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A Student Example: A Debate About Smartphones in Class

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Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments

Universidade Duke

4.6 (1,161 classificações) | 140K alunos inscritos

How to Understand Arguments Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Reasoning is important. This series of four short courses will teach you how to do it well. You will learn simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you. Courses at a Glance: All four courses in this series are offered through sessions which run every four weeks. We suggest sticking to the weekly schedule to the best of your ability. If for whatever reason you fall behind, feel free to re-enroll in the next session.We also suggest that you start each course close to the beginning of a month in order to increase the number of peers in the discussion forums who are working on the same material as you are. While each course can be taken independently, we suggest you take the four courses in order. Course 1 - Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Course 2 - Think Again II: How to Reason Deductively Course 3 - Think Again III: How to Reason Inductively Course 4 - Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies About This Course in the Series: When is someone giving an argument instead of just yelling? Which parts of what they say contribute to the argument? Why are they arguing instead of fighting? What are arguments made of? What forms do they take? Think Again: How to Understand Arguments will answer these questions a more. In this course, you will learn what an argument is. The definition of argument will enable students to identify when speakers are giving arguments and when they are not. Next, we will learn how to break an argument into its essential parts, how to put them in order to reveal their connections, and how to fill in gaps in an argument. By the end of this course, students will be better able to understand and appreciate arguments that they and other people present. Suggested Readings: Students who want more detailed explanations or additional exercises or who want to explore these topics in more depth should consult Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, Ninth Edition, Concise, Chapters 1-5, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin. Course Format: Each week will be divided into multiple video segments that can be viewed separately or in groups. There will be short ungraded quizzes after each segment (to check comprehension) and a longer graded quiz at the end of the course.

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Habilidades que você aprenderá

Evaluation, Interpretation, Language, Linguistics

Avaliações

4.6 (1,161 classificações)

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CW

Apr 15, 2019

I've taken several online courses on logic and argumentation. This one stands out by virtue of the professor's enthusiasm and clarity of explanations. Worth every minute I've spent on it.

MM

Oct 12, 2016

This course goes super in depth on how arguments work. I learned things in this course that'd I'd never heard of before and it gave me a more critical view on how people say things.

Na lição

How to Reconstruct an Argument

CONTENT: This week’s material will teach you how to organize the parts of an argument in order to show how they fit into a structure of reasoning. The goal is to make the argument look as good as possible so that you can learn from it. We work through the main steps of reconstruction, including putting the premises and conclusion into a standard form, clarifying the premises and breaking them into parts, arranging the argument into stages or sub-arguments, adding suppressed premises where needed to make the argument valid, and assessing the argument for soundness. The lectures begin by defining the crucial notions of validity, soundness, and standard form. You will also learn to diagram alternative argument structures, including linear, branching, and joint structures. LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of this week’s material, you will be able to: label assuring, guarding, discounting, and evaluative terms determine whether an argument is valid or sound complete arguments by adding suppressed premises reconstruct arguments by and series of arguments classify argument structuresOPTIONAL READING: If you want more examples or more detailed discussions of these topics, we recommend <em>Understanding Arguments, Ninth Edition, Chapter 5.

Get Down to Basics21:34

Sharpen Edges17:31

Organize Parts14:53

A Student Example: A Debate About Smartphones in Class11:04

Ministrado por

Dr. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Professor
Dr. Ram Neta
Professor

Transcrição

We received a wonderful pair of arguments from

a foreign language high school in South Korea.

One of the groups argued that smartphones should be

banned in class, and the others argued that it shouldn't.

So we can look at how they conflict with

each other, and what we need to do about that.

So the first argument, which is try to show

that smartphones should be banned during class, runs like this.

Many students are using smartphones during class, and this causes many problems.

That kind of sets it up. That's what the problem is.

But why?

Well, they are a lot of addictive apps like, social

networking and games that make students check their smartphones continuously.

I assume they're talking about checking them continuously during class.

And it's probably not really continuously.

Like, not all the time. But way too often.

I know just what they're talking about, happens in my classes.

Checking smartphones frequently prevents students from concentrating in class.

Now, that tells you what the problem is.

There's nothing wrong with smartphones in themselves, if you can

do that and still get something out of the class.

But if it prevents students from concentrating in class, that's a problem.

Cause that's what the class is for. So the students can learn.

And notice they don't say other students. It's also

the person using the smartphone. They're both distracted.

They're both prevented from concentrating in class.

That's a problem.

Next, behaviors that prevent students from

concentrating during class, should be banned.

We just found out that smartphones do that.

Therefore, smartphones should be banned during class.

Sounds pretty good.

Of course, there are questions you could raise.

But notice it, the fact that the apps are addictive.

That explains why once you've got them on your phone.

You can't stop yourself from using them.

And you're going to use them even in class, when you know you shouldn't.

Right?

You know you should only use them outside of class,

but you end up abusing them inside class cause you're addicted.

It also says, behaviors that prevent students

from concentrating in class should be banned.

Eh, you could base questions about that.

Right?

Because things like hey going to the bathroom.

Going to the bathroom during class might stop other students from

concentrating, learning quite as much, but, you gotta go, you gotta go.

And so, we have to allow those.

So you might want to ask the qualifications about these are activities

that distract other students that aren't

really necessary and doing this smart phoning

during class is probably not really necessary.

It doesn't contribute to anybody's educational experience.

So, you can fix it up a little bit.

But what I want to focus on instead of trying

to fix up every little detail like that, is the structure.

The two main steps, in this argument.

First, there are a lot of addictive applications or apps.

If there are lots of apps then if smartphones

are not banned students will check their Smartphones frequently.

So if they're not banned students are going to check them.

Then if students check their smartphones frequently then

students are going to be prevented from concentrating.

Therefore, if they're not banned students

are going to be prevented from concentrating.

And if not, banning something results in students

being prevented from concentrating, then the schools ought to

ban them because after all the point of the

school is education, and that's standing in the way.

Therefore, smartphones should be banned during class.

So now we've got a reconstruction.

Where the steps are valid and the only point I want to make for now is

that it's got a certain kind of structure. Is it a linear structure?

Or is it a branching structure? Or is it a joint structure?

It's a linear structure. Because the conclusion of the first bit.

Namely number three, if smart phones are not banned during class then the students

will check their smartphones frequently in class becomes a premise in the next step.

Which leads to the conclusion five which

becomes a premise in the argument for the final conclusion seven.

So this is a linear structure.

Now, let's look at the argument on the other side.

The other group of high school students from the same high school in

South Korea argued for the opposite conclusion,

that smartphones should be allowed in class.

Of course, if they're allowed, they're not banned.

So,

they're disagreeing with their schoolmates.

And here's their argument.

Many people say that smartphones should be banned in schools, but they shouldn't.

Smartphones have apps that help you

study, such as dictionaries for foreign languages,

and these students are in a foreign language high school so that's important.

I believe that anything that can help students

learn should be allowed in schools.

Anything that can help students learn should be allowed in school.

Additionally, banning smartphones can result in lack

of ways for students to communicate during emergencies.

Just imagine there's an emergency and you can't

tell the other students that there is an emergency.

People might get stuck in the school.

They might not know that they need to leave.

And that could lead to real problems.

So because smartphones, can help students study.

And because they can help them in emergency situations.

communicate in emergency situations.

Smartphones should be allowed, not banned in schools and classrooms.

Now again, there are lots of questions you could raise.

How often do these emergencies happen?

Maybe communicating on the smartphone during an emergency is going to

make you go more slowly and not able to escape.

And so having the smartphone available will actually

create more deaths or injuries during an emergency.

And maybe using this dictionary on your smart

phone during class, which seems to be helping you.

Is actually stopping you from learning the

language yourself.

You're now dependent on the smartphone, and it

might get in the way of language learning.

So I think you could raise a lot of questions about this argument,

just like the other one, but what I'm interested in here is the structure.

So let's look at that.

Notice that word additionally in the middle of their argument.

That signals that they're really two

arguments here.

One is that smartphones can help students learn.

And here I'm simplifying quite a bit a bit.

Smartphones can help students learn, and then anything that

can help students learn should be allowed in school.

Therefore, smartphones should be allowed in school.

That's the first argument.

First reason to allow smartphones is that they can

aid in education, and that's what schools are all about.

So they should be allowed.

Notice the second one, is completely independent.

Smartphones can help students communicate during emergencies.

Anything that can help students communicate during emergencies should be

allowed in school, therefore smart phones should be allowed in schools.

They're separate arguments because the second argument would also apply

in offices, it should, would apply to students when they're taking

exams, where they're not supposed to be getting information

from dictionaries or any other information from their smartphone.

There still might be an emergency.

And so the different arguments apply to different circumstances, but they

lead to the same conclusion, that smartphones should be allowed in schools.

So what kind of structure do we have here?

Do we have a linear structure, or a branching structure, or a joint structure?

We have a branching structure.

Because both sets of premises support the same conclusion.

Now, I want to ask one more question.

Does that mean that this argument's better than the first one.

Hey, these guys have two arguments.

The other group only had one argument. That's gotta be better, right?

No.

It might seem better, because if one argument

fails you've got the other one left over.

But, of course, if one argument is stronger than either of the other two

put together, the first group still might have a better reason for their conclusion.

So you can't just count the number of arguments

to figure out who's winning in a disagreement like this.

And the second point I want to make is

that we ought to be looking for compromises.

When you get a conflict like this between

two groups, one wants cell phones banned, one wants smartphones allowed.

Well, what the arguments do is they tell us the

values at stake, what you really want from the band.

Or what you really want by allowing the smartphones.

And what that tells you is how to compromise.

What we want to find now is some

way to pass a regulation.

That'll allow students to use smartphones when they're really

learning, like when they're using a foreign language dictionary.

Or, when they really need it like in an emergency.

But not so frequently that they're going to

interrupt other students, because they're just going

on a social network or playing some kind of game that they're addicted to.

So how're we going to do a regulation like that?

Well, maybe we could allow smartphones, but only if they don't

have any of those apps on them that students are going to

abuse and use too frequently.

Or maybe, we're going to be able to monitor their smartphones to

see whether they're going on to the right types of program.

Dictionaries that help them learn, emergency

conversations to help people in trouble.

And not using them for the ones that

are preventing other people from learning by distracting them.

Now I don't know whether you can actually have a regulation like that.

But one of the nice features of arguments is that they don't

just tell you these people want

smartphones, these people don't want smartphones banned.

Right?

Instead, it tells you the reasons why.

And by learning those reasons we get a picture

of what we need in order to formulate a regulation.

It'll serve the interests of both groups

because they both have a really good point.

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