Practical Argumentation by George K. Pattee (books for new readers .txt) 📕

dilemma through the medium of a question, he must be sure that he knows every reasonable answer that his opponent can make. When one has satisfied these conditions, he can use the dilemma with great effect.

By way of summary it may be said that the successful arguer must both build up his own proof and destroy his opponent’s. To accomplish the latter one has to know what to refute and what to leave alone; he must distinguish between the important and the unessential, and he must take care not to “refute himself.” Since proof consists of evidence and reasoning, the first step for him to take in refuting an argument is to apply the tests for each, and if possible show where his opponent has erred. In the next place, he should see whether he can discover and point out any of the more important fallacies; the ones mentioned here are begging the question, ambiguous terms, false cause, composition and division, and ignoring the question. Should the arguer find any of these fundamental weaknesses, it is ordinarily sufficient merely to call attention to them; for the sake of emphasis, however, one may make use of two especially effective methods of refutation, reductio ad absurdum and the dilemma.

 

EXERCISES.

A. Criticize the following arguments and point out the fallacies they contain:—

1. Four thousand men have taken examinations at Princeton under the honor system, and only six of these were found guilty of “cribbing.” This record shows conclusively that the honor system restrains dishonest work in examinations.

2. Athletics do not injure a man’s scholarship; one of the best players on last year’s football team attained such a high grade that he was awarded a fellowship.

3. During the decade from 1870 to 1880, illiteracy among the negroes decreased ten per cent., but the race grew more criminal by twenty-five per cent.; from 1880 to 1890, illiteracy decreased eighteen per cent., but criminality increased thirty-three and one-third per cent. Who can now say that education does not injure the negro?

4. Since the honor system failed at Franklin and Marshall, it will fail at –- College.

5. Frequent athletic games benefit a college because they tend to take the students’ attention away from their studies.

6. The fixed curriculum of studies is effective in making a specialist, because the specialist takes up only one kind of work.

7. Southerners are justified in keeping the franchise from the negro, because the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution ought never to have been passed.

8. Since the negro’s devotion to the church is as great as that of most white people, he is of as high moral standing as the average unintelligent white.

9. Ireland is idle and therefore she starves; she starves and therefore she rebels.

10. Every one desires virtue, because every one desires happiness.

11. The present term of four years is so short a time that the President does not have opportunity to become acquainted with his duties, for just as he is becoming acquainted with them he has to step out of office.

12. This doctrine cannot be proved from the Gospels, nor from the Acts of the Apostles, nor from the Epistles, nor from the Revelation of St. John; therefore it cannot be proved from the New Testament.

13. Crime is a violation of the laws of our country; piracy is a crime; this man belongs to a band of lawless men, and this band has been taken in the very deed of piracy. Therefore he has violated the laws of our country.

14. Since all presuming men are contemptible, and since this man presumes to believe his opinions are correct, he is not worthy of our consideration.

15. To prove to you that our standing army should be permanently enlarged, I will show that every nation of any prominence whatsoever keeps a standing army.

16. The elective system of studies is preferable to the prescribed system, because

A. The student can elect those studies which will do him the most good, for

1. He can elect what he pleases.

17. Strikes benefit the working man, because

A. They benefit him financially, for

1. If they did not, he would not strike.

18. When thirteen sit at table together, one of them always dies within the year.

19. To decide whether or not strikes are justifiable it is necessary to see if they have for the most part been successful in the past.

20. All the trees in the park make a thick shade; this is one of them, therefore this tree makes a thick shade.

21. Italy is a Catholic country and abounds in beggars; France is also a Catholic country, and therefore abounds in beggars.

22. Pitt was not a great and useful minister; for though he would have been so had he carried out Adam Smith’s doctrines of free trade, he did not carry out those doctrines.

23. All criminal actions ought to be punished by law. Prosecutions for theft are criminal actions, and therefore ought to be punished by law.

24. Books are a source both of instruction and of amusement; a table of logarithms is a book; therefore it is a source both of instruction and of amusement.

B. On each of the following arguments from authority write a paragraph that will weaken its effect:—

1. “The Senate for more than a century has demonstrated the wisdom of the mode of its constitution.” Senator G. F. Hoar.

2. “Mine disasters are largely due to the intoxication of miners, or to carelessness caused by the after effects of a ‘spree,’” says Dr. Jesse K. Johnson, superintendent of one of the largest mines in the Pittsburg district.

3. Both Mark Hanna and Grover Cleveland have stated that a six year Presidential term would be of great benefit to the United States.

4. Senator La Follet, who has made a thorough study of many of the principal monopolies in the country, states that the Standard Oil trust charges exorbitant rates.

5. Mr. Francis Walker, in the Political Science Quarterly, Volume twenty, page fourteen, says that legislation against trusts has improved conditions, and would therefore improve conditions in the United States.

6. President Hadley, of Yale University, has said that the subsidizing of ships on a large scale has been detrimental to France.

7. “The Indian who is not obliged to labor for his maintenance becomes a lazy vagabond.” Lyman Abbott.

C. Put the following article into the form of a brief and show exactly what methods of refutation are used:—

THE OLD FRIGATE “CONSTITUTION.”

The pretexts for removal of “Old Ironsides” from the waters in which that historic ship had her birth are now reduced to two.

One of these is that the old boat takes up room at the Navy Yard which is needed for the work of that establishment.

The other is that since the money expended in the restoration of the frigate—less than $200,000—came out of the Federal Treasury, the people of distant States ought to have the pleasure of seeing what their money paid for without coming to Boston in order to enjoy it.

As for crowding the Navy Yard, that is an absurdity. His Excellency Curtis Guild, Jr., in his letter to the Navy Department protesting against the removal, quoted the officers in command at the Navy Yard as declaring that “the ship in no way interferes with the work of the yard, taking up no space that is needed for other purposes.” The Governor would not make such a statement in an official communication without the clearest authority. “Indeed,” he adds as his own opinion, “the strip of wharf occupied is but a trivial portion of the long water front controlled by the government.”

There is the other pretext, namely, that because the “Constitution” has been repaired at national cost, therefore any special claim that Massachusetts may have upon this relic of Massachusetts patriotism is removed. This idea has found crude and unmannerly expression in the words of one of the committee of Congress looking over our navy yards. “The agitation to keep the ship in Boston seems selfish,” he is quoted as saying. “It was the money of the whole people of the United States that paid for its repair, and the people in other sections are as justly entitled to see the ship as in Boston.”

Coming from a representative of the State of Kansas, this is almost amusing. His proposition to tow the ship around from place to place, as it may be wanted for a show, suggests the practicability of a canal, say, to Topeka, or to Fort Hayes.

The alternative proposition, namely, that Massachusetts shall repay to the general government the cost of the repairs of the “Constitution,” would have some standing were it a commercial affair. Massachusetts has expended many times the cost of the repairs of “Old Ironsides” in preserving for the nation the revolutionary sites and monuments upon our soil. Payment for the repair and restoration of “Old Ironsides” would be a bagatelle if the people of the United States were to demand that this monument also shall be purchased by the people of Massachusetts under threat of its removal.

But it is not a question of money; that is a contemptible suggestion. Nor is it a question of bureaucracy. It is a simple, reasonable, entirely practical demand of the historic sentiment of patriotism which still warms the hearts and inspires the souls of Massachusetts men.