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Chapter 5 blog post

This chapter was extremely eye opening for me because I have clearly been apart of an argument before and I have written papers that include arguments, but I've never dug deep on how to properly find a proposition or what that even means. In this chapter the author discusses how analysis of arguments can be a  lengthy process. They say how it takes time and part of that reason is due to the fact that once an argument is made there are always going to be an infinite number of related arguments to that topic. The author goes on to discuss how when developing a proposition its important to require a resolution. This resolution you should not know the answer yet but there is one. The author later says, " Don't just express doubt...provide a clearer statement." (pg. 72) This is showing how important it is to provide a resolution. An example that they give is 'How serious is sexual harassment on this campus'... Instead of making the argument sexual harassment, they bring up 'how serious'.. making the argument already semi made and making their room to be a resolution. There are 6 steps in this process; identify the question; survey the implicated objectives, values, and biases; search for new information; canvas alternate decisions;weigh the costs and risks to alternatives; and then select.(pg 73)  Something that I found interesting about these stages is that to be successful you do not need to go through every stage. In fact, sometimes a proposition will appear in one of the first few stages and once it does, there is no need to continue with the rest of them. Your analysis is your marker on when to enter and exit the process. It's always important to bring up whether an argument is worth arguing over or not, and if you can still agree that its worth the arguing, then these steps can help strengthen that argument and help you come up with a strong proposition with a possible solution.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 9, 2018 at 5:37 PM

    Hello, Brooke! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think you give some really good insight on the steps needing to be taken to find a proposition. I especially like what you talked about towards the end of your post. You mentioned that not always will you need to go through all the stages in order to find a proposition. I feel like the more effective or ineffective an argument is the quicker the process of the stages happen. I also think that during this analysis process we are able to look deeper into why we are making the argument. To touch on your first point about finding a resolution to the argument, it is also important to look at the opposite side you are arguing against. In the case of finding a resolution this is highly important in having a stronger argument against something else. Great job on bringing those two points up! I definitely believe in the importance of the stages of analysis and hopefully finding a resolution for whatever is being argued.

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