reality as well because people are always generalizing without knowing it. But overall, i think that generalization summarizes most of the concepts we have learned in the book. I think out of all the chapters, i like this chapter the best.

My opinion

In this class, i have to say that my favorite thing about this class was not having to go to class, i loved the fact that it was online. That way, i can sleep in and complete an assignment and receive a good grade as well. I also liked that i learned so many things that i did not know about. Such as the concepts from the two books. I did not know that most of what we say and think today are related to the concepts. I can not say that i have something i liked least about this class. It was online, the assignments were easy, and the group was easy to work with, no complaints about that. This class can be improved by having the instructions to be more specific, some people understood it but some people did not, and i respect our professor for getting back to us as soon as possible on her busy schedule.

What I Learned

In this class, i have learned so many things. I have also learned that most of what we use in daily life has some meaning to it. For example, i learned that if i touch a hot stove, i will burn myself, that leads to the concept of cause and effect. I think that this class has a lot to offer and the fact that it is online makes it better so that people do not have to rush to class, they can sleep in and still get the work done and have a good grade in the class. I learned that communication can lead to new friends, with the group we were assigned, i learned many things about them. People also have their own lives and sometimes encounter concepts like appeal to emotion and appeal to pity, as well as appeal to spite. Its amusing how when we say something, we do not know that it is part of concepts say perceptions. When we see a man walking with tight pants, purple sunglasses, and walks in a different way. We automatically assume that he is gay, but we do not know that for sure. Overall, i really enjoyed this class.

Something Interesting

In this weeks reading, i found that the website for cause and effect to be the most useful because not only is it commonly used but it is high used in court. I am glad that the professor gave us a website on what the cause and effect is and gave people detailed descriptions on what makes the cause and effect model valid. I find that people use cause and effect situations to argue about. For example, there was a car stopped at a red light and another approaching from behind but was busy texting and could not stop in time, so the car from behind rear ended the car in front making it cause a traffic collision inside the intersection with other cars. Here, clearly the person from the back was at fault because he or she was texting and was not paying attention to the road and as a result, they caused a traffic collision that could have claimed some lives. I found this reasoning to be amusing because i did not know that we use cause and effect daily. But since i read and understood the concept of the reasoning, cause and effect is clear to me.

Cause and Effect

After reading the website about cause and effect, i find that this reasoning is used periodically and is very common in court of law. From what i know, cause and effect reasoning is when something happened and then another thing happened. Basically, the first scene that happened is the cause and the second scene of action of the effect. For example, because i ate the last bowl of frosted flakes, my brother requested my mom to get another box of cereal. If i did not eat the last bowl, he would not have begged my mom to get another box, he would have been full and satisfied with the amount he ate. The website about Causal arguments is useful because it allows us to know what the definition of cause and effect is and how it can be used in real life situations. Overall, i find this amusing because people in sociology majors have this term used a lot.

2)

For the Mission Critical website, i found it very useful. Not only is it easy to understand but it gives people description on every type of reasoning. I liked how the website gives us parts of what the basic of each reasoning is. I also like how the website gives people an analysis of the arguments, from introduction to inductive and deductive reasoning to non-universal syllogism, the areas goes into depth of each reasoning and how it is used in real life situations. i also like the fallacies and non-rational persuasion because this part gives examples of fallacies such as appeal to fear, pity, spite, loyalty, prejudice, and vanity. This website is useful because it can actually be taught as lessons to people who are first timers in learning reasoning and fallacies. I like this website because everything is organized and is described into depth of how the criterias are being used.

3)

In this week's session, i found a lot of things interesting so i might as well talk about everything. In the reasoning topics on the professor's page, i searched up every one of them and found that each one of them has a specific meaning to it. But they can all be used in conversations, arguments, and even persuasion. Reasoning by example can be very useful at time when you are trying to update a friend about what is going on in the world, if he does not understand what you mean, you can use examples to relate to what you guys are talking about. That way, it will be easier for him to understand and engage in the conversation. All these reasoning's can be useful in many ways,  if you are trying to relate something to something else, you can use reason of analogy. Reasons like this can start up a great conversation.

Sign Reasoning

After going through all the list of reasoning, i find that sign reasoning is the hardest to understand for me because i did not understand the definition which is argument by sign asserts that two or more things are so closely related that the presence or absence of the other. I found this confusing because i did not know what this meant until i saw the example: Fingerprints are signs of being discrete, just as a footprint is an indication that someone has walked by recently. Now the easiest way to understand sign reasoning is look for something big and have something small to notice it by. For example, in the website, it gave an example of when you see smoke, it is a sign that there is a fire near. Reasoning is a good way to start a conversation as well as retaliate in an argument because it allows you to use different examples to get you point across.

1)

According to Epstein, reasoning by analogy is a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: On one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same. For example, our parents are like squirrels, they work long and hard hours so they can provide for us. They are like squirrels because squirrels also gather food every day for their young. Sign reasoning can be easily explained through signs indicating a bigger picture. For example, there was a robbery at a house and crime scene officials are looking through it, they find a fingerprint in a lamp and runs it through the fingerprint system. The officials finds out that the fingerprint belongs to a robber that have been on a streak of robbing house, the robber is the big picture. Causal reasoning is basically an investigation that shows the causes of an effect. This is easily understandable, using the example from the website, the four students all ate coleslaw and other foods, but the teacher concluded that the coleslaw developed the indigestion, that is causal reasoning. By investigation, the teacher was able to point out what led to the indigestion. Criteria reasoning is when someone is using a category to find out what is right. For example, my friends sister likes everything that is purple, so for her birthday present, we got her a purple butterfly necklace, we found this out because the criteria led us to the color purple. People use reasoning by example every day, it is basically telling someone a story about something they were talking about. An example would be two people discussing the effect of texting a driving. one would say my cousin almost got into a car accident because someone texted her while she was on the road. Inductive reasoning is reasoning due to previous actions, like how your mom would kiss you before she leaves work. Its inductive because your mom always kisses you before she leaves. Deductive reasoning is when two statements are true, an example would be 1) all cars are fast 2) my car is fast.

Something Interesting

In the 21st century, i found that many people use appeal to spite. People from government officials to little kids at the age of five are using revenge as an activity. I also find that most schools do this but they do it as in "pranks". One school or another would play a prank on another school by taking their mascots and taking pictures of the mascot doing dumb things. Appeals to spite have been used and have been modified throughout the time, now it has become fun and ridiculous. Government officials uses appeal to spite by embarrassing and humiliating the other opponent so that they can get more votes. I find that appeal of spite can be used in good times and bad times. But revenge is not always the key to solving problems because it can sometimes get out of hand. When that happens, someone can get into trouble or seriously hurt.

Objective #6

On page 195, the book lists numerous exercises for chapter 10. I chose #6: Give an example of an appeal to spite that invokes what someone believes. Is it a good argument? An advertisement or political speech that i can identify nowadays is the Meg Whitman ads on television. One commercial shows her being a plagiarizer because she is stealing Arnold Swartzeneggar's words. Every line she said, the television would show Arnold saying the same thing in his campaign to be governor. Other political person's like Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, etc. are all making commercials in which it shows their opponent and what wrong they can do to the economy if we pick them. It leaves us in a question about what to do in these kinds of situations because, if we pick one, then we will have to endure the consequences for picking that person. For example, there is a commercial about Jerry Brown raising taxes when he was mayor of Oakland. All these ads that come out are appeals to spite from other people running for campaigns because they will so anything to humiliate their opponent to win.

Appeals to emotion

After reading Chapter 10 about appeals to emotion, i find that the concept of appealing to pity is very persuading because it actually works. In the first example, two people feel sympathy about the poor kids over seas, how they are not getting the nutrients and energy they need in order to survive. This type of appeal gets to everyone because it allows the idea to get into people's head and have them feel guilty that they have everything, but the kids in other countries have nothing to survive and can die at any moment. Some people think that people in other countries are doing this so that organizations can get money from this process and making Americans feel pity. In my opinion, i believe that people in other countries do need our help because they are not as fortunate as us, of having a full time job and television to watch and a beautiful car to drive and impressing the ladies. Other people are lucky enough to have clothes and shoes to wear.

Further Discussion

So far, after reading Epstein's book, i realize that there are many things that seem confusing because when one chapters talks about lets say premises, it jumps to conclusion out of no where. I did some researching and found a website where it describes in detail what an argument is and how we can pinpoint them, because i know that some people read a chapter of Epstein and they are like, what is this guy talking about? On www.about.com under "what is an argument?", it shows an article about understanding premises, inferences, and conclusions. I find that this website really helped me because to be honest, i was puzzled after reading what Epstein had said. This website helped by breaking down into little parts of understanding premises and how it is used inside a sentence. I believe that if a beginner learning critical thinking and how to create arguments can find this website really useful for them. Not only does this website explains on how to understand premises and so forth, it gives us examples so when we are reading a newspaper ad or article, we can pinpoint easily what the premise and conclusion is.

Usefulness

After having done the two major course assignments, i realize that there are lots to learn other than school curriculum and sports, there are other things in the world we have to learn about. For example, i have heard of animals being tortured in very different ways but once i saw chickens being prepped for food on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , it was just disgusting. Seeing cows get ran over by tractors because farmers think it is funny? It is useful doing these assignments because we get to broad out into other aspects of learning. We get to learn new things and be updated of what the world is offering us and what we can do to make our lives and future lives easier. I believe that these assignments are useful for anyone because instead of having your heads in the books that are boring and makes you fall asleep, we can research on stuff that would help us in life so that we will not have to live in a world that is full of discomfort and pain. 

Chapter 8

After reading chapter 8, i have learned many things. For example, i did not know that some of the words we use today are general claims. Some people say that all Chinese people know kung fu, so if i am Asian, then i must know kung fu? i just used a general claim when i said "some people" meaning at least one person has to have said all Chinese people know Kung Fu. I also learned that some general claims are very vague, they just say a sentence like "all dogs bark" well some dogs do not because some are too shy and some cant speak due to vocal damage. I know a friend that put a shock collar on his dog n when the dog barked once, that was the last time i ever heard him. I worked at McDonald's before and i just have to say that the manager was horrible. Even though the workers say she was fair. They say that all managers are bad when they do not offer any sort of promotion, my manager did not give any promotions and kept it for herself, so she is a bad manager. She was also racist because i was the only Chinese guy working there and she would say bad stuff about me not knowing that i knew what she was saying.

Interesting

After reading chapter 6 and chapter 7 from Epstein, i find that counterarguments are very effective when negotiating with someone. Say person A wanted to buy a mustang and his or her friend is an environmentalist, he or she would be negotiating from sunrise to sunset about how person A would be killing the earth much faster because of all the air pollution being thrown in the sky. Counterarguments are also good for advertisements because they are effective when talking about something that is important. For example, a teen just got his or her driver's license and they are always texting, one way you can fight this is to say "texting while driving is bad because it can cause severe car accidents or even death". These counterarguments have been used so that people will be persuaded to commit some other action. Overall, i think that counterarguments is a great way to start a conversation when you want to end up arguing instead.

Counterarguments

In chapter 7, Epstein says that a counterargument is raising objections in a standard way to show that an argument is bad. In my opinion, counterarguments are very good ideas because it can actually save someone from doing something. Counterarguments are said everyday, from cars to food. Environmentalist say that people should ride bikes to school and work because not only does it save money but it saves the earth from air pollution coming from cars. There are actually clubs on campus that promote these activities. People promote counterarguments by saying that fast food is bad for you but in a way, they are so good. These days parents use counterarguments a lot when they are negotiating with their children about driving a car or going out to parties, they might say wait until you are eighteen so the insurance will be lower, or do not go to the party because there will be underage drinking. Overall, i think that counterarguments is a very good strategy when it comes to persuading. Not only is it true but it can also be life saving.

Compound Claims

After reading chapter 6 about compound claims, i have learned many things. But the two things that i found interesting was that the claim is never honest but one action or the other is always done. According to Epstein, a compound claim is one composed of other claims, but which has to be viewed as just one claim. Their example about how the neighbor says "ill return your lawn mower or i will buy you a new one" this statements gets on my nerves because i have been in that situation where one of my friends borrowed my game and never gave it back for at least two years. When i confronted him about it, he said he would buy me a new one or he would buy me another new game. But i guess compound claims has its benefits in which when one action is not done, another one will be done instead. It might not be true but sometimes someone will get their way.

Part 3

What i found interesting was that media has a lot to do with how people act. From commercials to advertisements, people are always gullible for everything they see. Shopoholics especially are gullible because once they see something on television that they love but do not really need, they go to their freezer, take the block of ice out with the credit card inside, and they would start hammering it away and trying to call in the purchase before the time runs out. I find that advertisements are also deceiving because they would always tell people that they need this because it was become a great benefit towards them, when literally, people will probably throw their new appliances and never see them again. I also found surprising that media is just like the devil, they promote products that people will love to have but they do not really need it, because one they shop they never stop. I also think that people in this business is wrong for taking people's money away for creating useless junk, because at the end, the business marketers are the ones making the cash.

URL connection with the interesting blog

http://www.extenzeforlife.com/?microppcsite=google&microppcterm=Extenze&gclid=CP24w8mxrqQCFQpOgwodHzqE0w

Part 2

I found that Section C in Chapter 5 was pretty interesting because i found out from Epstein that most advertisements are arguments. Truthfully, i never knew that. According to Epstein, he says "Many advertisements are arguments, with the conclusion that you should buy the product, or frequent the establishment, or use the service." When most of the people see advertisements on billboards or the internet, we usually gaze upon the characters within the poster and then the product they are trying to promote, then we would gaze in awww. For example, the advertisement extenze, which is a male enhancement commercial/advertisement that argues all men should take this pill so that they can perform better sexually and that the pill contains many benefits. All advertisements have a downside because for some people it wont work and in that case, the argument is not valid. It only seems valid when actors and actresses are promoting the advertisement, that way anyone will buy the pill and will think it will work, but literally, it might not.

Repairing Arguments

Part 1
In Chapter 4, Epstein talks about how to correct an argument or what you can do to the argument to make it sound much better. According to Epstein, we are to add premises or conclusions so that it'll satisfy the three criteria's. 1) the argument will become much stronger and valid 2) the premise is plausible and would seem plausible to another person and 3) the premise is more plausible than the conclusion. One of the claims i came up would be too much candy will give you a bad stomach ache. The conclusion and premise would be that candy will give you a stomach ache if you eat too much and to what extend of candy makes you have a stomach ache. Someone can be like if i ate one piece of candy, will my stomach hurt? the premise is there so it can explain why too much of candy will make you sick. so in an argument, it needs both a conclusion and premise to satisfy the three criterias.

Summary of Bad Arguments

In this week's reading, i find that the summary of bad arguments to be use and not useful at the same time. It is useful in that they are great exercises for people who are practicing how to pinpoint what statement is which and to tell what the premises and claims are. I also found that most of the arguments are not useful because they do not support enough evidence to make it arguable. For example, the one about the person being late for school, there is not really a argument because the person does not have an excuse to be late. If the person woke up earlier and left the house earlier, not only will he or she be at school on time but they can also grab breakfast so they do not starve throughout the day. But overall, i believe that it is a great exercise for people who are starting to learn how to point out statements.

Structure of Arguments

I picked "I'm on my way to school. I left five minutes late. Traffic is heavy. Therefore, I'll be late for class. So I might as well stop and get breakfast." Yes, this is an argument because the person is saying if they are late, they might as well get something that will satisfy their hunger and not starve throughout the day. The conclusion is the last sentence because the first four sentences seems like it is a fact. According to Epstein, a premise is reasons for believing the conclusion is true. So if this person is late for class, it is because he or she is running five minutes late and the traffic is being heavy. I don't think this is a good argument because it is the person's fault for waking up late and running late to school. The person should have put their alarm five to ten minutes earlier than they would normally wake up, avoid the traffic so that way, they would not be late for class and they would not have to explain to their teacher what happened. If the teacher did ask and the student said the sentences above, he was get punished for being late to class since it was the students fault. I think that this is a great exercises because this help us point out what the argument is and what the claims, premises, and other statements are.

Violating The Principle of Rational Discussion

The argument that i like the most is "strawman" because not only are you addressing the person's argument but you can add something in it to relate it to an argument you want to address. In Epstein's word, he states that "strawman" is saying "it's easier to knock down someone's argument if you misrepresent it, putting words in the other person's mouth". In other words, i can get something out of an argument that a friend of mine is addressing. For example, My brother recently wanted an Apple Laptop and the cost of it was out of question to my mom because there was no way that she will spend nearly a thousand dollars on a laptop. But as i was reading through the Best Buy catalog, i saw that they were having a promotion where if you buy a Apple laptop, not only will you get that, but you will also receive a free Ipod Touch. It was basically a win-win situation. So my brother got what he wanted but instead of him arguing about it with my mom, i negotiated with her so that it would be cheaper. In reality, i misrepresented his argument with an argument that my mom would not refuse to, since she loves free stuff.

Descriptive and Prescriptive Claims

Epstein states that a descriptive claim is a claim that says what it is while prescriptive is a claim that says what it should be. For example, prescriptive claim: Sally should not drive drunk. descriptive claim: People driving drunk will lead to DUI's. This is valued judgment because the law states that there are some things that we should not be doing but in other cases, people don't listen, and they either get put in jail for it, or they end in a  tragic car accident. I think its best if people use descriptive writing because not only is it short and concise, but also it can help people stop going on and on about one sentence. If it is short and concise, people will understand your reading more and they will probably like it because it is easy to understand.

Strong versus Valid Arguments

According to Epstein, A valid argument is when there is no possible way for its premises to be true and its conclusion to be false. A strong argument is when the premises is true but the conclusion to be false but thats unlikely. An example of a valid argument would be all asian people i know have a history of knowing martial arts, so since im asian, i know martial arts. A strong argument would be if i told the DC employees that i was lactose and they say i can still have the ice cream because it non-dairy. Its strong because the person i asked works at the DC and they make the syrup. This argument can be true and false but mostly true because i havent gotten any issues yet, so im good.  

The Tests for an Argument to Be Good

According to Epstein, there are 3 things to make an argument good: 1)The premises are plausible, meaning that people would have a good reason for believing something is true. 2) The premises are more plausible than the conclusion, this means that the conclusion can be false due to other people's beliefs. 3) The argument is valid and strong. An example i can give is I knew i was lactose when i had a bad reaction to dairy products. This argument is not valid because it might not be the dairy product, it might be what people used to sterilize the milk or cheese before they sell it that is making me sick. this can also be a good argument when having dinner with friends and they order a large portion on fettuccine alfredo, i can say that i cant eat it because im lactose, and they have to believe it believe i'm the one saying it and i know my body.

Epstein

After reading "Thank you for arguing" by Epstein, He reminds me of a high school teacher my brother had because he would always win in arguments. The way Epstein writes the book, he seems like he never argues with his family because he knows what to say to avoid an argument. It also surprises me because it actually works; when there were no more toothpaste and he somehow got his son to get a new tube without them arguing, if i was in the son's shoes, i would not have gotten the paste. But due to his Epstein's knowledge of arguments, he made it so that he and his son would not have to argue about going to the basement and getting a new tube of toothpaste.

Vague Statement

I work for the UPD as a Police Service Assistant and one night we had a call saying someone stole a bicycle off one of the bike racks. I was in the area of the crime and asked dispatch what color the bike was and any description. All i got was "black bike and Hispanic male". Coincidentally, there was a bike party that night and maybe a hundred bicyclist of different ethnicity were riding around campus. So i called dispatch and told him that i wasn't able to find him since there was a bike party going on campus and there was no use stopping each and everyone of them and ask to search their property because it would take all night and it would just be a waste of time. We never caught the guy. All the dispatch said was i got a call from a anonymous person that was 100 meters away. For all we know, the person could have owned that bike.

Subjective and Objective Claims

Due to the reading, it sounds like Subjective claim is something said due to a person's opinion while a Objective claim has no opinion.

Ex. Subjective Claim: My friend and I were discussing the movie Expendables and how I thought it was a great action thriller. On the other hand, my friend insisted that Expendables is just another action film and it was boring. This is an subjective claim because I believe that it was great due to all the action stars in one movie. Also because the same action stars would always keep me on the edge of the seat.

Ex. Objective Claim: A group of my friends were having dinner at one of the local pizza parlors around the school, we were talking about how Sylvestor Stallone still has an edge to do another movie, but we were also surprised that he got all the action film stars such as: Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Jason Statham, etc. Then one of my friends stated that Stallone takes steroids and everyone just chimed in saying that he was built before the movie and another saying that a paparazzi caught him with a syringe. This is an Objective claim because Stallone could have taken steroids or he worked really hard for this movie. 

Introduction

Hi, my name is Kevin Lee, I'm a sophomore and trying to major in Sociology. My communication skills are in between mediocre and good since I work in an environment that requires a lot of talking/communication towards people. I hope that this course will help me talk confidently so that I don't start shaking from nervousness when I talk to people. This is my first online class and I hope that it will prove to other people that online classes aren't bad at all. My interests are hanging out with friends, going to the movies, meeting new people, and enjoying life.