Phil 391, Issues in Critical Thinking

First assignment: Argument Description, Relatively Unguided by Theory
Due Thursday 8 July 2004 at class, or emailed before class to jwp2@humboldt.edu


Directions: Each of the following four choices asks you to describe an argument. Description is in contrast to evaluation. If you have an opinion of the argument's strength, importance, rightness or wrongness, do not make that the focus of your description. In general you should be able to imagine (and should remind yourself to imagine) the author of the argument listening to you and nodding that you've got your description right. If you cannot resist making evaluative comments, please confine them to separate paragraphs.

A. Dinesh D'Souza's op-ed piece in last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle makes a case for engaging Anti-American Muslims in debate instead of supposing they are not rational or are not open to arguments. Give a careful and complete description of his argument, including as much work as you can to clarify the issue to which he is directing his arguments.
His piece is at the Chronicle website's archives for the 4th of July paper. (You may have to copy and paste the following into your browser's address line: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/04/INGOT7CJF11.DTL)


B. Micheal Levin's "A Defense of Torture" is a now-famous example of a particular kind of argument which has been aired repeatedly since the Iraqi war began. Describe the argument, including clarification of the issue. His essay is at Prof. Andreas Teuber's home page at Brandeis University.

C. Describe the implied argument in the story ending with the line, "Yes, but remember how she dresses and how she carries herself."

D. Describe the argument in Sherman Alexie's "Poverty."

When you're poor and hungry
And love your dog
You share your food with him.
There is no love like his.
When you're poor and hungry
And your dog gets sick,
You can't afford to take him
To the veterinarian,

So you have to watch him get sicker
And cough blood and cry all night,
You can't afford to put him gently to sleep
So your uncle comes over for free
And shoots your dog twice in the head
And buries him in the town dump.