I am trying to improve my thinking and am evaluating Rationale for
possible purchase. I have a couple of questions.
Other than using a post-it as a comment and flag, is there a way to
indicate the type of logical fallacy embodied by an argument? I want
to designate a contention (and often its co-premise) a false
dichotomy, for example.
With co-premises, is there a way to designate (color code, box shape,
box outline, flag, whatever) a premise that is an assumption (hidden
co-premise)?
For the argument:
contention: The Earth is 6,000 years old.
reason: Volcanoes like Paricutin in Mexico could produce the water
required to fill the Earth's
oceans in 0.5 billion years
data: consists of some calculations designed to lend credibility to
the cited reason
As long as the argument is this simple chain (contention to reason
with data), all is well. When I add an objection (Water from erupting
volcanoes is circulated from Earth's atmosphere, surface, and oceans
through the groundwater system, out volcanoes, and back into the
atmosphere and oceans), things are still OK. The reason, however has
two hidden co-premises (thus the reason to flag them as such): 1) All
volcanoes are like Paricutin (an invalid generalization), and 2)
Because 0.5 billion years is less than the 4.5 billion years cited by
science, the Earth must be 6,000 years old (false dichotomy).
After this long setup, my question. When I add those hidden co-
premises to the reason box, the data disconnects from the initial
premise and connects to the added co-premise. The calculations do not
supplement either of the added co-premises and I can't connect the
data back to the original premise. How can I do that?
A related question concerns co-premises in a reason or objection box.
Can I have separate data boxes, one in support of each of the co-
premises?
Thanks.
Brandon Nuttall