CAREFUL ARGUMENT ANALYSIS IS
CLARIFICATION
Careful argument analysis
is needed to obtain a clear understanding of an argument before
you evaluate the argument. There are at
least three major areas of clarification involved in careful argument analysis:
(a) clarification of an argument by clarifying the explicit statements in the
argument, (b) clarification of an argument by making unstated premises and
unstated conclusions explicit, and (c) clarification of an argument by
determining and displaying the logical structure of the argument in an argument
diagram.
There are a number of ways in which a statement in an argument can be UNCLEAR and in need of clarification. A critical thinker needs to be aware of the common ways in which statements can be unclear, to be on the lookout for such problems in arguments, and to correct those problems by clarifying unclear statements.
EIGHT WAYS THAT A STATEMENT CAN BE CLARIFIED
Here are eight different ways to
clarify a claim or statement:
I will now briefly
discuss each of these ways to clarify a claim or statement.
REPLACE
PRONOUNS AND REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
Here is one important way
to clarify statements:
1.
ELIMINATE and REPLACE all pronouns and referring expressions in the statements.
Pronouns like “he”,
“she”, “them”, “it”, and “those” should be eliminated and replaced with the
name of the person, animal, place, or thing to which the pronoun refers. Phrases can also refer to people, animals,
places, or things, and such phrases should be eliminated and replaced with
expressions that clearly identify the referent of that phrase.
Here is an example
passage from one of Kreeft and Tacelli’s arguments:
The fact that the Roman soldier did not
break Jesus’ legs, as he did to the other two crucified criminals (Jn 19:31-33),
means that the soldier was sure Jesus was dead.
(HCA, p. 183)
This one sentence asserts four different claims. One of
those claims is stated this way:
…as he did to the
other two crucified criminals…
The
subject of the previous statement is “the Roman soldier”, so we know what the
pronoun “he” in the second statement means:
…as the Roman soldier did to the other two crucified criminals…
The
previous statement says the soldier “did not break Jesus’ legs”, so we know
what action is being referenced by the phrase “as ____ did to ____”, and we can
now fully clarify that second statement:
The Roman soldier broke the legs of the other two crucified
criminals.
This
revised statement is clear and meaningful even standing alone, without needing
any contextual clues from the previous statement.
CLARIFY
UNCLEAR WORDS AND PHRASES
Sometimes a word or
phrase needs to be clarified:
2. CLARIFY any unclear WORDS
or PHRASES in the statements.
For example, the
following claim by Kreeft and Tacelli is unclear:
If we can refute all other
theories (2-5), we will have proved the truth of the resurrection (1).
(HCA,
p.182, emphasis added)
The phrase “the truth of the resurrection” is UNCLEAR
and needs to be expressed in a clear statement.
I have previously argued that the conclusion that Kreeft and Tacelli are
arguing for is that God intentionally caused Jesus to rise from the dead and
gave Jesus an immortal body. So, the
above-quoted statement can be clarified as meaning this:
If we can refute all other
theories (2-5), we will have proved that God
intentionally caused Jesus to rise from the dead and gave Jesus an immortal body.
This revised version of this key statement makes
the actual conclusion of their case clear and explicit.
CLARIFY
UNCLEAR QUANTIFICATION
People often fail to
include appropriate quantification of their statements. When that happens, we should try to figure
out what sort of quantification the arguer intended:
3.
CLARIFY any unclear QUANTIFICATION in
the statements.
For example, the
following statement is VAGUE because of unclear quantification:
Women are emotional.
Because this statement is
UNCLEAR, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether this
statement is true. The problem is that
there is a lack of quantification in that statement. Here is a similar claim, that is much
clearer:
All
women are always very emotional.
Because the
quantification in this statement is specified, it is much clearer than the
previous statement, and we can easily see that this clearer statement is
FALSE.
Some modifications of the
quantification in the above statement can produce a claim that is TRUE (or at
least PLAUSIBLE):
Most
women are sometimes very emotional.
It should be noted that a
parallel claim about men is also TRUE (or at least PLAUSIBLE):
Most men
are sometimes very emotional.
When someone puts forward
an argument that includes a VAGUE claim like “Women are emotional”, we have at
least two options. One option is to
reject that claim as being too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated, and to reject
any argument that uses that statement as a premise, again because the argument
is too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated.
Another option is to try
to figure out what specific claim the arguer intended to make. Suppose that the argument only works if the
premise makes this very strong claim:
All
women are always very emotional.
In that case we can clarify the meaning of the
statement and reject the claim as being FALSE, and also reject the argument as
being UNSOUND. However, if the argument
would work if the statement was interpreted as making the following weaker
claim, then we should interpret the statement this other way to be fair to
the arguer and to the argument:
Most
women are sometimes very emotional.
Because the truth or falsehood of a statement
often depends on the specific quantification intended in the statement, a
critical thinker keeps an eye out for problems of unclear quantification,
and points out those problems, and corrects those problems when possible.
MAKE IMPLIED
DETAILS AND QUALIFICATIONS EXPLICIT
Sometimes arguers leave
out important details and qualifications, but you can infer that those
details and qualifications are intended to be understood as part of a statement
or statements they make. When that
happens, we should make those details and qualifications explicit:
4. MAKE EXPLICIT contextually
implied DETAILS or QUALIFICATIONS.
For example, here is a
statement from the “Trump actually won” argument:
You do the math and tell me how many JB
got – can’t do it – I’ll help: 68.5 million votes.
Votes in which election? Who is “JB”? and does the math give us the
precise number of votes for “JB”? In
context, we see that this statement is about the 2020 presidential election,
and thus “JB” means: Joe Biden.
Furthermore, the math
doesn’t show the number of votes that Biden received, it shows the MAXIMUM
possible number of votes that Biden received. (You cannot get the precise
number of votes for Biden by simply subtracting the number of votes for Trump
from the total number of votes, because some people voted for someone other
than Biden or Trump, and some voters did not vote for any presidential
candidate).
Given the context, and
given an understanding of the calculation that is being performed, we can add
important details and qualifications to clarify the above statement:
Biden received a maximum of 68.5 million votes in the 2020
presidential election.
With this clarification, nobody has to guess who
“JB” is, or which election is being discussed, or whether the calculation is
supposed to show precisely how many votes Biden received in that election.
RESTATE
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
Arguers can make claims
by asking rhetorical questions.
When this occurs, we should restate those questions as straightforward
statements:
5.
CONVERT rhetorical questions into statements.
One of the objections by
Kreeft and Tacelli against the Swoon Theory begins with this question:
How
were the Roman guards at the tomb overpowered by a swooning corpse?
(HCA, p.183)
This sentence is not
intended to ask a question. This
sentence makes a claim that is part of an argument against the Swoon
Theory. This is a rhetorical
question, and it needs to be clarified by being converted into a
straightforward statement. The reference
to “a swooning corpse” is about Jesus who would supposedly have been very
weak and frail on the weekend just after his crucifixion, if he had somehow
survived the crucifixion (as the Swoon Theory asserts):
Jesus would have been too weak and frail on the weekend
after Jesus was crucified to be able to overpower
the Roman soldiers (who were guarding the tomb on the weekend after Jesus was
crucified) all by himself.
This is the statement or claim that Kreeft and
Tacelli asserted in an unclear way by means of the above-quoted rhetorical
question.
STANDARDIZE
LOGICAL FORMS OF STATEMENTS
Part of clarifying an
argument is clarifying the logical structure of the argument and of the
statements in the argument. To achieve
this aim, it helps to standardize the logical forms of the statements:
6. STANDARDIZE the LOGICAL
FORMS of the statements to
clarify the logical structure of
the argument.
Categorical logic uses statements with
these logical forms (where X and Y are categories or kinds of things):
All Xs are Ys.
All Xs are non-Ys.
Some Xs are Ys.
Some Xs are non-Ys.
No Xs are Ys.
No Xs are non-Ys.
To those standard categorical statements, we can
add a few more:
Most Xs are Ys.
Most Xs are non-Ys.
Nearly All Xs are Ys.
Nearly All Xs are non-Ys.
Almost No Xs are Ys.
Almost No Xs are non-Ys.
So, when an argument involves mostly categorical
logic, you want to use the above forms of statements consistently
throughout the argument, or at least in the sub-arguments that make use of
categorical logic.
Propositional logic uses statements that are
negations, conjunctions, disjunctions, conditionals, and bi-conditionals, and
the standard forms of such statements are these (where P and Q are propositions
or claims):
NEGATION: It is not the case
that P.
CONJUNCTION: P and Q.
DISJUNCTION: P or Q.
CONDITIONAL: IF P, THEN Q.
BI-CONDITIONAL:
P IF AND ONLY IF Q.
When an argument involves mostly propositional
logic, you should use the above forms of statements consistently throughout the
argument, or at least in the sub-arguments that make use of propositional
logic.
For example, one of
Kreeft and Tacelli’s objections against the Swoon Theory begins with
this sentence:
The
fact that the Roman soldier did not break Jesus’ legs…means that the soldier
was sure Jesus was dead.
(HCA,
p.193)
This objection makes use of propositional
logic, and this specific statement can be understood as asserting a
CONDITIONAL claim, so putting this statement into the standard form of a
CONDITIONAL helps to clarify the logic of this argument:
IF the Roman soldier did not
break Jesus’ legs, THEN the Roman soldier was sure Jesus was dead.
The “IF___, THEN ____” form of the revised
statement makes it clear that this is a CONDITIONAL claim and that this
argument makes use of propositional logic.
REGULARIZE KEY WORDS AND
PHRASES
Arguers often use
different words or different phrases to mean the same thing. This makes the presentation of their argument
more pleasant to read or hear, but it can also result in unclarity. A common logical fallacy is that of
EQUIVOCATION. That happens when a word
or phrase is ambiguous and it has different meanings in different parts of the
argument. This is a logical fallacy
because the logical structure of an argument often depends on the meaning of a key
word or phrase being the same throughout the argument.
Something very similar to
the fallacy of EQUIVOCATION can happen when a variety of words or phrases in an
argument appear to be synonymous, but on closer examination, the different words
or phrases actually have significantly different meanings. Once again, an argument that appears to have
a good logical structure might actually be logically invalid, because
alternative words or phrases that appear to have the same meaning don’t
actually have the same meaning.
One can avoid this
logical problem by regularizing the words or phrases that are used to logically
connect various statements in an argument:
7. REGULARIZE KEY WORDS and PHRASES to clarify
the logical structure of the argument.
For example, in one of
Kreeft and Tacelli’s objections against the Swoon Theory, they make
these two statements:
It is psychologically impossible for the disciples to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus had merely struggled out
of a swoon, badly in need of a doctor.
A half-dead, staggering
sick man who has just had a narrow escape is not worshipped
fearlessly as divine lord and conqueror of death.
(HCA, p. 183)
Both of these statements refer to Jesus being in
bad physical condition, but the words and phrases used to describe Jesus’
condition are different in these two statements. Because the two statements were clearly
intended to be logically connected to each other, we should regularize
the key words and phrases describing Jesus’ condition, so that it is clear that
these two statements are in fact logically connected to each other:
It is psychologically impossible for the disciples to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus was a half-dead,
staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor.
A half-dead,
staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor is not worshipped fearlessly as divine lord and conqueror of
death.
When you clarify the
statements in an argument so that key words and phrases are used consistently
throughout the argument, you clearly show that the various statements
containing alternative expressions of those key words and phrases were intended
to be logically connected, and that the various key words or phrases
used by the argument in their original statements were intended to be
synonymous.
DETERMINE THE TYPE OF CLAIM
One final way to clarify
a statement is to figure out the kind of claim it is making:
8. DETERMINE the TYPE OF
CLAIM of each statement (factual, conceptual, evaluative, or mixed).
There are three main types of claims:
FACTUAL:
empirical claims, or objective
descriptions of people, actions, things, or events.
CONCEPTUAL:
claims about the
meanings of words, phrases, statements, or claims that are based strictly on
the meanings of words, phrases, or statements.
EVALUATIVE: claims about the goodness or badness of
people, actions, things, or events, or claims about an action being right or the
best or wisest action to take, or wrong or worst or the most foolish action to
take.
Additionally, sometimes a statement includes two
or three different kinds of claims or implications:
MIXED: statements that have implications of more
than one of the above kinds.
Here are some examples of
FACTUAL statements:
The
moon is about 239,000 miles away from the Earth. (True)
The
moon is about fifteen miles in diameter. (False)
The
moon is made of green cheese. (False)
Note that a FACTUAL statement can be a false
statement.
Here are some examples of
CONCEPTUAL statements:
All
triangles have exactly three sides. (True)
A
triangle is a quadrilateral in which the opposite sides are of equal length.
(False)
The word “rectangle” means “a
three-sided figure in which the interior angles add up to 180 degrees”. (False)
Note that a CONCEPTUAL statement can be a false
statement.
Here are some examples of
EVALUATIVE statements:
It is
morally wrong to intentionally kill another person, except in self-defense.
Porsche
makes the best mass-produced gas-powered sports car in the world.
If you don’t expect to inherit great
wealth, then it is wise to start a 401k savings account in your twenties and
put at least 10% of every paycheck you earn into the 401k savings for when you
retire.
It can be challenging to determine whether an
EVALUATIVE statement is true or false, but like the other kinds of claims, an
EVALUATIVE statement can be false. For
example:
It is not morally wrong to
torture a young child just for the fun of making a helpless person miserable.
This is a FALSE statement, but it is clearly an
EVALUATIVE statement, nevertheless.
