Archive for August 2012

“Doing Fine” with Syllogisms

August 31, 2012 Argumentation, Blog, Negative Ads No comments

Just as we looked at a negative ad directed at Mitt Romney to see how Toulmin argument maps work, we’ll now look at an ad attacking President Obama to see how to determine and analyze the underlying argument using a traditional syllogism.

The ad we’ll be using (shown above) is called “Doing Fine” and gets its name from an Obama press conference quote where, among other things, he stated that “the Private sector is doing fine,” an assessment the creators and approvers of the ad clearly disagree with.

As I mentioned in the previous attack ad analysis, despite the manipulativeness of such spots (with their ominous background music, pathos driven narratives, and the like), the good things about negative ads is that chances are pretty good a genuine argument can be found within them. So from a critical thinking perspective, they are better material to work with than TV spots based solely on praise and puppy dogs.

Looking over “Doing Fine” a few times, one can discern an argument that goes something like: “President Obama says the private sector is doing fine when, in fact, it is not doing well at all. Therefore, the President is out of touch with economic reality.”

This message is actually an enthymeme, which I defined yesterday as a standard three-part syllogism (two premises leading to one conclusion) where one of the premises is implied, but not stated outright. So if we were to extend this enthymeme to include the unstated premise, it would look something like:

Premise 1: President Obama says the private sector is doing fine when, in fact, it is not doing well at all.

Premise 2: Anyone who claims the private sector is doing fine when it actually is not is out of touch with economic reality.

Conclusion: President Obama is out of touch with economic reality.

Linked to this argument is another argument that says anyone so disconnected from economic reality does not deserve to be President. But, for now, we’ll just focus on the primary syllogism shown above to see if this argument holds up.

The first thing you should notice is that this syllogism is, in fact, valid in that if you accept the premises, then you must accept the conclusion. Since this syllogism is a result of our own translation of the original material into premises and a conclusion, I suppose we could have made an effort to translate it in a way that makes the argument invalid. But as we’ll see, there is more to be gained by doing our best to construct a valid syllogism out of source material and then use that to analyze the argument for soundness.

If you recall, a syllogism can be valid, but still unsound if the premises upon which the argument based are false or at least insufficient to hold up their end of the argument.

In this case, the premise that is most vulnerable is the first one since it can easily be challenged by (1) asking if the “Doing Fine” quote accurately reflects the President’s beliefs and (2) determining if the private sector is, in fact, doing fine or not.

Regarding action (1), if we look at the original statement in its full context, I think it’s fair to claim that President Obama demonstrates a comfort level with the current state of the private sector economy. However, it is also clear that he understands the struggles the private sector has done through over the last 4-5 years. And, more importantly, he is making a case that other economic issues (the crisis in Europe, challenges in the public sector) are more problematical (and thus need more attention) than problems in the private sector.

So if we look at the original first premise of the argument drawn from the “Doing Fine” ad, a more charitable description might say “President Obama thinks the private sector is doing better than other parts of the economy and thus needs less attention from government.”

Moving onto action (2), the TV ad provides just three pieces of evidence (shots of newspaper clips discussing fears associated with slow job growth). But these sources are problematical, given that they are just snippets from three newspapers (only two of which are identifiable); and that none of these stories clearly focus on the subject at hand, which is the current state of the private sector economy.

Further examination of these sources might show that they do support the original ads assertion of a struggling private economy. But even if they do, they do not provide sufficient evidence to support the claim that the private sector is doing so terribly than anyone who says otherwise is out of touch with reality.

Fortunately, the same Internet that lets us look at both the “Doing Fine” video as well as the original press conference the quote was drawn from in their entirety whenever we like, also allows us to perform our own research regarding the state of affairs with the private sector (with how to perform such research being the subject of an upcoming podcast).

But if we assume that the private sector is challenged but not collapsing and combine it with what we concluded from watching the original press conference, I think it’s safe to say that the original attack ad provides an argument that is of unquestionable validity, but questionable soundness.

This does not mean that any assertion questioning the President’s connection to economic reality is inherently unfair or illegitimate. It simply means that those posing such assertions need to present more evidence than they do in the “Doing Fine” attack ad to convince those of us who have been equipped by Aristotle to not let other people do our thinking for us.

Apologies to Aristotle

August 30, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

A listener mentioned that I might have given Aristotelian syllogisms short-shrift last podcast, implying that they were useful for ferreting out breaks in formal logic, but not that helpful when analyzing arguments that take place using real-world human language.

This is definitely not the case, but to understand their utility we need to introduce a few bits of terminology that describe how to translate real world conversations into syllogisms as well as help us analyze the real-world truth behind arguments represented by those syllogisms.

The first term is enthymeme, and while this is one of those words that can sometimes panic the Greek-phobic, an enthymeme is simply a syllogism where one of the premises is not stated outright.

For example, someone who says “It’s getting dark, so you should turn on your headlights.” is actually making the following syllogistic argument:

Premise 1: It is getting dark.

Premise 2: When it gets dark, it is hard to see where you are driving without headlights.

Conclusion: Therefore, you should turn on your headlights.

Because the second premise is (or should) be obvious, it does not necessarily need to be stated outright. And by removing this implied premise and just saying “It’s getting dark, so you should turn on your headlights.” we are creating an enthymeme in which premise 2 is hidden or suppressed, even though it is actually part of the argument.

Usually, the challenge in using syllogisms to analyze real-world conversation is how to best translate an argument stated in normal language into the required two-premises-followed-by-a-conclusion format. And when those normal language arguments are actually enthymemes, one of the most challenging jobs is to figure out what is the implied but unstated premise so we can state it and add it to our syllogism.

But once we have a syllogism we think accurately represents what someone is arguing, you still need to understand if it is correct, and to do that you need to understand two other terms: validity and soundness.

In the podcast when I mentioned that the syllogisms “All collies are dogs, Francine is a collie, therefore Francine is a dog” being correct while “All collies are dogs, Francine is a collie, therefore all dogs are Francine” being incorrect, I was really comparing a valid vs. an invalid argument. For an argument is valid if it is represents one of those combinations of “All As are Bs,” “No As are Bs,” “Some As are NOT Bs,” etc. that don’t fall into the category of broken logic, like my “All dogs are Francine” example.

But as I also described, such valid arguments can include premises (as well as a conclusion) that consist of just variables (like As and Bs), fictional creatures or nonsense words. For example, the argument “No mermaids are leprechauns, no leprechauns are pixies, therefore no mermaids are pixies” is a valid argument, even though mermaids, leprechauns and pixies do not exist (apologies to you believers out there).

In this case, where the argument is valid but the premises are not true in the real-world sense (or fail for some other reason), then we say the argument is unsound.

The mermaid, leprechaun, pixie example I just used illustrates a perfectly valid syllogism. But, because it requires us to accept untrue premises, the whole argument can be considered unsound meaning in the real world we do not needed to accept it as true.

Tomorrow, we’ll see how this works by picking apart, reconstructing in syllogistic form and analyzing another actual Presidential campaign ad.

 

Thank You for Arguing

August 29, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

Book Cover - Thank You for Arguing

As mentioned a number of times during this week’s podcast, Jay Heinrich’s 2007 book Thank You for Arguing is an informative and enjoyable resource to help you understand both the theory and practice of rhetoric and the persuasive arts.

Heinrich’s has a passion for the subject and a gift for teaching in a fun and entertaining way that somehow manages to weave together the works and words of Aristotle, Cicero, Lincoln and Homer Simpsons into a set of stories illustrating both the theory and technique behind effective argumentation and persuasion. I particularly liked the way he weaved in personal stories and casual asides about how rhetoric has helped him achieve his goals in both work and family life.

The passion he brings to the subject is clear in both his books and his web site which provides regular analysis of figures of speech (many of them currently coming from the political campaign we’re covering here at Critical Voter). For those joining us to hone their practical critical thinking skills, Heinrich’s Thank You for Arguing provides lessons both on how to argue, and why argumentation is so important for our happiness as individuals and as members of society.

I highly recommend you spend time with him.

Romney and Bain Capital vs. Toulmin

August 28, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

During this week’s podcast, I described how Toulmin diagrams can be used to map even the most complex arguments, including those that can be found in campaign materials, such as negative TV ads.

Before taking a look at how this can be done, I should mention that I actually like negative ads. Not that they don’t suffer from a number of shortcomings, critical-thinking wise. First, you’ve got the use of pathos-driven evocative imagery and music, designed to short circuit reason in favor of an emotional reaction. And the use of news headlines (to create a halo effect based on credible sources) is something we’ll be addressing shortly when we analyze the role of the media in political campaigns.

But negative ads (unlike positive ones which just paint warm and fuzzy images of the candidate, his family and accomplishments) at least present an argument. Yes, that argument might take some time to determine (and once determined, might be wrong). But if you can find it, you can analyze it using the critical thinking tools we have been studying.

For example, in this negative TV ad produced by the Obama campaign, Mitt Romney, who served as the CEO of the large private equity firm Bain Capital, is presented as being responsible for the closing of the century-old CST steel mill with the result of numerous lost jobs and ruined lives.

Others have discussed the effectiveness of the ad, and we could certainly analyze it in terms of its use of pathos to lead viewers towards a specific conclusion (specifically, the ads use of moving emotional testimony from people affected by the plant shut down and powerful images of a ruined landscape where a thriving enterprise once stood).

But this week we are concerned with argumentation, and if we can figure out what argument this negative ad is making (in this case, by using the Toulmin model), we can use that understanding to determine our next steps towards drawing our own informed conclusions.

To begin with, the Bain ad actually starts with a simple argument that can be presented in Toulin fashion as:

Toulmin Model - Bain Capital - Step 1By breaking the argument into these linked components, it becomes easier to determine which elements can be supported or challenged. For example, the Grounds cannot be challenged on the basis of fact since Bain was indeed the owner of the firm during its slide towards bankruptcy.

On one level, Mitt Romney’s role in the firm (the Warrant) also looks like a statement of fact, but this is deceptive.

Like many complex real-world situations, not all truths resemble “All Cats are Animals” with regard to judging truth or falsehood. For example, one could look at the timing of decisions related to CST and map them to the timing of Governor Romney’s changing roles within the organization (which take into account his leaves of absence when running the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 or running for the Presidency in 2008).

One could also challenge whether Romney’s role in a large organization such as Bain was directly responsible for the mill being shut down. In both cases, you would be challenging whether the Warrant is sufficient to support the Claim (that Romney is responsible for the shutdown of the mill) regardless of the accuracy of the Grounds.

It’s at this point that the Warrant ends up turning into a Claim to another argument which expands our Toulin diagram to look like this:

Bain Capital - Toulmin Model - Step 2

Again, one can challenge the Claim and/or Warrant of this new argument (digging further into the reasoning behind certain decisions, for example) or questioning the responsibility of the CEO for the consequences – expected or unexpected – of every decision. But putting aside details of how such challenges might be made, you can begin to see how mapping the logical argument hidden within the original seemingly emotion-driven negative ad gives us something substantial to discuss when either supporting or challenging its fundamental call to action.

And what is that call to action? Well if we expand our Toulin map to include the critical hidden argument that sits on top of the entire persuasive effort, it would look like this:

Bain Capital - Toulmin Model - Step 3

While it took a little work to tease out the argument underlying the Obama ad, now that we’ve done so we have a number of ways to explore or challenge the entire argument, with research from news sources like this one being useful to help us accept or reject certain Grounds, Claims and Warrants.

For those who feel negative ads to be unpleasant or manipulative, the effort needed to turn them into a coherent logical argument (leveraging tools like Toulmin) can help us do something the makers of such ads would prefer we don’t do: think for ourselves.

Toulmin Argument Maps - From Podcast

August 27, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

In addition to Venn diagrams, I also discussed Toulmin argument maps in this week’s podcast, including the following:

Toulmin Diagram - Logical Relationship

This simple Toulmin map argues that since the sun is going down, you should put on a sweater. In this case, “You should put on a sweater” is the Claim for the argument, i.e., the thing I want you to believe or do as the result of my argument. And “The sun is going down” is the basis for my Claim (called the Grounds). The Warrant (which says “It gets cold when the sun goes down”) is what links my Grounds to my Claim, providing a reason why the two are connected.

In the first diagram, the Grounds, Claim and Warrant resemble a logical syllogism, but statements in a Toulmin diagram do not need to contain or be connected only by logic. In this example (which we also described in the podcast), the Grounds that “The Star Spangled Banner is playing” leads to the Claim that “You should take your hat off” via a Warrant that is an appeal to tradition, rather than logic (that Americans traditionally take their hat off when the national anthem is playing).

Toulmin Diagram - Ethos Relationship

This illustrates how Toulmin maps can be used to diagram arguments people often make that do not just rely on logic alone to make a case.

Finally, we used this Toulmin map to show how you can identify where an argument might contain problems or errors.

Toulmin Diagram - Bad Argument

In this case, both the Grounds and Warrant can easily be attacked for assuming that just because some of our best Presidents were lawyers that lawyers make the best Presidents.

We’ll be making more use of Toulmin maps to try to make sense of some of the more complex arguments that will be presented to us during the course of this year’s Presidential campaign.

Tomorrow, I will lay out an example of how we can do this with a look at one of the first negative campaign ads (this one having to do with Mitt Romney’s role in Bain Capital), rendered as a Toulmin diagram.

Venn Diagrams

August 27, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

I made mention of Venn diagrams in this week’s podcast. These are simple diagrams that can be used to map formal logic statements such as:

Venn Diagram - All Collies are Dogs

In this Venn diagram, the circle labeled “Collies” is completely contained within the circle labeled “Dogs” so that there cannot be anything that is a Collie that is not a Dog. So this diagram illustrates the logical statement “All collies are dogs.”

Venn Diagram - No Cats are Dogs

In this second simple Venn diagram, the circle labeled “Cats” is completely outside the one labeled “Dogs” so that anything that falls into the category of Cats (and can thus be included in the Cats circle) will fall completely outside the category of Dogs. So this diagram illustrates the logical statement “No cats are dogs.” (Note: I kept Collies inside the Dog circle to illustrate that a Venn diagram can illustrate more than one logical statement. In this case, the second statement is “No cats are collies.”)

You can also use Venn diagrams to map out more complex statements, or statements that cover some vs. all of the things that fall into a category. For example:

Venn Diagram - Some Accounts are Women

This diagram illustrates the statement “Some accountants are women.” In this case, the circle labeled “Accountants” and the one labeled “Women” overlap, but do not completely enclose one another. So this diagram actually covers two statements: “Some accountants are women” and “Some women are accountants.”

Venn Diagram - Complex

Getting back to dogs and cats, this final Venn diagram shows how all cats can be animals and all dogs (including collies) can be animals, while still preserving the notion that no cat can be a dog. As you can see, the “Dogs” and “Cats” circles are completely enclosed inside the “Animals” circle (which illustrates that anything that is a cat or a dog must be an animal), while preserving the notion that no cat can be a dog (and vice versa).

While these are simple examples, Venn diagrams can get quite intricate as they start to illustrate more complex statements and arguments. Here are some resources you can turn to if you want to explore Venn diagrams further:

http://www.purplemath.com/modules/venndiag.htm

Video Lesson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Cme7wUBhg

 

I’d Like to Have an Argument - Monty Python

August 27, 2012 Argumentation, Blog No comments

This was probably everyone’s first introduction to the idea that every disagreement does not an argument make:

 

 

Critical Voter - Podcast 4 - Argumentation

August 26, 2012 Argumentation, Blog, Podcast No comments

Monty Python Argument Sketch

Some of the things that tend to drive us the craziest during a Presidential campaign, such a negative TV and “debates” where the candidates seem to talk past each other, are best understood (and maybe even appreciated) once you understand the concept of argumentation.

While we tend to label every type of loud or uncomfortable disagreement an argument, in the context of critical thinking an argument is actually a cooperative activity where participants are trying to achieve a common goal (even if they want to go about it in different ways).

This week’s podcast focuses on argumentation and includes a description of what an argument is and how you can tell an argument from a fight. We also take a look at different types of arguments (forensic, demonstrative and deliberative) and see how arguments can often contain “broken” logic in the form of fallacies.

Finally, we review how argumentation can be diagramed in a way that can help you make sense of even the most complex arguments.

References made during this podcast include:

Monty Python’s Argument Sketch

List of fallacies

Venn Diagrams

Toulmin diagrams described in the podcast

Toulmin analysis of a negative TV ad

Educational material associated with this week’s podcast include:

Critical Voter - Argumentation - Quiz

Critical Voter - Argumentation - Lesson Plan

Critical Voter - Podcast 4 - Argumentation [ 29:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Not logical Mr. Spock

August 24, 2012 Blog, Logos, Pathos and Ethos No comments

In researching my argument that Mr. Spock is not actually all that logical I stumbled onto a couple of items I thought I’d point you towards.

The first one is just a YouTube video of Spock, along with the rest of the Enterprise’s senior leadership team, acting in ways that would stretch any definition of logic.

To be fair, Spock was forced by circumstances to behave in such an illogical manner in the episode excerpted in this video. Although the ability of the Trek team to short circuit a whole race of robots using the Liar’s Paradox may represent the most practical use of this philosophical conundrum since ancient times.

If you’re looking for something a bit more substantial on the topic, this book excerpt makes a much more robust case regarding why logic is NOT what Mr. Spock and his fellow Vulcans represent. The author’s argument goes way beyond what is required in these critical thinking lessons, but I suspect some fellow Trek and Aristotle fans might enjoy it as much as I did.

Ancient Wisdom

August 23, 2012 Blog, Logos, Pathos and Ethos No comments

As you might have been able to tell from this week’s podcast, the works of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers can play a big role in the study and development of critical thinking skills.

But just as we don’t need comprehensive knowledge of cognitive science in order to use insights to help us understand our own thinking, we can get pretty far by drawing from classical teaching as needed to learn a particular concept (such as the role of logos, pathos and ethos).

That said, if you are interested in learning more about Aristotle and other ancient thinkers, I wanted to provide you some resources that can act as a starting point for further exploration.

Obviously, the original works of Aristotle and others can be found at any local library or book store. But these might be a bit of a challenge as a starting point, which is why I’ve suggested just a few of the thousands of secondary sources that are available to study ancient thought.

Aristotle in 90 Minutes – OK, this one might be a little light. But it does provide an easy access ramp to many of Aristotle’s works and is available in both print and audio format at many local libraries.

The Dream of Reason: The History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance – This informative and extremely well-written title is one of my favorite books on the subject. This is actually the first part of an ambitious two-volume project that will eventually cover all of Western philosophy, with volume one providing extremely good coverage of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, as well as the ancient and medieval thinkers who came before and after them.

The History of Philosophy (Without Any Gaps) – Speaking of ambition, Peter Adamson’s multi-year podcasting project will eventually cover all philosophy (and, as of now, he’s already gotten through the Greeks – including several great podcasts on Aristotle).

Masters of Greek Thought: Plato, Socrates and Aristotle – As a former commuter, I enjoyed CD classes available from The Great Courses company. And this one offers a strong overview of the Big Three (covered in 36 lectures of 30 minutes each).

There is no shortage of other books, online sources and classes for you to turn to if this subject takes your fancy (which I hope it does).

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

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