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Blog Post #1 - Chapter 3


In chapter two, it discusses two different ways how people can determine arguments. The first is good reason. In the most basic sense, it is listening to a story and use evidence in the story to come to the conclusion if something is sensible or not. Questions we ask ourselves like, does this story have evidence to support the claim? Are there evidence in the story that is not consistent with some other facts and make this argument not logical? This is a great tool to use and has helps humans since the beginning of communication with each other. 
The second way, Scientific Argumentation has became much more popular in the last century. It has us use our senses of observation: sight, sound, taste, and touch to help us make sense of the evidence before us. In contrast to the first method of differentiating a good argument and bad argument, this way has become a dominant method because our logic can be flawed from life experiences (biases) or simply not being able to connect (all) the dots, so to speak. It is the empirical evidence that we cannot refute that makes this method so powerful. In saying so, it has some limitations that also need to be brought into consideration like who is saying what and in what context. Specifically, just looking at our own senses, it doesn’t account for gender differences which is why feminist theory helps to separate out how people have been socialized to behave, react, and process the same situation in different ways. The ways in which we deal with a sensible argument has evolved over time and will almost certainly change again in the future, but for now, lets trust our senses.

Comments

  1. Sadie WollerSeptember 26, 2018 at 8:42 AM

    I think that you did a great summary of chapter 3 and the main points it has to offer. I also like the fact that you use some examples as you explain things such as "It has us use our senses of observation: sight, sound, taste, and touch to help us make sense of the evidence before us.". Helps really concrete the points that are made.

    In addition, I'm a little confused about the whole gender differences? Can't someone ask the person/or tell which preference they'd rather be or what they liked to be call? Or is this talking about something completely different because I don't see how gender differences interferes with an argument any other way.

    All in all, great blog post!

    ReplyDelete

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