An argument is composed of premises and a conclusion. You cannot believe in the conclusion, unless you are justified in believing that the premises are true. In order for the premises to be justified, they need to be backed up by an argument, but the argument has its promises of its own, they need to be backed up by another argument, and so on and so on. Then, we will be in trouble, because you have to regress back to one argument after another after another ...
How should we solve the problem of skeptical regress in our everyday life? Well, there are tricks for dealing with this problem:
- Assure the audience
- Authoritative: cites an authority (a research, professor, ...)
- Reflexive: I believe that, I feel sure that, I learned after thinking a lot
- Abusive (sounds familiar!): It is non-sense, Everybody knows, it is common-sense,...
- Guard your claim: weaken your premises to make the claim easier to defend
- Extent: all > most > many > some ...
- Probability: certainly > probably/likely > there is a chance > might have ...
- Mental: I know > I believe > I tend to (am inclined) to believe ...
- Discount the objection: citing a possible criticism in order to reject it or counter it
- By using: but, although, even if, even though, whereas, nevertheless, still
- "This ring is expensive, but it is beautiful."
- The Trick of Discounting Straw People (if you want to just persuade people about your theory, and you really don't want to know whether your theory is right or wrong)
- The arguer discounts easy objections (by naming several easy objections) to make people overlook the more difficult objections.
- The Trick of Discounting Straw People together with Misuses of Guarding and Assuring
- "I think the president is in favor of a public health service, but a public health service is not going to solve all of the medical problems of our people."
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