One section fo chapter5 that I thought was useful for us to know is the Normal Conditions. According to the textbook, Normal Conditions are "for a causal claim, the normal conditions are the normal conditions are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported causes and purported effect is valid or strong" (Epsetin 303). An example of normal conditions is
Bob was at home by himself when the thunderstorm struck.
The power turned off because of the thunderstorm at 7:30 pm.
Bob doesn't normally stay at home by himself at 7:30 pm at night
Bob was standing next to the lamp when the power went off.
There was nothing else unusual going on at the time..
This example could keep on going for as long as we like. According to the text, in arguments, we only mentions or put in parts that we think are significant to know. We normally do not state the obvious in arguments.
Hello Rossi,
ReplyDeleteI found your summary about normal conditions quite useful. It summarizes the term and main points well and made it very easy for me to understand. It is true that we tend to overlook normal situations like this in arguments because they are simple everyday life detail that are normally not the cause of problems or unwanted results. On the contrary it is because of unusual decisions in our daily routines that tend to cause problems. Life is unexpected and it is difficult to avoid certain problems we face every day but I think that knowing what our normal conditions are helps us figure out while we analyze what was the cause of certain effects. Thus helping us avoid them in the future.