Criticism 1
- The purpose of evidence is criticism
- Evidence is one kind of criticism
- What other types of criticism are there?
- Argument
- All criticism is used in arguments
- You have to explain what the evidence has to do with the topic
- Why is the evidence relevant?
- Argument is the most general type of criticism because evidence has to be used in arguments
- More detailed types of criticism:
- Contradiction
- Non-sequitur (does not follow)
- Complicated, confusing, or unclear
- Vague or ambiguous
- Does not solve the problem
- Unnecessary parts
- Easy to vary (has arbitrary parts)
- Bad explanation
- Invalid criticisms:
- Unpopular
- Weird, counter-intuitive
- Feels wrong
- Lack of authority
- Lack of proof
- Lack of justification
- Criticism of author
- Criticism of style
- Obviously wrong
- Everyone knows otherwise
- Fallible
- Has undesirable conclusion
- ‘Lack of proof’ doesn’t matter if you can’t see anything wrong with the idea
- Look for problems with ideas not support for ideas
- An appeal to fallibility like, ‘you could be wrong’, doesn’t give a specific reason
- The fallibility appeal can be used against any argument because it doesn’t address any particular issue
- Contradictions mean that at least one idea is false, and it could be both ideas are false
- A conclusion reached from contradictory ideas isn’t necessarily false but that argument for the conclusion is false
- If the contradictions are required to reach the conclusion, then the conclusion is false
- All false arguments are non-sequiturs
- Try to give other criticisms besides non-sequitur because it can be hard to discern the what the mistake is
- Ask why the relationship given is the case? How does it work? What causes the two things to be related?
- Arguments should be clear
- Unclear ideas aren’t necessarily false but they can be improved
- Vague arguments can have many possible meanings
- Need more clarity in order to engage in criticism
- Ambiguous arguments can mean two or more things
- Still need clarification
Criticism 2
- Arguments need a problem or question they are trying to solve, address or answer
- Arguments should always explain what their point is
- Not having a purpose is a flaw in the argument
- Not achieving the purpose is a flaw and the argument fails
- Unnecessary parts of an argument should be removed
- Arguments shouldn’t be easy to vary
- Changes to the argument should matter to whether it solves the problem
- Every part of the argument should be there for a reason
- Unnecessary parts always introduce an easy to vary component
- Bad explanations are arguments that don’t make sense in some way
- An argument with no explanation is bad
- Appeals to authority are bad explanations
- Arguments should explain themselves
- Categorizing criticism is not the really important thing
- Looking at types of criticism helps with organization but formality is unimportant
There are no foolproof arguments and no foolproof methods of thinking