Playing with argument on a discussion

Everyday I face issues and people arguing about problems and invesitng time and effort on personal issues more than on resolve the issue itself.

Some people forget how to identify the arguments mentioned by the other party, analysis it and put on context of the situation or the organization.

When you want to defend a position you have to provide arguments clearly, spot it, construct your argument in the context of the situation and then defend it.

I face situations where the person talking to me build his/her own story to defend a position, but the arguments are weak or the story behind it cannot be taken in a serious way. One of the things I found it was that s/he even cannot differentiate the difference between deductive arguments and inductive arguments.

  • On a deductive argument the premises provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion. Here, the premises are intended to provide support for the conclusion that is so strong that, if the premises are true.
  • On an inductive argument the premises provide reasons supporting the probable truth of the conclusion. Here, the premises are intended only to be so strong that, if they are true, then it is unlikely that the conclusion is false.

The point I want to highlight here is the fact that some people defend inductive arguments as if they would be deductive arguments, provoking a weird situation where you do not trust the arguments and hence you start to hesitate about the person defending the arguments.

I found a good picture to visualize it,

Leave a Comment