Vague Generalities

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading this week, not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

In Chapter 8, I found that the concept on vague generalities to be a very useful concept to learn and understand to make strong arguments.  It is normal for us in every day life to give claims using the words, all, almost all, many, most, a lot of, some, a few, and very few to talk about a collection of things without being specific on how many things are in that particular collection. For example, “many girls are upset.” This claim isn’t stating specifically how many girls are upset in a collection of girls by using the word many. However, sometimes these words that we use such as many, are too vague to be considered strong arguments. How do we know if many girls are upset? How much is many? We don’t know, so it’s too vague to be a good argument. There are however, two vague generalities that aren’t too vague and can be used to make a strong argument: Almost all and Very Few.  It makes sense to believe the conclusion based on the premise that:

Almost all cats have claws

I have a cat

So my cat has claws.

Almost all is more specific and makes the claim more plausible, so we have good reason to believe the conclusion. This claim also falls under the rules of direct way of reasoning with almost all, which are usually strong arguments.

Almost all S are P, a is S, So a is P.

If I had used the words a lot instead of almost all, it would not have made sense to believe the conclusion based on the premise that:

A lot of cats have claws

I have a cat

So my cat has claws.

This claim is too vague: A lot doesn’t give us a good enough reason to believe the conclusion is true based on the premise. How many is a lot?

Reasoning in a chain with almost all, doesn’t always make a good strong argument either because it could lead to true premises and false conclusions.

Furthermore, after reading this section on vague generalities, I have learned how to make stronger arguments by using the words, almost all and very few, as their premises give us good reason to believe their conclusion and when not to use them, such as certain times when reasoning in a chain.