The Language of Argument

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cH A Pt eR 5 ■ D e e p A n a l y s i s

husbands are men and wives are women. We do not usually state these lin-

guistic principles, for to do so will often violate the rule of Quantity. (Try to

imagine a context in which you would come right out and say, “Husbands,

you know, are men.” Unless you were speaking to someone just learning the

language, this would be a peculiar remark.) Nonetheless, even if it would usu-

ally be peculiar to come right out and state such linguistic principles, our ar-

guments still typically presuppose them. This observation reveals yet another

way in which our daily use of language moves within a rich, though largely

unnoticed, framework of linguistic rules, as we emphasized in Chapter 2.

Evaluative Suppressed Premises

We have examined two kinds of suppressed premises, factual and linguis-

tic. Many arguments also contain unstated evaluative premises. As we saw

in Chapter 3, evaluation comes in many kinds. The following argument in-

volves moral evaluation:

It is immoral to buy pornography, because pornography leads to

violence toward women.

This argument clearly relies on the moral principle that it is immoral to buy

anything that leads to violence toward women. A different example contains

religious premises:

You shouldn’t take the name of the Lord in vain, for this shows disrespect.

The suppressed premise here is that you should not do anything that shows

disrespect (to the Lord). One more example is about economics:

It is unwise to invest all of your money in one stock, since this increases

the risk that you will lose everything.

The suppressed premise here is that it is unwise to increase the risk that you

will lose everything. More examples could be given, but the point should be

clear. Most arguments depend on unstated assumptions, and many of these

assumptions are evaluative in one way or another.

Uses and Abuses of Suppressed Premises

Talk about suppressed premises may bring to mind suppressing a rebellion or

an ugly thought, and using hidden premises may sound somewhat sneaky.

However, the way we are using them, these expressions do not carry such

negative connotations. A suppressed or hidden premise is simply an unstated

premise. It is often legitimate to leave premises unstated. It is legitimate if

(1) those who are given the argument can easily supply these unstated premises

for themselves, and (2) the unstated premises are not themselves controversial.

If done properly, the suppression of premises can add greatly to the efficiency

of language. Indeed, without the judicious suppression of obvious premises,

many arguments would become too cumbersome to be effective.

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