evaluate.html

How Do You Evaluate An Argument?

To evaluate an argument, ask the following questions:

Are the premises reliable?
Are the premises relevant?
Are the premises adequate?
Is the reasoning valid?

Let's take these one at a time:

Reliability -- There are three attitudes we can take toward any claim: 1) that we accept the claim as true or reasonable; 2) that we reject the claim as false or unreasonable; 3) that we suspend judgment. In order to decide, we need to bring to bear all of the critical thinking skills that we have developed in our lives:

We need to hold the claim up to scrutiny against what we know about the world from our own experience.
We need to consider the authorityand trustworthinessof the person making the claim.
We need to reasonably certain that there no motives to mislead.
We need to consider whether the claim is coming from reputable source,such as a journal or newspaper or other media channel that has proven itself to be reliable. (A healthy mistrust of mainstream media is advised).

Relevance -- Any claim that is used to draw a conclusion must have a direct relationship to that conclusion. Premises must be scrutinized for fallacious cause-effect relationships, inconsistencies, hedging or equivocation, red herrings, and other deceptive forms of reasoning that call into question their relevance to the conclusion.

Adequacy -- Not only must claims be relevant to the conclusion but also all information relevant to the conclusion must have been considered. In other words, the premises must have an adequate scope to come to the conclusion drawn. If important information is left out, the conclusion may be hasty.

Validity -- Validity is a concept that has to do with the relationship of the categories being discussed (the terms) in the argument. When an argument is valid, it means the relationships expressed are indeed accurate. When an argument is invalid, it means the relationships expressed are inaccurate. To determine validity with certainty, it's usually best to put the syllogism into symbolic terms and apply the tests for validity.

Arguments that pass all of these tests are called cogent arguments.
Arguments that fail any of these tests are called fallacious.