Chapter I: Short Arguments: Some General Rules

Short Arguments Rules

This article is not going to be a comprehensive explanation, but only an overview for David Morrow’s book “ A workbook for arguments”.

Intro:

David Morrow's book about Critical thinking not Logic. Logic in ALModhafar Logic “منطق المظفر”
Is defined as “A legal tool that mastering it prevents the mind from failing to Intellectual Errors”. Critical thinking used to be a logical subject under the name “Non-Formal Logic”, but eventually Non-Formal Logic evolved into a field in itself that is concerned with avoiding fallacies and evaluating arguments.
Also we should not think negatively about arguing as if it’s a conflict, we should think of it as presenting evidence to support a certain claim or a conclusion, and these evidence is presented by evidence and not fighting of repeating the conclusion.

Rule 1: Identify premises and conclusion

Naturally when arguing the first thing is to identify what we are arguing about, and how we are going to approach this argument by recognising the evidence that should be presented to reach a conclusion.
The evidences are the premises that are presented to strengthen or prove the conclusion:
“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. Winston Churchill.“
Here The conclusion is (I am an optimist) And it’s reasons ''Premise" (It does not seem too much use being anything else).
Premises and conclusions are not necessarily obvious as in this example from Sherlock Holmes story the silver blaze:
“a dog was kept in the stables, and yet, though some one had been in and had fetched out a horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew.”
Here the direct conclusion is that the dog didn't bark; yet Sherlock concludes upon the general idea that dogs barks on people they don’t know that this visitor is not a stranger.
Of course I can’t finish this rule without mentioning the most famous example which is
“ Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal.”
Here the premises are Humans are mortal and Socrates is a human and the conclusion is reaching that  Socrates is mortal.
This Table could be Of use, some certain words could be an Indicator of Premise or Conclusion when it occurs in a sentence:

Premises Indicators	Conclusion Indicators
Since	Therefore
As indicated By	Consequently
Because	Thus
For	Hence
In that	Entails that
as	We may conclude
May be inferred from	Accordingly
Given that	wherefore
Seeing that	We may infer
Owing to	As a result
For the reason that	Implies that
Inasmuch as	It follows that
	So
	Whence
	It must be that

Rule 2: Develop your ideas in a natural order:

An argument should be set up in an orderly way that is not tiredly to be followed up by the reader, and one writing or speaking shouldn't relay upon the patient of the receiver of the argument. A suggested order for short arguments is it to be composed of 2 paragraphs, first put the conclusion and second put the reasons:

E.X: Water is important for humans to stay alive for humans would die without drinking water.

In other complex or longer arguments, the argument should be clear to the reader, E.X:

Before setting the argument in a clear order:

"The evils of the world are due to the moral defects as much as to lack of intelligence. But the human race has not hintherto discover any method of eradicating moral defects. Intelligence, on the contrary, is easily improved by methods known to every competent educator. Therefore, until some method of teaching virtue has been discovered, progress will have to be sought by improvement of intelligence rather than of morals."

After Setting the Argument in a clear order:

"The evils of the world are due to the moral defects quite as much as to lack of intelligence, until some methods of teaching virtue has been discovered. Progress will have to be sought by improvement of intelligence rather than of morals. Intelligence is easily improved by methods known to every competent educator. The human race has not hintherto discovered any means of eradicating moral defects"