UNDERSTANDING THE LINKS BETWEEN CLAIMS 47
Definitions are often crucial in reasoning. While many words that we use are
'obvious' in their meaning, others are more complex. Sometimes we want to use
words that have a 'common-sense' meaning that is different from the meaning we
want to convey in our own argument or explanation (like 'claim' in chapter 2).
Good definitions ensure that the other premises relying on a definition can be
understood by our audiences when, without the definition, there would be a risk
of the premises being misinterpreted. There are four types of definition. Here are
some examples:
By 'regulate the free market' I mean:
- action taken by the government such as requiring that accounts be
lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission - something like placing a speed-limiting device on an engine to stop it
going too fast - government actions requiring businesses to perform according to
policy rather than market forces - the opposite of letting innumerable individual decisions about demand
and supply determine market interactions.
The first case is a definition by example. Such definitions are useful only where
the audience will understand the connection between the general definition and
specific situation in the example. In the second case, the definition becomes clear
via a comparison to a similar situation; these definitions are very useful where the
intended audience does not know enough about the topic to be given an example
but can, through an appropriate comparison, draw upon their knowledge of other
topics. The third case gives an analytic definition, which uses many words to define
some smaller phrase. Here the advantage is that you do not need to keep repeating
the longer and more precise definition; instead you can rely on the smaller phrase.
The final definition is by negation, in which a term's definition is established simply
by saying what it is not.
Exercise 4.4
Use each of the four methods to provide a definition for the phrase 'studying
critical thinking' in the claim 'studying critical thinking should be part of all
university curricula'.The link from premises to conclusion
In chapter 2, we identified a number of properties of claims that help us not only
to determine what a claim is, but also then to write them properly. We have already
seen how, in forming groups of dependent premises, what makes these groups work
are the similarities and differences in the way we can form claims with these
internal connections. We will in this section continue to look at this property of
claims, as well as return to a consideration of questions of scope and certainty, and