Distinguishing Arguments from Nonarguments

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Distinguishing Arguments from Non-arguments
 
The aim of this tutorial is to help you identify
arguments and distinguish them from various kinds
of non-arguments.
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An argument is a claim defended with reasons.
More precisely, a passage is an argument if and
only if
(a) it is a group of two or more statements
(b) one of those statements (the conclusion) is
claimed or intended to be supported by the
other(s) (the premises).
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Notice three important things that follow from
this definition
1. Arguments consist entirely of statements,
i.e., sentences that it makes sense to regard as
either true or false. Questions, commands,
exclamations, and other kinds of nonstatements
cannot be parts of arguments. (Keep in mind,
however, that rhetorical questions should be
treated as statements.)
2. No single statement, however long, complex, or
controversial, is an argument. Arguments always
consist of at least two statements.
3. Nothing counts as an argument unless it is
claimed or intended that one statement follows
from one or more other statements in the passage.
In other words, a passage is an argument only if
the speaker or writer intends to offer evidence
or reasons why another statement should be
accepted as true.
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Five kinds of passages that are sometimes
confused with arguments are

• reports

• unsupported statements of belief or opinion

• illustrations

• conditional statements

• explanations

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Planet Earth was much drier in the Triassic than
it is now, and there were large deserts in inland
areas. There were no flowering plants or
grasses--they evolved much later. The most common
trees were conifers, similar to today's pines.
Other large plants included yews, ginkgos, and
the palmlike cycads. Moisture-loving ferns and
horsetails thrived by lakes and rivers. Philip
Whitfield, Simon Schuster's Children's Guide to
Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, 1992)
This passage is a report.
A report is a statement or group of statements
intended simply to convey information about a
subject.
Keep in mind that reports of other people's
arguments should be regarded as reports rather
than as arguments.
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1. Begin each day with a prayer. 2. Work hard. 3.
Love your family. 4. Make light of your troubles.
5. Follow the Golden Rule. 6. Read from the
Bible. 7. Show kindness. 8. Read worthwhile
books. 9. Be clean and pure. 10. Have charity in
your heart. 11. Be obedient and respectful. 12.
End the day in prayer. These twelve rules, the
"Quaker Dozen," were written long ago in a family
Bible. But I believe they still fit today's
problems. (Adapted from Olive Ireland Theen,
"Grandfather's Quaker Dozen," in William Nichol,
ed., A New Treasury of Words to Live By, 1959)
This passage is an unsupported statement of
belief or opinion.
  An unsupported statement of belief or opinion
is a statement or set of statements in which the
speaker or writer expresses his or her personal
opinion, but offers no reasons or evidence to
back up that opinion.
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Almost all groups agree in holding other groups
to be inferior to themselves. The American
Indians looked upon themselves as the chosen
people, specially created by the Great Spirit as
an uplifting example for mankind. One Indian
tribe called itself "The Only Men" another
called itself "Men of Men" the Caribs said, "We
alone are people." (Will Durant, Our Oriental
Heritage, 1935)
This passage is an illustration.
An illustration is a passage intended to provide
examples that illustrate or support a claim, not
to provide convincing evidence that the claim is
true.
The three examples cited in this passage are
clearly insufficient to support the author's
claim that "almost all groups agree in holding
other groups to be inferior to themselves." This
indicates that the passage is intended to
illustrate the author's claim, rather than to
prove it.
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If Hal comes to the party than Sarah will come to
the party.
This passage is a conditional statement.
A conditional statement is an if-then statement.
It is an assertion that such-and-such is true if
something else is true.
Conditional statements are not arguments because
arguments always contain at least two statements
and conditional statements consist of only a
single statement " Statement A is true on the
condition that statement B is true."
In the passage above, the speaker or writer isn't
asserting that Hal will come to the party. Nor is
she asserting that Sarah will come to the party.
Rather, she is asserting that Sarah will come to
the party provided that Hal comes to the party.
This is a single statement, and thus is not an
argument.
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I speak English because my parents sent me to
boarding school in London.
This passage is an explanation.
An explanation is a statement or set of
statements that seeks to provide an account of
why something has occurred or why something is
the case.
In this passage, the speaker or writer isn't
trying to prove that he can speak English (that's
obvious from the fact that he is speaking
English!). Rather, he is trying to explain why he
speaks English.
In other words, arguments seek to provide
evidence or reasons that something is the case
explanations seek to explain why something is the
case.
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For the person who called and said Larry Bird was
better than Michael Jordan, wake up. No one was
ever better than Michael Jordan, not even Kareem
in his glory and not even Dr. J (From a newspaper
call-in column)
Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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For the person who called and said Larry Bird was
better than Michael Jordan, wake up. No one was
ever better than Michael Jordan, not even Kareem
in his glory and not even Dr. J (From a newspaper
call-in column)
  Non-argument (unsupported statement of belief
or opinion).
  In this passage, the speaker simply asserts his
opinion he makes no effort to defend it.
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When a democratic society is correctly understood
to be one in which the people live under
constitutional government with universal suffrage
and with the securing of human rights, economic
as well as political, for all citizens, it must
then be recognized that a democratic society is
not yet fifty years old in this country (Mortimer
J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal, 1984)
Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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When a democratic society is correctly understood
to be one in which the people live under
constitutional government with universal suffrage
and with the securing of human rights, economic
as well as political, for all citizens, it must
then be recognized that a democratic society is
not yet fifty years old in this country (Mortimer
J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal, 1984)
Argument.
The writer is giving a reason to support his
claim that democracy is less than fifty years old
in the United States.
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If a claim or position is being set forth and no
other explicit or implicit statement is used to
support it, then the spoken or written material
in question is not an argument (T. Edward Damer,
Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 4th ed., 2001)
Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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If a claim or position is being set forth and no
other explicit or implicit statement is used to
support it, then the spoken or written material
in question is not an argument (T. Edward Damer,
Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 4th ed., 2001)
  Non-argument (conditional statement).
The writer is simply making an if-then statement,
not giving reasons why some other statement
should be believed.
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Women my age know whom to blame for our own
self-loathing, eating disorders and distorted
body image Barbie. So we're raising our
vulnerable, body-conscious girls to beware the
perpetually pointy-toed goddess with the
impossible body and perfect face (Amy Dickinson,
"Measuring Up," Time, November 20, 2000)
  Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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Women my age know whom to blame for our own
self-loathing, eating disorders and distorted
body image Barbie. So we're raising our
vulnerable, body-conscious girls to beware the
perpetually pointy-toed goddess with the
impossible body and perfect face (Amy Dickinson,
"Measuring Up," Time, November 20, 2000)
Non-argument (explanation).
  The writer isn't seeking to prove that women
her age are raising their vulnerable,
body-conscious daughters to beware of Barbie
rather, she's offering an explanation why they
are doing so.
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Although you usually cannot eliminate the
personal feelings that are influencing your
perceptions, you can become aware of them and try
to compensate for their bias. For instance, if
you are asked to evaluate a group of people, one
of whom is a good friend, you should try to keep
these personal feelings in mind in order to make
your evaluation as accurate as possible (John
Chaffee, The Thinker's Way, 1998)
  Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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Although you usually cannot eliminate the
personal feelings that are influencing your
perceptions, you can become aware of them and try
to compensate for their bias. For instance, if
you are asked to evaluate a group of people, one
of whom is a good friend, you should try to keep
these personal feelings in mind in order to make
your evaluation as accurate as possible (John
Chaffee, The Thinker's Way, 1998)
Non-argument (illustration).
  In this passage, the words "for instance"
signal us that the author is trying to illustrate
a claim, not to prove it.
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In his book Natural Theology, which set forth the
standard academic and theological wisdom of the
early nineteenth century, William Paley had
compared nature to a watch. If you chanced upon a
watch lying alone on the ground, he wrote, and
then examined its intricate structure, you could
not help concluding that it had been made by an
intelligent designer. It couldn't possibly be the
product of mere chance. And yet, the natural
world exhibits much more complex order than any
watch. Thus, Paley concluded, there has to be an
intelligent designer responsible for nature's
fine arrangement (John F. Haught, Science and
Religion, 1995)
  Is this passage an argument or not an argument?
If it is not an argument, is it a report, an
unsupported statement of belief or opinion, an
illustration, a conditional statement, or an
explanation?
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In his book Natural Theology, which set forth the
standard academic and theological wisdom of the
early nineteenth century, William Paley had
compared nature to a watch. If you chanced upon a
watch lying alone on the ground, he wrote, and
then examined its intricate structure, you could
not help concluding that it had been made by an
intelligent designer. It couldn't possibly be the
product of mere chance. And yet, the natural
world exhibits much more complex order than any
watch. Thus, Paley concluded, there has to be an
intelligent designer responsible for nature's
fine arrangement (John F. Haught, Science and
Religion, 1995)
Non-argument (report).
  In this passage, the writer is reporting
someone else's argument, not endorsing it as
correct. Thus, the argument is a report rather
than an argument.
This is the end of this tutorial