1).Please discuss, in detail, what you learned from reading Chapter 6. Discuss at least 2 things you learned.
In chapter 6, i learned that within claims there are other claims. There are two different compound claims that result in how things could be that i learned from this chapter; claims and conditionals. There are many different ways to look at a claim- alternatives, contradictory of claim, contradictory of an or claim, reasoning, false dilemmas. Then there are conditionals which are claims in which have the same truth-value. There is a confusing line between a claim and a conditional, a conditional claim is different because it can be seen as and "if, and then" claim. Whereas a claim is either or but not both.
Compound claims are very important for arguments because they can reason with claims instead of using possibilities.
One thing i found very interesting from chapter 6 is that there are two negative affects when using compound claims. First, is that people tend to use false dilemmas. Meaning that people use their "or" claim incorrectly; where it is false and exclude possibilities. Excluding possibilities makes its hard to understand the argument throughly. Therefore, listing the possibilities is necessary to avoid a false dilemma. Lastly, there is the slippery slope. The slippery slope is a bad argument where people tend to add claims to the one that happened- kind of like the domino effect. For example, if you skip school (claim 1) people assume that since you skipped school, you will do drugs (claim 2), you will get bad grades (claim 3) and therefore become a failure in life (claim 4).
I really like this post! You gave a lot of detail in this post and I feel like people who have not taken Comm 41 or read Robert L. Epstein's Critical Thinking, would definitely have a great understanding of what these claims are and what they mean. In my blogs, I also used the if and then to describe the conditional claims and or to describe compound claims. I also liked how you explained to the people who are reading this blog what the slippery slope is. I feel like this will help people have a better understanding of the claim. Great work!
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