Books: Practical Argumentation

G >> George K. Pattee >> Practical Argumentation

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The tests for deduction are:--

(1) _Are both premises true?_

(2) _Is the fact stated in the minor premise an instance of the
general law expressed in the major premise?_

In practical argumentation it is not always necessary or desirable to
express a deductive argument in full syllogistic form. One premise is
frequently omitted; the syllogism thus shortened is called an
_enthymeme_. The reasoning then takes some such form as, "This
man will fail in business because he is incompetent." The major
premise, "All incompetent men fail in business," is understood, but is
not expressed. The enthymeme constitutes as strong and forceful an
argument as the syllogism, provided the suppressed premise is a well-
established fact; but whenever this premise is not accepted as true,
it must be stated and proved. The argument will then consist of the
full syllogistic process.

The following outline illustrates the chief difference between
induction and deduction:--

The game of football benefits the players physically, because

(Induction.)

1. Football is known to have benefited Henry Harvey.
2. Football is known to have benefited Frank Barrs.
3. Football is known to have benefited Penn Armstrong.

(Deduction.)

1. The game affords the players regular exercise.
2. The game takes them out in the open air.
3. The game develops the lungs.

The deductive reasoning expressed in full would be:--

(1) A. All games that afford the players regular exercise benefit them
physically.
B. Football affords the players regular exercise.
C. Therefore football benefits the players physically.

The reasoning given in (2) and (3) may be expressed in similar
syllogisms.

To test the inductive part of this argument, one should determine how
well the three examples show the existence of a general law. To test
the deductive part, he should ask whether the premises, both those
stated and those suppressed, are admitted facts, or whether they need
to be proved.

If all reasoning were purely inductive or purely deductive, and if it
always appeared in as simple a form as in the preceding illustration,
one would have little difficulty in classifying and testing it. But
frequently the two kinds appear in such obscure form and in such
varied combinations that only an expert logician can separate and
classify them. Because of this difficulty, it is worth while to know a
second method of classification, one which is often of greater
practical service than the method already discussed in assisting the
arguer to determine what methods of reasoning are strong and what are
weak. A knowledge of this classification is also very helpful to one
who is searching for ways in which to generate proof. This method
considers proof from the standpoint of its use in practical argument;
it teaches not so much the different ways in which the mind may work,
as the ways in which it must work to arrive at a sound conclusion.

1. ARGUMENT FROM ANTECEDENT PROBABILITY.

_The process of reasoning from cause to effect is known as the
argument from antecedent probability._ Whenever a thinking man is
asked to believe a statement, he is much readier to accept it as true
if some reasonable _cause_ is assigned for the existence of the
fact that is being established. The argument from antecedent
probability supplies this cause. The reasoning may be from the past
toward the present, or from the present toward the future. If an
inspector condemns a bridge as unsafe, the question arises, "What has
made it so?" If some one prophesies a rise in the price of railroad
bonds, he is not likely to be believed unless he can show an adequate
cause for the increase. In itself, the establishment of a cause proves
nothing. A bridge may have been subjected to great strain and still be
unimpaired. Though at present there may be ample cause for a future
rise in the securities market, some other condition may intervene and
prevent its operation. The assignment of a cause can at best establish
merely a _probability_, and yet the laws of cause and effect are
so fundamental that man is usually loath to believe that a condition
exists or will exist, until he knows what has brought it about or what
will bring it about. A course of reasoning which argues that a
proposition is true because the fact affirmed is the logical result of
some adequate cause is called _argument from antecedent
probability_.

Simple examples of this kind of reasoning are found in the following
sentences: "It will rain because an east wind is blowing"; "As most of
our officers in the standing army have been West Point graduates, the
United States military system has reached a high standard of
efficiency." The following are more extended illustrations:--

It appears to have been fully established that, in certain
industries, various economies in production--such as eliminating cross
freights, concentrating the superintending force, running best plants
to full capacity, etc.--can be made from production on a large scale,
or, in other instances, through the combination of different
establishments favorably located in different sections of the country.
It is, of course, not to be expected that any one source of saving
will be found applicable in all industries, nor that the importance of
any will be the same in different industries; but in many industries
enough sources of saving will be found to make combination profitable.
This statement does not ignore the fact that there may be, in many
instances, disadvantages enough to offset the benefits; but experience
does seem to show that, in many cases, at least, the cost of
manufacture, and distribution is materially lessened.

Granting that these savings can be made, it is evident that the
influence of Industrial Combinations might readily be to lower prices
to consumers. [Footnote: Jeremiah W. Jenks, North American Review,
June, 1901, page 907.]

In attempting to prove that operas can be successfully produced in
English, Francis Rogers says:--

We have a poetic literature of marvelous richness. Only the Germans
can lay claim to a lyric wealth as great as ours. The language we
inherit is an extraordinarily rich one. A German authority credits it
with a vocabulary three times as large as that of France, the poorest,
in number of words, of all the great languages. With such an enormous
fund of words to choose from it seems as if we should be able to
express our thoughts not only with unparalleled exactness and
subtlety, but also with unequalled variety of sound. Further it is
probable that English surpasses the other three great languages of
song, German, Italian, and French, in number of distinguishable vowel
sounds, but in questions of ear authorities usually differ, and it is
hazardous to claim in this an indubitable supremacy. It seems certain,
however, that English has rather more than twice as many vowel sounds
as Italian (the poorest language in this respect), which has only
seven or eight. [Footnote: Scribner's, January, 1909, p. 42.]

Since reasoning from antecedent probability can at best establish only
a strong presumption, and since it is often not of sufficient weight
to accomplish even this, an arguer, to be successful, must know the
tests that determine how strong and how weak an argument of this sort
is. He may apply these tests both to his own reasoning and to the
reasoning of others. The first test is:--

(1) _Is the assigned cause of sufficient strength to produce the
alleged effect?_

The significance of this question is at once apparent. In the case of
a criminal prosecution, it asks whether the accused had sufficient
motive for performing the deed. In connection with political and
economic propositions that advocate a change in existing conditions,
this test asks whether the new method proposed is sufficiently virile
and far-reaching actually to produce the excellent results
anticipated. A few years ago the advocates of free silver were
maintaining that "sixteen to one" would be a sure cure for all poverty
and financial distress. A careful application of this test would have
materially weakened such an argument. Believers in reformatory rather
than punitive methods of imprisonment say it is antecedently probable
that kind treatment, healthful surroundings, and instruction in
various directions will reclaim most criminals to an honest life.
Before accepting or rejecting this argument, one should decide in his
own mind whether or not such treatment is adequate to make a released
convict give up his former criminal practices.

If the argument stands the first test, the next question to ask is:--

(2) _May some other cause intervene and prevent the action of the
assigned cause?_

During the spring of 1908 it was generally known that the Erie
Railroad had no money with which to pay the interest that was about
due on its outstanding bonds. Wall Street prophesied that the road
would go into a receiver's hands. This result was extremely probable.
Mr. Harriman, however, president of the Union Pacific, stepped in and
by arranging for the payment of the interest saved the road from
bankruptcy. This was an example of how an intervening cause prevented
the action of the assigned cause. When Congress passed the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, many people said that this legislation
would inevitably cause the social, political, and financial ruin of
the whole South. Since they did not take into consideration the
intervening action of another cause, namely, drastic measures for
negro disfranchisement by the white inhabitants of the South, their
reasoning from antecedent probability was entirely erroneous.

2. ARGUMENT FROM SIGN.

ARGUMENT FROM EFFECT TO CAUSE. The process of reasoning from effect to
cause is called argument from sign. Since every circumstance must be
the result of some preceding circumstance, the arguer tries to find
the cause of some fact that is known to exist, and thereby to
establish the existence of a hitherto unknown fact. For instance, when
one sees a pond frozen over, he is likely to reason back to the cause
of this condition and decide that there has been a fall in
temperature, a fact that he may not have known before. The sight of
smoke indicates the presence of fire. Human footprints in the snow are
undoubted proof that someone has been present.

In the following quotation, the recent prohibition movement in the
South is said to be a sign that the voters wish to keep liquor away
from the negro:--

What is the cause of this drift toward prohibition in the South? The
obvious cause, and the one most often given in explanation, is the
presence of the negro. It is said that the vote for prohibition in the
South represents exactly the same reasoning which excludes liquor from
Indian reservations, shuts it out by international agreement from the
islands of the Pacific, and excludes it from great areas in Africa
under the British flag; and that, wherever there is an undeveloped
race, the reasons for restrictions upon the liquor traffic become
convincing. [Footnote: Atlantic Monthly, May, 1908, p. 632.]

The strength of this kind of reasoning depends upon the closeness of
the connection between the effect and the assigned cause. In testing
argument from sign, one should ask:--

(1) _Is the cause assigned adequate to produce the observed
effect?_

This test is precisely the same as the test of adequacy for antecedent
probability. One could not maintain that the productiveness of a
certain piece of ground was due entirely to the kind of fertilizer
used on it, nor that a national financial upheaval was caused by the
failure of a single unimportant bank. In each of these cases the cause
suggested may have assisted in producing the result, but obviously it
was not of itself adequate to be the sole cause.

(2) _Could the observed effect have resulted from any other cause
than the one assigned?_

If several possible causes exist, then it is necessary to consider
them all, and show that all the causes except the assigned cause did
not produce the observed effect. If an employer who has been robbed
discovers that one of his clerks has suddenly come into possession of
a large sum of money, he may surmise that his clerk is a thief. This
argument is valueless, however, unless he can show that his employee
did not receive his newly acquired wealth through inheritance,
fortunate investment, or some other reasonable method. But if no other
reason than burglary or embezzlement can explain the presence of this
money, the argument is very strong.

One might greatly weaken the argument (quoted earlier) which assigned
the cause of the recent prohibition movement in the South to the
presence of the negro by showing that this action was not the result
of the assigned cause, but largely of another cause. He might prove
that during the debate in the Georgia Legislature upon the pending
prohibitory bill, the negro was not once mentioned as a reason for the
enactment of prohibition; and that the chief arguments in favor of
prohibition were based upon the fact that the saloon element had
formed a political ring in the South and were controlling the election
of sheriffs, mayors, aldermen, and legislators.

ARGUMENT FROM EFFECT TO EFFECT. Argument from sign also includes the
process of reasoning from effect to effect through a common cause.
This method consists of combining the process just described with the
argument from antecedent probability. A reduction of wages in one
cotton mill is a sign that there may be a reduction in other cotton
mills. Here the reasoning goes from effect to effect, passing,
however, though perhaps the reasoner is not aware that the process is
so complex, through a cause common to both effects. In full, the
reasoning would be: a reduction in the first mill is the result of the
cause "hard times"; it is then antecedently probable that this cause
will produce a similar reduction of wages in other mills.

This method may be represented by the following figure:--

Cause
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
Effect Effect

Only one effect is known; the other effect is inferred, first, by a
process of reasoning from a known effect to an unknown cause, and
secondly, by the process of reasoning from this assumed cause to an
unknown effect.

This method of reasoning is sound and legitimate when both effects
have the same cause. Its weakness lies in the fact that it may be
attacked on two sides: on the reasoning from effect to cause, and on
the reasoning from cause to effect. If the connection can be broken in
either process, the argument is overthrown. The tests to be used have
already been given.

3. ARGUMENT FROM EXAMPLE.

Argument from example is the name given to the process by which one
reasons that what has been true under certain circumstances will again
be true under the same or similar circumstances. In using this method
of reasoning one argues that whenever several persons or things or
conditions are alike in some respects, any given cause operating upon
them will in each case produce the same effect; any line of action
adopted by them will in each case have the same result.

There are two divisions of argument from example. When the resemblance
between the things compared is close, the process is called argument
by generalization; when the resemblance is so slight that there can be
no direct comparison, but only a comparison of functions, the process
is called argument from analogy.

ARGUMENT BY GENERALIZATION. If one finds that a certain mastiff
becomes with training an excellent watch dog, he may reasonably take
it for granted that training will produce the same result in another
dog of the same breed. If a college student with certain pronounced
physical and mental characteristics is known to be an exceptionally
good football player, the athletic trainer is sure to reason by
generalization that another student with these same characteristics
would be a valuable addition to the team. Burke in his _Speech on
Conciliation_ uses this kind of reasoning when he says that just as
Turkey and Spain have found it necessary to govern their distant
possessions with a loose rein, so, too, England will be obliged to
govern the American Colonies leniently.

Benjamin Harrison used this method of argument in the following
quotation:--

That we give back to Porto Rico all the revenue derived from the
customs we levy, does not seem to me to soften our dealings with her
people. Our fathers were not mollified by the suggestion that the tea
and stamp taxes would be expended wholly for the benefit of the
colonies. It is to say: We do not need this money; it is only levied
to show that your country is no part of the United States, and that
you are not citizens of the United States, save at our pleasure.
[Footnote: North American Review, January, 1901, p. 17.]

Argument by generalization very rarely constitutes absolute proof. In
dealing with things, it may do so in rare cases; in dealing with human
actions, almost never. The reason why it can establish only a strong
probability lies in a weakness in the process of reasoning.

Notice that while this kind of argument apparently reasons directly
from the example cited to the case in hand, there is in reality an
intermediate step. This step is a general truth of which both the
known fact and the fact to be proved must be instances. When it is
argued that since one mastiff makes a good watch dog another mastiff
will also make a good watch dog, the reasoning passes through the
general statement, "All mastiffs make good watch dogs."

Graphically the process might be represented thus:--

General Law
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
Known Fact Fact to be Proved

This method is very much like the method of reasoning from effect to
effect, except that here the intermediate step does not _cause_,
but merely accounts for the facts. In the illustration taken from
Burke, the known fact is that neither Turkey nor Spain can govern
their distant provinces despotically. The general law is that no
country can govern a distant dependency harshly. The fact proved is
that England cannot play the despot with the American Colonies.

The weakness of this sort of reasoning is now easily seen. In the
first place, there are few general laws governing human action that
always hold true. In the second place, unless there is a very strong
resemblance between the cases compared, unless they are alike in all
essential particulars, they will not both be examples of the working
of one general law.

The following quotation points out an error that might be made from
too hasty reasoning by example:--

On August 23d the Southern Railway, which since 1902 had been paying
5 per cent. annual dividends on its preferred stock, voted to reduce
those dividends from a 5 per cent. annual rate to one of 3. Five days
later, on August 28th, the Erie Railroad, which had been paying 4 per
cent ... announced that it would pay no cash dividend this time, but
would issue to the amount of the usual 4 per cent. dividend, what it
called dividend warrants, which were practically notes at 4 per cent.
redeemable in cash in 1907.

It was natural that this action regarding dividends should have
awakened much uneasiness.... To predict a similar cutting of dividends
by other railway companies would, however, be unwarranted. The case of
the Southern Railway and the Erie was peculiar. Each had been classed
among the financially weak railways of the country. Both were
reorganized from absolute railway wrecks, and in each the new scheme
of capitalization was proposed to the markets at a time when recovery
from the depression of 1893 had not made such progress as it had
achieved when the greater companies, like the Union Pacific, were
reorganized. The result was that, with both these railways, provisions
of working capital and adjustment of liabilities to the possible needs
of an active industrial future were inadequately made. [Footnote:
Alexander D. Noyes, The Forum, October-December, 1907, p.198.]

An excellent illustration of how to refute argument by generalization
is found in the following quotation. It has been said that since
England finds free trade beneficial, the United States should adopt
the same policy. Mr. Reed, a leading advocate of protection, points
out the weakness of this argument.

According to the usual story that is told, England had been engaged
with a long and vain struggle with the demon of protection, and had
been year after year sinking farther into the depths, until at a
moment when she was in her distress and saddest plight, her
manufacturing system broke down, "protection, having destroyed home
trade by reducing," as Mr. Atkinson says, "the entire population to
beggary, destitution, and want." Mr. Cobden and his friends
providentially appeared, and after a hard struggle established a
principle for all time and for all the world, and straightway England
enjoyed the sum of human happiness. Hence all good nations should do
as England has done and be happy ever after.

Suppose England, instead of being a little island in the sea, had been
the half of a great continent full of raw material, capable of an
internal commerce which would rival the commerce of all the rest of
the world.

Suppose every year new millions were flocking to her shores, and every
one of those new millions in a few years, as soon as they tasted the
delights of a broader life, would become as great a consumer as any
one of her own people.

Suppose that these millions, and the 70,000,000 already gathered under
the folds of her flag, were every year demanding and receiving a
higher wage and therefore broadening her market as fast as her
machinery could furnish production. Suppose she had produced cheap
food beyond all her wants, and that her laborers spent so much money
that whether wheat was sixty cents a bushel or twice that sum hardly
entered the thoughts of one of them except when some democratic tariff
bill was paralyzing his business.

Suppose that she was not only but a cannon shot from France, but that
every country in Europe had been brought as near to her as Baltimore
is to Washington--for that is what cheap ocean freights mean between
us and European producers. Suppose all those countries had her
machinery, her skilled workmen, her industrial system, and labor forty
per cent. cheaper. Suppose under that state of facts, with all her
manufactures proclaiming against it, frantic in their disapproval,
England had been called upon by Cobden to make the plunge into free
trade, would she have done it? Not if Cobden had been backed by the
angelic host. History gives England credit for great sense. [Footnote:
Thomas B. Reed, Speech in House of Representatives, Feb. 1, 1904.]

ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY. When two instances of objects which are
_unlike in themselves_, but which _perform similar functions or
have similar relations_, are compared for the sake of showing that
what is true in one case is true in the other, the process is called
_argument from analogy_. The following quotation is a good
illustration of this kind of argument:--

"Mr. Pinchot compared our present consumption of wood to the case of
a man in an open boat at sea, cut adrift from some shipwreck and with
but a few days' supply of water on board. He drinks all the water the
first day, simply because he is thirsty, though he knows that the
water will not last long. The American people know that their wood
supply will last but a few decades. Yet they shut their eyes to the
facts."

Water and wood are not alike in themselves; they cannot be directly
compared, but they are alike in the relations they bear to other
circumstances.

When President Lincoln refused to change generals at a certain time
during the Civil War, saying that it was not wise to "swap horses
while crossing a stream," he reasoned from analogy. Since the horse in
taking its master across the stream and the general in conducting a
campaign are totally unlike in themselves but have similar relations,
the argument is from analogy and not from generalization.

It is easy to see that such reasoning never constitutes indubitable
proof. If argument from generalization, where the objects compared
differ from each other in only a few respects, is weak, plainly,
argument from analogy is much weaker, since the objects are alike
merely in the relations they bear.

Though argument from analogy does not constitute proof, yet it is
often valuable as a means of illustration. Truths frequently need
illumination more than verification, and in such cases this sort of
comparison may be very useful. Many proverbs are condensed arguments
from analogy, their strength depending upon the similarity between the
known case and the case in hand. It is not hard to find the analogy in
these expressions: "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place";
"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched"; "A fool and his
money are soon parted."

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