ARQ chapter 4, “What Words or Phrases are Ambiguous?
- The book define ambiguity as “when its meaning is so uncertain in the context of the argument we are examining that we need to further clarification before we can judge the adequacy of the reasoning.”. It is important to identify ambiguous terms because some terms have more than one meaning connected to the term. Sometimes the meaning you think means this but, it was meant for a different reason.
- It is not helpful because a term can more more than what you see in a dictionary. It can also mean in a person a different way than what you are thinking what it means. In the book, it says “the more abstract a word or phase, the more likely it is to be susceptible to multiple interpretations.”
- To determine which ones are the most important is to see how much reasoning the paragraph have and how strong the reason is to the question that is being asked.
ARQ chapter 5, “What Are the Value and Descriptive Assumptions?
- A value assumption is “An implicit preference for one value over another in a particular context. we use value preferences and value priorities as synonyms” and a descriptive assumptions is “An unstated belief about how the world was, is, or will become.”
- It is important for the people to know about different values of others are assuming because people have their own opinions ans not everyone is thinking the same beliefs as you do. For example: Christians and Catholics.
- We should because we have the freedom of speech and its our own personal beliefs.
- Rich-poor “Should the rich help the poor?”