397 comments

  • 2 days ago

    2-1-3.

    2 -Members of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) can now access the Genie+ fast pass. If a member of the DVC offered ten goats' worth of propitiations to Mickey Mouse, they can download their Genie+ pass via the Disney app. If a member of the DVC did not offer ten goats' worth of propitiations to Mickey Mouse, then they cannot download their Genie+ pass via the Disney app. If they want to obtain the Genie+ pass, then they must prostrate themselves before Goofy's altar in the Magical Kingdom. And since Walt has a Genie+ pass but he has never prostrated himself to anyone or anything, it follows that he must have offered ten goats' worth of propitiations to Mickey Mouse.

    1-Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people is a good premise to support the conclusion that not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet. But there are perhaps stronger premises to support the claim.

    3-Maybe Mr. Fat Cat licked his paw to clean his face because he's cleansing.

    1
  • It depends on which argument contains the weakest premise(s) or Links as they are the most fallible and contain the largest most exploitable loopholes

    1
  • 5 days ago

    Arguments are typically stronger when multiple premises support the conclusion. A lesser amount of premises, or premises that contribute less directly towards strengthening the argument made in the conclusion, can weaken an argument. Therefore, the strongest argument are those that exhibit these traits, and thus strongest to weakest is arguments 2-1-3.

    1
  • Some arugements are stronger because there is more supports in the premise, providing more information about the argument and the people involved, which is why the tiger argument while valid, does provide widely available and well known information, for the sake of this argument I think the disney one is the strongest, because we are treating these like presenting a case to the general public who has no prior knowledge of any of this information, and assuming we are teaching this information in a way that is conducive to those who are not privy to this prior knowledge. Essentially treating it like explaining a new concept to a child, assuming they have no prior knowledge and they are hearing of this argument for the first time.

    1
  • Thursday, Jul 9

    I feel like the Tiger argument is the strongest in my opinion.

    6
    6 days ago

    @JohnAcosta This is what I thought too!!

    2
  • Friday, Jul 3

    Some arguments are stronger than others because the support has less or no gaps, while other arguments might have some gaps which opens the door for alternative conclusions.

    In this example, the Disney argument leaves no gaps, its either or. No in between. The Tiger argument is decent, the premise could allow different conclusions. But for the cat argument, although the support can lead to that the cat did indeed eat the salmon, it doesnt prove that the cat intentionally knocked over the trash, or that it knocked it over. Maybe something else did, and maybe the cat was eating something else.

    12

    @RaniaQadi yeah and if the salmon was on the floor then how did the cat eat it? it doesn't say partially eaten salmon

    1
  • Thursday, Jul 2

    some arguments are stronger than others because they carry evidence or conclusions, while the trash question does not have direct evidence that there is a relationship between the cat licking his paws and the trash being knocked over

    1
  • Wednesday, Jul 1

    My guess is that disney arguement explicitly states that there are two paths to getting the pass, and we know for a fact walt didn't use one of the.

    For the tiger one, while it is true that tigers are often agressive, that doesn't mean that all tigers will always be aggressive.

    5
  • Wednesday, Jul 1

    the first is pointing directly towards a causal relationship between the fast pass and Walt; given Walt has negated certain criteria required to have gained the fast pass in a certain manner, but still maintains the pass in general. Given that there is an alternative method to gaining the pass, we can conclude the one in Walt's possession came from that instance.

    The tiger question, while there is a lacking in correlation between the instances, it promotes a causal relationship by means of the tigers attributes and the overall mammal population, which regards the terms 'suitable' and 'aggressive' in the same manner. Given that the tigers are mammals and the tigers are aggressive, we can assume the conclusion regarding mammals is referencing the premises of the tiger's attributes, or the tiger itself, thereby giving us the conclusion that the tiger is not a suitable pet.

    The Cat question does not actual give any evidence to support the conclusion that the cat knocked over the trash can. Perhaps a force knocked over the can, but the cat eating salmon is ultimately dependent for the factor of the cat knocking over the trash can, therefore, we cannot conclude the cat knocked over the trash can, even if we can prove he ate the salmon, which is also unknown given the premises of the equation.

    5
  • Wednesday, Jun 24

    Disney argument is the strongest because there are only two ways to obtain the pass and the passage confirms Walt did not prostrated. Thus, it leaves only one way to obtain the ticket.

    Tiger argument presents stronger argument because the conclusion accepts wide range of premises to support them. The only premise to provide is one or more example of a mammal that is not suitable to keep due to various reasons, such as agressiveness, allergy concerns, etc to support the conclusion which the premise successfully did.

    2
  • Tuesday, Jun 23

    Arguments are stronger when there are fewer gaps and possible questions that can arise that poke at the hurdles taken to conclude. additionally when we use words like most verse, all you are either increasing the strength or leaving more room for it to be provable.

    11
  • Monday, Jun 22

    the stronger the argument the less guessing or assuming we need to do to support the argument

    5
  • Tuesday, Jun 16

    The Disney vacation club has the strongest argument because there's only 2 possible ways to gain access to the fast pass. Since he has never prostrated anyone or anything, beyond a reasonable doubt, it's safe to conclude that the only possible option for him to have the fast pass is through offering up the goats, thus providing the strongest evidence.

    The tigers argument provides the next best evidence because the conclusion drawn does not require a strong premises, thus providing a low burden of proof. To support the conclusion that "not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet" only requires evidence of a single mammal that isn't suitable to keep as a pet to reach that conclusion, which the premises are successful at, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that

    The Trash bin provides the weakest evidence despite the overwhelming facts that would ordinarily paint the cat as responsible. Some doubt arises, however, as the cat was not caught in action tipping the trash bin over. It's possible, though unlikely given the facts, that something or someone else may have tipped the trash can over and ate the leftover salmon. This discrepancy could be utilized in favor of the cat.

    12
  • Thursday, Jun 11

    for the weaker argumennts we almost have to make an assumption of the connection between the premise and the conclusion. for the cat argument, we are assuming that the cat ate the fish from the trash can because all evidence - the trash being toppled over, the cat licking itself clean - points towards that conclusion

    4
  • Monday, Jun 8

    My hypothesis: some arguments are stronger than others because the support relationship between the premise(s) and conclusion removes a larger amount of ambiguity.

    5
  • Monday, Jun 8

    Stronger arguments require fewer assumptions to be made

    9
  • Monday, Jun 8

    Stronger arguments tend to have more explicit premises.

    3
  • Sunday, Jun 7

    Stronger arguments leave less room to assume an alternate conclusion by providing more explicit premises.

    3
  • Thursday, Jun 4

    Why are some arguments stronger than others? I am assuming stronger arguments have more specific premises and leave little room for other possibilities to lead to their conclusion.

    1
  • Sunday, May 31

    I asked myself, how likely is it that an alternative explanation would explain the conclusion. In other words, how essential are the premises to guarantee the truth of the conclusion? The cat argument fell flat because, while there is reason to speculate that the cat tipped the trash can, the evidence does not rule out other possibilities. The Disney argument feels completely different. We can reasonably conclude that there is only one way for Walt to have obtained the Genie+ pass. It would be extremely difficult to argue against the conclusion if we assume that the premises are true. The Tigers Argument is well reasoned, but the bridge from premise to conclusion is more implicit. For example, we have to assume that to qualify as a non-suitable pet, the animal must not be able to cause serious injury to people.

    9
    Thursday, Jun 4

    @grantgreathouse that's exacly what I wanted to say but you articulate it wayyy better

    2
  • Wednesday, May 27

    I believe an arguments strength (as stated by some peers) deals with the number of implicit or explicit premises. Stronger arguments tend to have more explicit premises that don't require you to "fill in the gaps" ie. the Disney argument. Weaker arguments in contrast tend to have more implicit premises, one's that maybe if you think long enough you can produce to connect the dots ie. the Tiger argument or the Trash-bin argument.

    4
  • Edited Wednesday, May 27

    The Disney argument has the most premises that all ultimately lead to the main conclusion which is that Walt must have offered requisite propitiations to Mickey. The trash bin example is not as strong as the Disney one because it provides less direct support to the main conclusion. For the most part, you're assuming very heavily that Mr. Fat Cat "intentionally" knocked over the bin. The tiger example provides little amount of support but it is not as questionable as the trash bin example where the support itself does not equate to the main conclusion.

    2
  • Wednesday, May 27

    Disney has the most support, Tigers has some direct support, Trash Bin has no outright support, just suggestive evidence.

    2
  • Wednesday, May 27

    I believe that the stronger and argument, the fewer assumptions it makes / the more factual it's claims are. The trash bin's conclusion snuck in an extra claim that isn't supported by evidence "having intnentionally knocked over the bin" this claim has no supporting claim but it is attached to the hypothesis that Mr. Fat Cat is guilty. In general, this whole argument is based more on what seems most likely not off of what we know to be certainly true. Disney is strongest because it has multiple supporting claims and the conclusion doesn't sneak any assumptions or extra claims in without support. Tiger is in the middle because it is fairly clear cut with a basic conclusion to draw from the premise, but it still makes some assumptions, or leaves out reasoning. We don't know for sure from the argument made that aggressive and injury-causing mammals are not suitable to keep as pets, it is implied from the rest of the argument, but it technically is an assumption.

    4
  • Tuesday, May 26

    My hypothesis is that stronger arguments require less, if any, assumptions.

    There are missing pieces in the Tigers and Mr. Fat Cat arguments. For the tiger one, assumed premises could be 'If a mammal is aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people then it is not suitable to keep a a pet', 'Tigers are mammals' and then you have the 'Tigers are aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people'. Therefore, not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet. This follows a strong line of reasoning, similar to the Disney scenario = it is a stronger argument.

    3

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