Between One and All

There are a lot of quantities between one and all. Furthermore, when talking about generalities for this topic there is either precise generalities or vague generalities. Precise generalities are statements that involve percentages and/or facts. Vague generalities are statements that are summarized mainly by using all, some, most, many, few and very few. Another way to explain vague statements is when a particular person talks about all or a part of a collection without specifying a precise number.
Despite the ambiguity of the words "all" and "some," we can still analyze whether arguments using those are valid or not. We do this with the direct way of reasoning with almost all. For example... Almost all S are P; a is S so a is P. Or, arguing backwards with almost all. For example... Almost all T are Q; a is T so a is Q.
To be honest, this topic is still a little confusing for me. However when I keep these few key points in mind then it helps me out a lot.

Usefulness of Major Course Assignments

In both of the major course assignments I worked with people I never met before and I had to communicate in more ways than just face to face contact. This was a little different for me because normally I am a people person and I like to work in group atmospheres. However, these times around I was anxious and did not know what to expect with my group partners. The projects forced me to cooperate with people I had never met before and produce quality work, even though we were limited with a few meetings. Furthermore, it taught me to be a good team member. Because in order for our group to come up with a quality paper, it required everyone to do their part. Lastly, it made me improve my communication skills. Because in order for our group to even be able to meet, it took communication skills to figure out a convenient time and place for everyone. This was tough because we had to do it all through email and text message. Luckily, I had a great team to work with which made it all an even better experience.

General Claims and their Contradictories

For me, this chapter was particularly hard to understand. The boxes on pages 160-161 were very useful for me. In those boxes, it explains the meanings of the indicator words: All, Some, No, and Only. Whenever I was confused on a portion of Chapter 8, I looked back to these boxes as a reference. The main thing I got out of Chapter 8 was the ability to really dissect a claim.
For example, the other week my sister and I got in to an argument. She argued that some baseball players are tall and some are short, and that all baseball teams have both tall and short players. I knew that this was not a valid argument but I had no way of proving it. However, with the tools I learned in Chapter 8, now I know for a fact that her argument was not valid. Because even though baseball is filled with tall and short players, that does not mean every team has both.

Compound Claim

A topic that I found interesting just happened to be on the first page of Chapter 6 in Epstein's Critical Thinking. Compound claim's are used more times than you may think. Simply put, a compound claim is a claim that is composed of other claims, which has to be viewed as just one claim. A common word that connects multiple claims in a compound claim is "or."

When thinking about this topic, I find that it is easiest to understand when you use an example. So here is mine... "I will clean the dishes or I will have some one else clean them." Here in this sentence, two separate claims are made in to one. Did I promise to clean the dishes? No. Did I promise to have some one else clean the dishes? No. Although it may sound like I did make two promises, I actually just made one; which is that I will do one or the other. So even though it sounds like two claims, they are both considered to be covered under the same claim, which is called a compound claim.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 of Critical Thinking is based on Counterarguments. This come is to play when you are debating. This chapter talks also about raising objections, refuting an argument (both directly and indirectly), and attempts to refute an argument that are bad arguments. To me, the sections on refuting arguments were most interesting. So, now I will talk about the difference between refuting directly and indirectly.

Refuting Directly: There are three fundamental ways to directly refute an argument.. You just need to point out reasons why a particular argument is no good.
1. Show that at least one of the premises is dubious.
2. Show that the argument is not valid or strong.
3. Show that the conclusion is false.

Refuting Indirectly: Sometimes you can't exactly point out a specific reason why an argument is no good, even if you do know that there is something wrong with the premises. When this occurs, you should Reduce to the Absurd. Meaning that you should show at least show that one or more claims is false, or that collectively they are unacceptable. You can do this by drawing a false conclusion from them. Because if an argument has a false conclusion, then at least one of the premises is false.

False Dilemma/ Contrapositive

A false dilemma is a bad use of excluding possibilities where the "or" claim is false or implausible. Here would be an example of the use of false dilemma...

Jack- "Man, I sure do love eating brownies."
Jill- "You are going to eat all of our brownies! Either make more brownies or eat cookies instead."
Jack- " Umm.. I guess I will make more brownies."
Jill- " Perfect."

Here, Jill is not imagining other possibilities. Jack could have also bought more brownies. In order to avoid false dilemma, you should imagine other possibilities.

Contrapositive The contrapositive of If A, then B is If not B, then not A. So in other words, a contrapositive is re-wording something so that it sounds different but is the same. A contrapositive can sometimes be used to further explain something. For example... If it sunny, then there is practice. But if it is not sunny, then there is no practice.