Skip to main content

Chapter 10 Blog

I think that a lot of people view refutation in a negative light; I know I did. I use to think of refutation in argumentation as a way of fighting back against opposing views and knit picking the other side's claims and evidence in order to support one's own proposal. While this is a relatively accurate definition, the book offered me further insight. It explained how refutation is a good thing; it's a "constructive process." It is not an uncritical rejection of another argument.

The book describes refutation as a sort of testing process used to find the best decision in the face of an argument. Gordon R. Mitchell describes it as "scrub(bing) the arguments." This process allows decision makers to pick away at the rough spots and really get down to the key points of the decisions and what it truly entails: its benefits and its flaws.

The book continues to explain refutation as a "cooperative" concept. Proper refutation follows essential principals that allow for fairness is presentation, information flow, and time and circumstances needed to make an unbiased, informed decision.

While many people think of refutation as a large scale concept being used in decision making processes in courts and within our government, we see refutation happening around us all the time. On a lower scale, refutation may be used in arguments with siblings. For example, say your family is going to go out to dinner and ask where you would like to go. Your brother wants to go to El Rodeo, but you want to go to Olive Garden. You point out that you all had just eaten Mexican food a few days ago. Your brother reminds you that your dad doesn't care much for Olive garden. Ultimately, you two didn't get to make the decision though; your parents got to make the final call because they were driving and paying. This ties in with the principal of refutation which states that "people are not decision makers in their own causes." In the end, your family goes to Olive Garden because the rest of my family didn't want Mexican food again, and, while Olive Garden may not have been your dad's favorite restaurant, he knew that there was a large variety of options for him to choose from on the menu, so he was bound to find something good, and everyone else likes that restaurant. This shows how refutation can allow for decision makers to see the rough spots of each argument and apply their values to determine which rough spots are worst, which can be overcome, and, in the end, which decision is going to be the most beneficial. Additionally, the arguments presented against the restaurant options were logical arguments. The brother didn't just say, "no, I don't want Olive Garden, so we shouldn't go there," he gave a logical reason as to why that may not be the correct choice. It was not, as I said earlier, an "uncritical rejection of another argument."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chap 5

Chapter five focuses primarily on identifying and developing propositions for problems that people think are relevant. It goes over 6 steps for choosing a valid proposition based on a perceived “feeling of doubt.” While all six steps may not be necessary, the collectively ensure a well thought out and firm proposition. The six steps include identifying the question, surveying implicated objectives (or understanding what is the goal accomplishment in regard to the question), searching for new information, considering alternative options, considering costs and risks of each potential proposition, and then finally choosing one of the propositions. The authors then go on to talk about analyzing and strengthening the proposition chosen. This includes identification and ranking of the issues that the proposition addresses as well as understanding how the decision makers will react to these issues and propositions. In general, with all these methods of critically analyzing the proposition, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chaper 8

Chapter 8 of Argumentation and Critical Decision Making continues down the route of talking about support for argumentation. This chapter specifically focuses on values as support for arguments, how to recognize them and the best ways to attack them. Values are defined as “ concepts of what is desirable that arguers use and decision makers understand” (121).  There are several types of values mentioned such as stated, implied, positive, negative, terminal, instrumental, abstract and concrete values.  Stated values are state directly what concepts they hold. For example, words such as “freedom” or “health” are stated values because they mean exactly what they're trying to portray. Not all values are as explicit. Some are more vague and called implied values. One of the examples that the book uses to show the contrast between the two is in the case of work equality. When talking about the subject saying, “ Equal pay for equal work” would be a stated value and “ Women deserve th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Case Building

Chapter 6 of Argumentation and Critical Decision Making focuses on the steps required in building a case. Among the concepts that are discussed, visualization stands out as one of the most important. On page 101, the authors even state “Powerful arguments are only half of the job in preparing a case or presentation. The other half is developing a convincing vision through which you can tell the story of your ultimate purpose” In other words, having a great argument alone is not going to necessarily gain you adherence. Instead, it needs to be supplemented with a story that vividly shows the decision maker the outcome if they were to agree to the proposition.   The chapter goes on to say that to create a powerful vision you must know the decision maker’s narrative of the subject you are arguing about. The example that is given is college. Some decision makers might have had the greatest time of their lives in college during which they made a ton of friends and found love. On the ...
1 comment
Read more