Chapter 7

Chapter 7 discussed counterarguments. The first concept discussed was "Raising Objections." Raising Objections is basically a way to show that an argument is bad. You can do this by calling one of the premises into question or showing that an unstated premise is dubious or shows how the argument is weak. There are three different ways of refuting an argument. The first way is by showing that at least one of the premises is dubious. The second is by showing that the argument is not valid or strong. The final way is by showing that the conclusion is false. An argument can also be refuted indirectly. If you want to reduce to the absurd, you must show that at least one of the claims is false or dubious. You can also draw a false or unwanted conclusion from the claims to show that the claims are collectively unacceptable. Sometime when people attempt to refute an argument, it turns out to be a bad argument.