When violating the Principle of Rational Discussion, writers tend to mislead the argument and do not understand what they are talking about. With the guide of the Principle of Rational Discussion, we can distinguish whether an argument is strong or valid; if the writer understand the argument and if the argument begs the question. There are three steps to an argument needs to do to repair an argument. The steps consist of creating an argument stronger or valid, have plausible premises and have the premises more plausible than the conclusion. An example of an argument that may need repair may be...
All Filipinos can box because Manny Pacquiao is Filipino.
The premises is missing and unstated. Manny Pacquiao is a great boxer, but the argument is not plausible because not all Filipinos can box. The argument cannot be repaired because the needed premise to make the argument strong or valid makes the argument weak.
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Nice job on summarizing the topic of Repairing Arguments from Epstein’s text. I like your simple example of Manny Pacquiao as a Filipino boxer. I thought it was funny because we hear a lot of these stereotype related arguments just about everywhere! As bad as it is, there will always be stereotypes from certain ethnicities. Stereotypes are perfect examples of an argument that needs to be repaired because it cannot be accepted because it’s not always true and does not apply to everyone. Since I come from an Asian background, I would always hear the stereotype that, “Asians can do math, but they’re bad with English” or “Asian women can’t drive!” There’s a lot of stereotypes out there that is just ridiculously funny that many of us out there will believe.
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