Chapter 7 was about structuring arguments. The chapter gave an introductory about inductive reasoning, which is the process of generalizing on the basis of a number of specific examples. It then went on to talk about other types of reasoning such as deductive reasoning, which reaches a conclusion based off assumptions. Part of deductive reasoning includes syllogisms. The chapter also gives a “Classical Oration” of structuring arguments. The order goes in Latin as Exordium, Narratio, Partitio, Confirmation, Refutatio, and Perorratio. This is also known as introduction, background, lines of argument, alternative arguments, and conclusion. The chapter also talks about two other types of arguments such as the Rogerian Argument and the Toulmin Argument. The Rogerian argumentation is based on a willngess to think about opposing positions and to describe them fairly. The Toulmin Argument is based more on making claims which are debatable and controversial statements.
A part of the text that is of particular interest is the Toulmin Arguments. These arguments are controversial and debatable. The book gives examples such as “It’s time to legalize the use of medical marijuana.” This is basically just a claim. The Toulmin argument is the kind that uses syllogisms to support this claim. Examples to support this claim include personal experience, anecdotes, facts, and authorities. The support and claim must be connected and persuasive in order for this argument to be effective.
An example of the Toulmin argument I have come up with is an example based from Facebook experiences. For instance, the claim would be, “Around fall to winter is mating-season while February to March is breaking-up season.” This is a claim. Reasons that support this claim can be personal, anecdotes, and facts. The personal experience would be me seeing many of my friends going from “single” to “in a relationship” around certain times and vice versa for other times. An anecdote would be many of my friends have seen similar updates on their Facebook page. The facts can be 20 out of 200 friends changed went into a relationship around fall and winter while 20/200 friends went to single in February. The authorities can be the people who went in a relationship and justify that they usually feel more lonely around the fall and winter and tend to try and find someone to be with around that time and usually get tired of being in a relationship around February. (399)
The claim for marijuana is a good point because people have been fighting for this legalization for a very long time. The state governments is starting to loosen up on pot laws in some areas, while the federal government is cracking down. Many dispensaries in California are being shut down and taken away from owners because of selling and distribution of marijuana. In the movie SuperHigh Me, you notice a few scenes where people are fighting and protesting outside of a dispensary as feds are raiding and closing it down. But then people break out facts that prove that marijuana is safer than over the counter drugs and alcohol. Noticing small things like this help to improve or destroy some argument definitions. Also, the toulmin argument you made about people having more relationships in winter and then breaking up in spring is a good point. During the winter, many people are in the dead of school and just wanting to find a relationship. But when it hits spring and summer, the weather is nice and no one wants to have a relationship, especially during school breaks like spring break and summer because your freedom as changed and you're away from school.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting proposal for the causes of the relationship cycles. I think there could be even more factors to consider. For example, maybe cold weather encourages more stable relationships. And maybe school stresses in the Spring are a factor. Holidays or other seasonal activities could be involved. If most of these relationships were between students, then perhaps it is a limited sampling and the behavior of adults out of school could vary dramatically from the behavior observed. I bet that facebook has the ability to track trends in relationship status changes. It would be interesting (yet simultaneously a privacy concern) to see what kinds of anthropological assertions could spring from analyzing publicly available data such as relationship status changes. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that somebody's already thought of this and figured out a way to adjust their marketing strategy to maximize profits one way or another. This is sort of getting off topic so I'll just wrap it up here.
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