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What are statements?

To talk about statements, well start with some examples of statements


and non-statements.
Statements

Non-statements

The trains are always late.

Welcome to the University of Auckland!

Tailgating is a top cause of car accidents.

How can I stop tailgating?

When the car ahead reaches an object,


I like bananas because they have no bones. make sure you can count tofour
crocodiles before you reach the same object.

Statements
So what makes something a statement?

Definition: Statements are the kind of sentences that are either true or
false.

As such, a statement is an assertion that something is or is not the case. A


statement is true if what it asserts is the case, and it is false if what it asserts is
not the case.
For instance, the statement The trains are always late is only true if what it
describes is the case, i.e., if it is actually the case that the trains are always late.
This is false in Auckland. Sometimes trains are on time, and sometimes they
are early. Someone may impatiently complain that the trains are always late to
express their exasperation with the train system, but strictly speaking what they
say is false.
It is true that bananas have no bones, and I do like bananas, but I like bananas
because they are tasty and healthy, not because they have no bones. I would
thus say something false if I said I like bananas because they have no bones.
Thats why I like bananas because they have no bones is a statement. It is the
kind of sentence that is either true or false in this case false.

Non-statements
However, it doesnt make sense to say that the sentence Welcome to the
University of Auckland! is either true or false. Wouldnt you be puzzled if
someone answered true in response to the greetings. It wouldnt be an
appropriate answer. How can I stop tailgating? is a question; the sentence
doesnt express something that is either true or false.

Finally, When the car ahead reaches an object, make sure you can count
to four crocodiles before you reach the same object. is advice. It advises you to
make sure you can count up to four crocodiles (one crocodile, two crocodiles,
,four crocodiles) before you reach the same object as the car preceding you.
Try it! Youll be a much safer driver (thats a true statement!).

More about Statements


So sentences that can be true or false are statements. Quite simple. But things
can get more complicated. Lets see how.
Something can be a statement even if we dont know whether its true or false.
All that matters about statements is that they are the kind of things that can be
true or false, not that we know whether they are true or false. For instance:

Ivan Slotvsky, the famous Irish builder of Madrid, is eating ham steaks
and chutney at this very moment.

True or false? I dont know. But it is the kind of thing that could be true or false.
Heres another one:

Sometime in the next 39 years, I will have a creepy next door neighbour.

So far, so good. Ive been lucky and I havent had a creepy next door neighbour.
But the statement is true if it will be the case some day that I have a creepy next
door neighbour in the next 39 years. Otherwise, the statement is false. But I
dont know whether the statement is true or false. Regardless, what matters is
that this sentence is the kind of thing that is true or false.
Another example:

Vero is part of Promina

I have no idea what Vero or Promina are. But the sentence expresses
something that is either true or false.
The same statement can be true on some occasions and false in others. That
is, statements are not always true or always false.
Heres an example:

Im a Kiwi.

This statement is true of Tim, and its false of Patrick. Or the statement

Patrick is a happily married man.

was false before Patrick got married, it is true now (while Im typing this), and it
may become false in the future.

Ambiguous Statements
One difficulty with statements is that they may sometimes express two different
things. We call those ambiguous statements. Heres an example:

John greeted everybody with a smile.

What are the two states of affairs that this statement may be describing? Try
and answer this for yourself before proceeding.
Answer:
1. John was smiling and then he greeted everybody. In this case, its true
that he greeted everybody with a smile - his smile.
2. Maybe there were smiling people and non-smiling people, and John only
greeted the ones that were smiling.
The sentence John greeted everybody with a smile can thus be used to
describe two different things. Thats what makes it ambiguous.
You need to be careful about this. If you use ambiguous statements, you run the
risk of having others misunderstanding what you are saying. In some cases,
what others think you are saying may be very different from what you were
trying to express. For example, Tim is an early bird. He gets up early every
morning, and always before his wife. Now, suppose he tried to express this by
saying:

I beat my wife up everyday.

That would most certainly be taken the wrong way. Try and make sure you dont
use ambiguous sentences!

Questions and Commands


In the second list of non-statements, we had questions and commands, and
those are typically not statements.

If humans evolved from monkeys, how come we still have monkeys?

This question does not express something that can be true or false. It makes no
sense to respond true or false when you hear it. Its not a statement. Notice
that a part of the statement is a statement, namely humans evolved from
monkeys. This is a false statement. Humans did not evolve from monkeys.

Humans and monkeys, and apes in general, have a common ancestor which is
no longer around. Even though the question contains as a part a false
statement, it doesnt make the question itself something that is true or false.
Sometimes, however, in a special context, the same question could be used to
express a statement. Can you imagine a context in which someone might use
this question to express something that is true or false? If so, then presumably
the person would be using the question to express that it is false that humans
evolved from monkeys, since there are still monkeys. We call questions that are
used to express statementsrhetorical questions. When you see a rhetorical
question, you should always rephrase it as a statement. In our case, the
statement would be something like this:

Humans did not evolve from monkeys, because we still have monkeys.

Summary
In summary, statements are the kind of sentences that are either true or false.
Sentences are ambiguous when they can be used to express several
statements. When you have an ambiguous sentence, you need to decide which
statement it is being used to express. Questions, commands and advice are
typically not statements, because they do not express something that is either
true or false. But sometimes people use them rhetorically to express
statements. We saw an example of a question which by itself is not a statement,
but can be used to express a statement. When you see rhetorical questions,
always rephrase them as statements.

What are arguments?


In the previous article, we discussed what statements are. Statements are
the kind of sentences that can be true or false. When someone is trying to
persuade you to believe something, they will express this as a statement.
But how do you know if what they are trying to persuade you of is true or false?
Unless they just want you to take their word for it without further discussion
and you probably shouldntthey will give you reasons in support of their views.
Those reasons will also be expressed as statements. Together, all those
statements form what we call anargument. This course is all about developing
skills to evaluate whether arguments are good or bad. We will talk about good
and bad arguments later. Before that, we need to be clear on what arguments
are, and how to recognise them.

Definition: An Argument is a group of statements some of which,


thepremises, are offered in support of others, the conclusions.

You can think of the premises of an argument as reasons that are given in
support of a view, which is expressed in the conclusion of the argument. In most
cases, arguments only have one conclusion. To simplify things, we will treat

arguments as if they only had one conclusion. If we (and you!) encounter


arguments that have more than one conclusion, we will make this explicit.
Lets see a very simple example of an argument:
Stan was driving his truck over the speed limit. He had no excuse for driving
over the speed limit. Furthermore, he was intoxicated. Therefore, Stan was
breaking the law.
We can easily isolate the conclusion:

Stan was breaking the law.

Notice that we do not include the word therefore when we state the conclusion.
The word therefore is not part of the statement that forms the conclusion.
All other statements are premises. We have:

Stan was driving his truck over the speed limit.

Stan had no excuse for driving over the speed limit.

Stan was intoxicated.

The word therefore is what we call a conclusion indicator. It is very common to


use a conclusion indicator to stress the part of an argument that is being argued
for. Arguments can also have premise indicators. Conclusion and premise
indicators are words that are used to make clear which statements are premises
and which statements are conclusions in arguments. Heres a list of the most
common ones.
Conclusion indicators

Premise indicators

Therefore

Because

Thus

Since

Hence

Supposing that

Consequently

Assuming that

Ergo

Given that

Indicator words are not always present in arguments. You may have
conclusions that are not accompanied by conclusion indicators. But typically,
the rule of thumb is that if you have a conclusion indicator, then the statement to
which it is attached is the conclusion of the argument. And likewise with
premises.

When arguments are given to you in the wild, theyre not always presented in
such a clear way. We will show you lots of examples of arguments, and you will
see that they quite often look very messy. This means that you will have to do
some work to identify the conclusion and the premises. And this is generally far
from easy. Because of that, we will represent arguments always in the same
format, which we call thestandard form of an argument.
Non-arguments

You can think of arguments as ways to gather information and to acquire


new beliefs. But information is not always given in the form of arguments.
It might be that youre reading some opinion piece in the newspapers, or
maybe youre listening to talk-back radio, or youre talking with your
friends on some hot topic, and theyre not really trying to make a point by
using an argument. Sometimes people assert their beliefs without giving
reasons; all they do is tell you what they believe. But stating beliefs is not
giving arguments!
Things that may look like arguments but are not, and are thus misconstrued as
arguments, are explanations, reports, instructions, and so on. Lets look at
some of those.

Explanations

An explanation is a statement or collection of statements


assertingwhy or how something is the case.

Like arguments, explanations are typically presented as collections of


statements. In explanations, however, statements are not presented as reasons
to believe other statements; they are not presented as premises. Statements in
explanations are trying to make you understand something, not trying to
convince you that you should believe it.
Heres an example:
In 2014, we introduced a new textbook in the Critical Thinking course taught at
The University of Auckland, and we negotiated with the publishers to have a
discount for Auckland students. It was agreed with the publisher that the
textbook would cost $95, but the book was listed at $130. When students
complained about the price, we called the publisher. Eventually, we understood
what happened: the textbook was more expensive than we expected because
the person with whom we had made an agreement on a reduced price for the
University of Auckland had left the company, and the new employee wasnt
aware of the agreement. At some point, the agreement was lost, and thats why
we didnt get the discount.

We gave an explanation to our students to make them understand why the


textbook was sold at $130 instead of $95. We werent arguing that the
book should be sold at $130. We instead gave an argument to the publisher
that they should reduce the price to $95 as negotiated and reimburse students.
And they did.

Advice
Like explanations, advices are not an argument, even when expressed as
collection of statements.
Suppose Carol says:

A good way to stop your dog from getting fleas is to spray them with cider
vinegar.

With this advice, Carol isnt arguing that we should spray our dogs with cider
vinegar. (Dont try it, it doesnt work!) She was just giving us a way of trying to
get rid of the fleas. The advice, however, could be used as part of an argument,
since it is a statement. The argument could have as a conclusion that you
should spray your dog with cider vinegar, as in:
Your dog has fleas, and a good way to get rid of fleas is to spray your dog with
cider vinegar. Therefore, you should spray your dog with cider vinegar.
But on its own, an advice is not an argument.

Instructions
Instructions are not arguments either. Think about instructions to make a cake.
You take flour, and then you put in an egg, and then you put in some milk, and
you throw the thing in the oven, and eventually you get a cake. The instructions
are not providing reasons for anything. Generally, instructions are not trying to
make a point, they dont have conclusions, and therefore, are not arguments.

Argument or not?
Its not always easy to spot arguments, and its not always clear whether or not
we have arguments. Heres an example, taken from Bobby McFerrins
song Dont Worry, Be Happy:
Listen to what I say. In your life, its quite some trouble. When you worry, you
make it double. Dont worry. Be happy.
Does this passage from the song contain an argument? If it did, we would have
a conclusion, maybe something like:

You shouldnt worry.

Or maybe:

You should be happy.

Notice that dont worry, be happy is not a statement, so we need to rephrase it


as a proper statement, i.e., as something that is either true or false.
However, its not clear that this passage in the song really is trying to establish a
point, thought theres this other part:
When youre worried, your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down.
So dont worry. Be happy. Dont worry. Be happy now.
Maybe theres an argument here. An indication that we may be facing an
argument is the indicator word so, a conclusion indicator. And it seems
formulated as reasons that you shouldnt worry and that you should be happy.
So maybe theres an argument:
If you worry, then your face frowns. If your face frowns, that brings everybody
down. So if youre worried, that brings everybody down. So you shouldnt worry,
and you should be happy.
The lesson to learn from this is that it is not always easy to identify arguments.
Sometimes it looks as though some information is presented as an argument
when it is not. Sometimes when people try to express themselves, they are
trying to convince you of something, but they may not succeed in presenting
their view as an argument. They may express their views without providing
reasons for believing their views.

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