[OLD] CT S1 What is an argument?

What is an Argument?

Interactive Reading Task

You have probably come across the word 'argument' before. In critical thinking, the word 'argument' has a particular meaning.

• Write how you would define the word 'argument' in your Journal📝

Section 1: Types of Argument

Forming an argument

Section 1: Types of Argument

An argument is made up of several claims. Claims can be true or false. Does anything surprise you about this definition?Do you think the claims below are true or false and why?

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Click on each aspect to explore what is needed to form an argument.

Premises and conclusions

Example of an argument

Location of an argument

Building supports

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In an argument, one claim - the conclusion - should be supported by the other claims - called the premises.In other words, the premises are supposed to give us good grounds for thinking the conclusion is true.

Meet Umar! 👋🏼

ConclusionTherefore, Umar has a brain.

🧠

Premise 1 Umar is a human

Premise 2 All humans have brains

Click to reveal the next premise

Click to reveal the conclusion

Premises and conclusions

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Click on each aspect to explore what is needed to form an argument.

Premises and conclusions

Location of an argument

Building supports

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Example of an argument

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Launch Knowledge Check! 🚀

Click on each aspect to explore what is needed to form an argument.

Premises and conclusions

Example of an argument

Location of an argument

Building supports

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The argument about Umar has just two premises and a conclusion.Other arguments may have just one premise, or they may have several.In this argument you can see that the premises do support the conclusion.In fact, in this example, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true too.

Example of an argument

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Click on each aspect to explore what is needed to form an argument.

Premises and conclusions

Building supports

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Example of an argument

Location of an argument

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Sometimes, the conclusion of the argument doesn't appear at the end.Notice that in this example the conclusion comes first.

Location of an argument

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Click on each aspect to explore what is needed to form an argument.

Premises and conclusions

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Example of an argument

Location of an argument

Building supports

Building supports

So, to sum up, an argument consists of a series of claims, called the premises and conclusion.The premises are supposed to support the conclusion - that's to say, they are supposed to give us grounds for thinking the conclusion is true

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Premises and conclusions

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Example of an argument

Location of an argument

Building supports