[Philo]

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Philo -
The only way to determine whether the conclusion is more likely to be true than not is to understand the argument, and be able to assess the logical relationship between the premises and conclusion.


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That sounds nice, clearcut, and simple in theory. But when applied in practice to the complexities of ambiguous language, abstract concepts, imprecise analogies, fuzzy probabilities, and the myriad of cognitive responses to the human condition commonly expressed in discussions here, the task you describe is far from logically well defined.


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PairTheBoard

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I never said that evaluating arguments was simple and clearcut. That's you making unwarranted inferences.

I teach logic, so it's no news to me that evaluating arguments can be difficult. Some of the examples you gave are easy to evaluate though. Any argument that uses language ambiguously or employs poor analogies is eo ipso a poor argument.