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November 27, 2021 - February 6, 2022
When its words are used unambiguously, a simple sentence usually expresses a single proposition.
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
An argument begins somewhere, goes somewhere, gets somewhere. It is a movement of thought.
you must know what the sentence means.
You bring all the surrounding sentences to bear on the sentence in question, just as you used the surrounding words to interpret a particular word.
“State in your own words!”
you should be able to say the same thing in totally different words.
FIND IF YOU CAN THE PARAGRAPHS IN A BOOK THAT STATE ITS IMPORTANT ARGUMENTS; BUT IF THE ARGUMENTS ARE NOT THUS EXPRESSED, YOUR TASK IS TO CONSTRUCT THEM, BY TAKING A SENTENCE FROM THIS PARAGRAPH, AND ONE FROM THAT, UNTIL YOU HAVE GATHERED TOGETHER THE SEQUENCE OF SENTENCES THAT STATE THE PROPOSITIONS THAT COMPOSE THE ARGUMENT.
The style of most writing in non-mathematical fields tends to present two or more arguments in a single paragraph or to have an argument run through several.
discriminate between the kind of argument that points to one or more particular facts as evidence for some generalization and the kind that offers a series of general statements to prove some further generalizations.
observe what things the author says he must assume, what he says can be proved or otherwise evidenced, and what need not be proved because it is self-evident.
there are two ways or places in which it can start: with assumptions agreed on between writer and reader, or with what are called self-evident propositions, which neither the writer nor reader can deny.
Which of the problems that the author tried to solve did he succeed in solving?
In the course of solving these, did he raise any new ones?
RULE 8. FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR’S SOLUTIONS ARE.
From this point on, you are going to have a chance to argue with the author and express yourself.
Teachability is often confused with subservience. A person is wrongly thought to be teachable if he is passive and pliable.
teachability is an extremely active virtue.
The most teachable reader is, therefore, the most critical.
He is the reader who finally responds to a book by the greatest effort to make up his own mind on the matters the author has discussed.
rhetoric is involved in every situation in which communication takes place among human beings.
to convince about theoretical matters and to persuade about matters that ultimately affect action or feeling.
On the part of the speaker or writer, rhetorical skill is knowing how to convince or persuade.
on the part of the reader or listener, rhetorical skill is knowing how to react to anyone who tries to convince or persuade us.
RULE 9. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO SAY, WITH REASONABLE CERTAINTY, “I UNDERSTAND,” BEFORE YOU CAN SAY ANY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS: “I AGREE,” OR “I DISAGREE,” OR “I SUSPEND JUDGMENT.”
suspending judgment is also an act of criticism.
Every author has had the experience of suffering book reviews by critics who did not feel obliged to do the work of the first two stages first.
if they cannot repeat what you have said in their own words, you know that they do not understand, and you are entirely justified in ignoring their criticisms.
Where understanding is not present, affirmations and denials are equally meaningless and unintelligible.
WHEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY.
be as prepared to agree as to disagree.
regard disagreements as capable of being resolved.
The relatively ignorant often wrongly disagree with the relatively learned about matters exceeding their knowledge. The more learned, however, have a right to be critical of errors made by those who lack relevant knowledge.
RESPECT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND MERE PERSONAL OPINION BY GIVING REASONS FOR ANY CRITICAL JUDGMENT YOU MAKE.
Knowledge, if you please, consists in those opinions that can be defended, opinions for which there is evidence of one kind or another.
Opinion, in the sense in which we have been employing the word, is unsupported judgment.
Not simply by following an author’s arguments, but only by meeting them as well, can the reader ultimately reach significant agreement or disagreement with his author.
it is necessary to acknowledge the emotions you bring to a dispute, or those that arise in the course of it.
Second, you must make your own assumptions explicit.
Good controversy should not be a quarrel about assumptions.
an attempt at impartiality is a good antidote for the blindness that is almost inevitable in partisanship.
(1) “You are uninformed”; (2) “You are misinformed”; (3) “You are illogical—your reasoning is not cogent”; (4) “Your analysis is incomplete.”
To say that an author is uninformed is to say that he lacks some piece of knowledge that is relevant to the problem he is trying to solve.
The author is proposing as true or more probable what is in fact false or less probable.
Lack of information, as we have seen, may be the cause of erroneous assertions.
Lack of relevant knowledge makes it impossible to solve certain problems or support certain conclusions. Erroneous suppositions, however, lead to wrong conclusions and untenable solutions.
illogical
the non sequitur, which means that what is drawn as a conclusion simply does not follow from the reasons offered.
inconsistency, which means that two things the author has tried to say are incompatible.
author’s argument lacks cogency. One is concerned with this defect only to the extent that the major conclusions are affected by it.
