According to Epstein, there are three tests an individual must take in order to claim that an argument is good. They are the following:
1. The idea is both reasonable and believable.
2. The idea is more believable than the conclusion.
3. The argument is either valid nor strong, not both.
An example would be that I had heard a rumor at work that if I taught over 300 kids in the swim lesson program this year, I would get a five dollar an hour raise. After hearing this, I had worked extremely hard trying to not only do my best teaching the children I had on a regular basis, but trying to get the word out that I was a good instructor hoping to be requested. By the end of the year, I had taught about 320 kids in the program which qualified me to getting the five dollar an hour raise.
This argument would follow the first test because the idea is both reasonable and believable because my boss is extremely generous to her employees. The second test is not possible for the idea to be true and the conclusion to be false because I had heard from other employees that it had happened to them in the past (but they could have gotten the raise for another reason). And finally, the third test defines the argument to be valid because it was based on a rumor started by other employees and not stated by my boss.
You did a good job organizing all of your information in this blog. It was like a mini lesson. lol. A lot of the wording looked pretty similar to the book but I understand is a little hard to explain it any other way. It really helped that you went into detail about explaining your example. I feel I got to understand the tests for making a good argument a lot better after reading your blog. good job:)
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job explaining the three tests from just one situation at work. You broke the concepts down and related it to something that almost everyone can relate to when it comes to jobs-people at my work also think that if you go above and beyond, you'll get your raise when really, it's about 90% true. But 320 kids seem like a lot to teach, haha. Must require a lot of patience and effort. Overall, good job with your example and good job at work. It's interesting that a lot of what we're learning relates to every day life when we don't even realize it.
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