Weak Premise of Social Health in Independence of the Individuals - Case Study Example

Philosophy Name Professor Institution-Affiliation Determining whether a sentence, a sub-sentence or a part of the passage is deductively valid or inductively valid depends on the strength of the premises, and the strength of the conclusive developed from the premises. In a deductive argument, the premises must support the conclusion, and there is no reason whosoever to doubt the conclusion. In an inductively argument the premises tend to differ with the conclusion. Based on the above information, the following discussion aims at analysing and evaluation the passage by identifying the meaningful parts of the passage by pointing out the premises (both initial and suppressed premises) and identifying the conclusions based on the premises. This passage contains several meaningful complete parts of the passage. As well, there are parts that are not meaningful depending on their positions of the preposition within the sentence. For example; A person's value to the society obviously depends on how far that person’s feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed toward promoting the good of his or her fellows (1). This is because no society can exist without a sufficiently high level of social solidarity, which can only be achieved if a sufficiently large number of the society’s members behave in ways to help or assist others in socially significant situations (2). Therefore, it looks at first sight as if our estimate of a person depended entirely on that person’s behaviour in socially significant situations (3). The above passage contains some meaningful parts, such as; A person's value to the society obviously depends on how far that person’s feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed toward promoting the good of his or her fellows. The argument, which is a meaningful part of the passage, is as well as an initial premise. Therefore, it must appear in the structure diagram. The second sentence (premise) supports the argument therefore making the argument deductively valid. However, this second sentence is preceded by an (if ) sentence, which makes the argument weak - if a sufficiently large number of the society’s members behave in ways to help or assist others in socially significant situations. The reason that makes the If- sentence less significant in this passage is because, the author claims that, for the society to enjoy high levels of solidarity, the society members must behave in ways that help others in socially significant circumstances. In essence, the (if) element makes it a weak premise. For this reason, the sentence does not appear in the structure diagram; because the author could as well communicate his/her message without distorting the meaning. It fails to support the initial premise or rather the argument presented. In this regard, the conclusion developed from these premises is somewhat questionable and requires other supportive reasons or evidences to strengthen their quality of validity. Additionally, sentence (3) “So, it looks at first sight as if our estimate of a person depended entirely on that person’s behaviour in socially significant situations appears insignificant in this passage, because the premise of rather the sentence does not support the initial premise (1) but rather gives a difference inference. In essence, sentence (3) is a sub-sentence that is far much different from the other premises but in line with the initial premise therefore forming a suppressed premise. However, we can reconstruct these two sentences to read as follows; Suppressed premise: If a sufficiently large number of the society’s members behave in ways to help or assist others in socially significant situations, Reconstruct: without sufficiently large number of the society’s members behaving in ways to help or assist others in socially significant situations, the society cannot exist Suppressed premise: If our estimate of a person depended entirely on that person’s behaviour in socially significant situations Reconstruct: The estimates of a person depended entirely on that person’s behaviour in socially significant situations The passage also contains another initial premise, “It can easily be seen that all the valuable achievements, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society, have been brought about in the course of countless generations, by creative individuals” (4). This argument is also a meaningful part of the passage. However, the author in sentence (5) “only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society” claims that, it is only when an individual thinks that he/she is capable of creating new values. We see some sort of negation in this sentence. For instance, if we restructure the sentence to read; without the individual thinking, the individual cannot create new values for the society. When the sentence reads this way, it strengthens the author’s argument, therefore making it significant in the passage. However, relying on its original structure, this sentence is insignificant, and probably forms a suppressed premise, because we are unaware about the probability of the individual’s capacity to thinking on whether or not to create new values. In essence, it raises very many questions, which unless supported by evidences may result to making an argument inductively invalid. The conclusive premises whereby the author claims ‘Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the progress of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community (sentence 6). The author is certain that the progress of the society depends on the creative personalities of the individuals. Regardless of whether this conclusion gets support from other premises or not, the sentence on its own, supports the initial premise on the significance of personal values in enhancing the wellbeing of his/her fellows. Since it reiterates on the initial premise (sentence 1), it becomes an inference. Eventually, we arrive at the final conclusion whereby the authors claims that “The health of society thus depends quite as much on the creative independence of the individuals composing it as on their attitudes of social solidarity and concern for others” (s6) . This forms the conclusive thesis, and the structure of the argument is such that one cannot raise any questions. It provides a statement, and supports the statement within the same argument. Structure Diagram (Arrow 1) (Arrow 2) Verbal evaluation of initial premises Initial premise forms the basis of the argument. In other words, it forms the thesis of the argument. Therefore, in order to increases the quality of the validity of the initial premise, the author of the passage requires to provide supportive arguments that strengthens the argument. In the passage as indicated by the above structure diagram, there are two initial premises. However, the supportive arguments against the premises are suppressed premises do not appear in the structure diagram because they are weak and requires restructuring to strengthen them. Verbal evaluation of inference The inference derived from this passage’ without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the progress of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community, derives rational conclusions from the initial responses formed by sentence 1 and sentence 2. Eventually, the inference leads to the conclusion, which supports the thesis indicated by initial premise 1. Evaluation Do you think that the argument is acceptable or not?’ In order to determine whether an argument is acceptable or not, one requires evaluating the quality of the validity of the argument. This passage falls under a deductive argument because the initial premises, suppressed premises support the conclusion. The author of this passage intends that the premise he provides justify the conclusion, whereby if the premises turns out true, the conclusion becomes true. The author’s form of reasoning is a good one, since most of the premises justifies the conclusion, therefore, making the argument acceptable. Read More