Reasoning

Purposes of reasoning question
scope statement subject text
value claim word
Review exercise 2

Answer briefly the following questions, giving, where possible, an
example in your answer that is different from those used in this
book.

a. Is a statement the same as a sentence? Why should we
distinguish between the two?
b. What distinguishes claims from statements that are not claims?
c. Why are some claims thought of as 'facts'?
d. What are the three crucial properties of claims?
e. What is special about if/then claims?
f. What is the difference between a premise and a conclusion?
g. Are all conclusions the same? If not, why not?
h. What determines the 'type' of a particular premise?
i. What happens to claims when we express them in natural
language?



NOTES

1 As we will see in chapter 8, questions can also be thought of as
'potential' claims or
'claims in question'. Here, for example, the claim 'Australia should
continue to support all American foreign policy decisions concerning
Iraq' has been put under scrutiny by turning it into a question.
2 4 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

2 There is considerable philosophical argument concerning the
notion of truth. Some philosophers might wish to substitute words
such as 'valid' or 'sound' in this test of a
claim, but for the practical purposes of this book, 'truth'
will suffice. In particular, however, we should recognise that
value claims (described a little later in this chapter) cannot
really be true or false, but they can be judged in terms of
whether or not they are reasonable.
3 We cannot simply interchange conclusions and premises as we like
and still be confident of being correct. It would, for
example, be incorrect to say that 'because you should wash your
car, your car is dirty'. We need to think much more carefully about
the relationships we are asserting to be true when we decide just
what exactly our premises and conclusions are. For example, the
following would be good reasoning: 'I know that
if you are told to wash your car, then it is more than likely
that the car is dirty; I have just heard someone tell you to wash
your car; therefore I can infer that your car is dirty
(otherwise that person would not have told you to wash it)'. We
should note here, too, that giving premises to explain a known
conclusion is contextually different from giving
premises to establish by argument the soundness of an unknown or
doubtful conclusion. The term 'conclusion' here merely indicates the logical
function of the claim we are explaining, and not its importance
or significance. In an explanation, and from the point of view of
our audience, our premises and how they explain the conclusion
are more important than the conclusion itself.
4 Because group and individual decisions carry with them the
requirement that we be able to justify and explain our
decisions to others, decision making also involves reasoning.
from book:
SMART THINKINGSKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING AND WRITING Second Edition
MATTHEW ALLEN