FALLIBLE FOX

This module explores the basics of arguments and truth claims.

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When others are sharing information with us—whether it's an author, professor, or friend—it's important to ask whether they have and are sharing good reasons for their beliefs, expectations, decisions, etc. Similarly, when sharing your own views with others, it's good to ask whether you have good reasons underlying those views.

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In this module, we're ultimately interested in developing a capacity to evaluate our own arguments and those set forth by other authors and speakers. For example, what are the reasons an author uses to back up her conclusion? Are they good reasons? How do you know? Answering these sorts of questions might seem easy. Spoiler alert: it's not. Identifying parts of an argument, distinguishing good from bad reasoning, and developing your own capacity to construct reasonable arguments are much harder than you might think.

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Even understanding the basics can be hard. For example, do you understand what's meant by the term "argument" in this context? Many people have intuitions about this concept that they get stuck on—you might think we're talking about a heated verbal exchange between two people. That's one usage of the word "argument," but it's not what we're dealing with here. Complicating matters, a verbal exchange might and often does contain the sort of argument we're focusing on in this section. 

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Further, if you do know what we mean by an "argument" in this sense, are you able to determine what makes for a good argument? There's lots to consider and this is quite a bit more difficult than you'd expect. 

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As we collect some of the basic tools for identifying and evaluating arguments (and truth claims), you'll start to find gaps in your foundational understanding and, hopefully, become better equipped to evaluate the information you want to share with others and the information they're sharing with you.

 

​​Contents of This Module

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This module is organized into the below sections. Click the links to navigate to each. Below this menu, you will find the Arguments & Truth Claims Library, which contains additional resources.