2.1 Claims, assertions, statements 19
Grammatical note
We saw earlier in the chapter that claims
typically take the form of statements, or
declarative sentences. In some cases, however,
other grammatical forms can be used.
Take [C] again. A similar point could be made
by ‘asking’:
[C 1 ] How disgusting are bankers’ wages?‘Asking’ is in quotation marks because [C 1 ] is
not a genuine question but a rhetorical one.
(You could alternatively call it an exclamation,
and punctuate it with an exclamation mark.)
What defines a rhetorical question is that it is
not really in need of an answer: it is making
an assertion. In this case the assertion is:
[C 2 ] Bankers’ wages are disgusting.• In this chapter we have discussed and
analysed one of the most basic concepts
in critical thinking: claims. These are
also referred to as ‘assertions’ and
‘statements’.
• Several important kinds of claim have been
introduced. They include:
• claims to fact
• statements of opinion or belief
• value judgements
• predictions
• hypotheses
• recommendations.
There will be more discussion of all
of these kinds of claim in the coming
chapters.Summary
nothing could exceed the speed of light
seemed unchallengeable until, in 2011, a
team of scientists at the Large Hadron Collider
claimed to have measured a tiny subatomic
particle – a neutrino – travelling fractionally
faster. Their measurements have yet to be
confirmed, and may have been proved wrong
by the time you are reading this page. But
whilst any uncertainty remains, Einstein’s
assertion is still just a hypothesis, and hence a
claim, not a fact.
Recommendations
Recommendations or suggestions are claims
of yet another sort. Here is one example:
[E] The wages and bonuses of bankers
should be capped.This may seem quite similar to [C]: the claim
that top bankers earn too much. Both express
a similar sentiment, and both are opinions
rather than hard facts. However, there is an
important difference. [C] is an observation. It
describes a situation as the author sees it: the
way things are in his or her opinion. [E], in
contrast, is a claim about how things ought to
be, or what the author thinks should be done
in response to the situation.
Recommendations, like value judgements,
are not straightforwardly true or false. Two
people – even two people who agree about
[C] – may disagree about whether the
recommendation to cap wages is the right
way to deal with what they see as excessive
earnings. Neither of the two will be factually
wrong in their judgement. If one person says
that it is ‘true’ that bankers’ wages should be
capped, it just means that he considers it to
be a good idea. If another says it is ‘false’, she
is claiming it is a bad idea.