Chapter 8

"General Claims and their contradictories" was the first concept discussed in chapter 8. I learned many new things from this section. This section says that we need to know how to reason using general claims that assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection. This section discusses the terms "all" and "some". According to the text "all" means "every single one, no exceptions." All can also mean "every single one, and there is at least one." The meaning of "all" depends on the argument. The next term discussed is "some." "Some" means "at least one." In other cases "some" can mean "at least one, but not all." The meaning of "some" depends on the argument. Another term discussed is "no". "No" means "not even one, every single one is not." The next term in this section is "only". "Only" means "Only S are P" and it means "All P are S." Claims usually start with words such as: all, some, some are not, no. On the other hand, contradictories can start with words such as: some are not, not every, no, all are not, not even one, all are, some are. A personal life example of this is if someone said: "All basketball players are tall." The contradictory of this would be: "Some basketball players are not tall, just look at Earl Boykin."