The Language of Argument

4 7

A Problem and Some Solutions

A PROBLEM AND SOME SOLUTIONS

After identifying an argument and putting it in standard form, the natural

question to ask is this: Is the argument any good? If the argument is used

for justification, then we can reformulate the question like this: Do the

argument’s premises provide a good reason to believe its conclusion?

This question will occupy us in several later chapters, but some simple

examples should already be clear. Imagine that you want to buy a house,

and your real estate agent shows you a particular one that looks pretty

good. Then the agent tells you that this house will double in value over

the next ten years. You ask, “How do you know?” The agent argues, “All

of the house values in this neighborhood will double over the next ten

years, so this one will double, too.” Notice that this argument does give

you a reason to believe that the conclusion is true if you have a reason to

believe that its premise is true. However, if you have no reason to believe

the premise, then the argument gives you no reason at all to believe its

conclusion. In short, the argument is no good without a reason to believe

its premise.

How can the real estate agent solve this problem? He needs to provide

an argument for the premise, so next he argues, “All of the house values in

this city will double over the next ten years, so all of the house values in this

neighborhood will double over the next ten years.” And if you question this

new premise, he can go on to give an argument for it: “All of the house val-

ues in this state will double over the next ten years, so all of the house values

in this city will double over the next ten years.” And so on.

Now the problem should be obvious: An argument that aims at justi-

fication is no good unless its premises are justified. However, to justify a

premise, the arguer needs to give a second argument with that premise as

its conclusion. But then that second argument depends on its own premises.

The second argument is no good at justifying the premise in the first argu-

ment unless the second argument’s premises are justified themselves. But

to justify these new premises requires a third argument, and that argument

will depend on its premises being justified, which will require yet another

argument, and so on. The whole process of justification seems to go on for-

ever, requiring argument after argument without end. It now looks as if

every argument, to be successful, will have to be infinitely long.

This potential regress causes deep problems in theoretical philosophy,

leading some philosophers to adopt total skepticism. In everyday life, how-

ever, we try to avoid these problems by relying on shared beliefs—beliefs

that will not be challenged. Beyond this, we expect people to believe us when

we cite information that only we possess. But there are limits to this expecta-

tion, for we all know that people sometimes believe things that are false and

sometimes lie about what they know to be true. This presents a practical

problem: How can we present our reasons in a way that does not produce

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