Monday, March 21, 2011
Chapter 8
All general claims can be contradicted in some way. If I claim that college is a waste of money, someone can obviously come in and contradict this claim by saying college is not a waste of money, but in fact is a great investment. General claims can of course be contradicted because they are so general. General claims can involve the use of some and all. Some meaning everyone except one, and all means there is no exception. Some people, instead of using all, say every. I like to use all more often, because every always conjures up more arguments than necessary. More common of the two is definitely “every”. I use every more often because it is more common vernacular. Using every does create problems sometimes because people, when they hear every, always want to pick apart the claim and try to find that one exception to the rule. I guess it kind of goes back to the use of the word every. We use every in exaggeration of things that should not be used for every.
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This is true general claims can be contradicted like the example you gave. The claim that college is a waste of money, but some might say that it is worth it therefore it cannot be a waste of time. This claim is so general that it can be contradicted because not everyone thinks that this is true or false. It really depends on the person perception of this claim. Depending on their certain situation they might say otherwise. This really is a subjective claim because it is more based on some one’s opinion rather then plain facts. Overall good interpretation of this concept.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people use the word "every" very loosely and especially when they exaggerate. My roommate always comes back with stories of how EVERYONE in her class did terrible on their midterms, but in the back of my head sometimes I wonder - "Are you EVERYONE? Or just some of the people you sit around??" I guess I am one of those people who like to pick apart the claim especially when they use the word every, because it is asking for an argument unless they have facts to back up their claim. I’m not sure if ‘all’ would be a better word to replace with every because some people would think they’re one in the same, or maybe that’s just me.
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