WEBVTT 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:06.953 Now that we understand validity, we can use the notion of validity in 00:00:06.953 --> 00:00:12.009 reconstructing arguments. Now, the point of reconstructing an argument is to put it 00:00:12.009 --> 00:00:17.064 in a shape that makes it easier for us to assess the argument more accurately and 00:00:17.064 --> 00:00:22.105 fairly for whether it's a good argument or a bad argument. And when we do the 00:00:22.105 --> 00:00:26.726 reconstruction, remember, you want to make it as good an argument as possible because 00:00:26.726 --> 00:00:31.237 you don't learn anything from putting down your enemies by making them look silly, 00:00:31.237 --> 00:00:35.804 right? If you want to learn from somebody else's argument, you need to put it in the 00:00:35.804 --> 00:00:40.326 best shape you can to make it look as good as possible. So, that's going to be the 00:00:40.326 --> 00:00:45.466 goal of reconstruction. And we are going to accomplish that goal in a series of 00:00:45.466 --> 00:00:50.541 stages. The first stage simply to do a close analysis and we talked about that 00:00:50.541 --> 00:00:55.617 last week. The second stage is to get down to basics. That is to remove all the 00:00:55.617 --> 00:01:00.301 excess words and focus on the premises and conclusions that really make up the 00:01:00.301 --> 00:01:05.508 argument and then put those into standard form. The third stage is to clarify those 00:01:05.508 --> 00:01:09.627 premises. They're not always going to be as clear as you like and that's going to 00:01:09.985 --> 00:01:14.522 take some work and it's going to include breaking them into parts. And then, the 00:01:14.522 --> 00:01:19.058 next stage is to take those parts and organize them, to put them in order, so 00:01:19.058 --> 00:01:24.493 you can see how the argument flows from one part to another. But not all arguments 00:01:24.493 --> 00:01:29.584 are complete so the next stage, we have to fill in the gaps, that is supply 00:01:29.584 --> 00:01:34.765 suppressed premises. And once we've done that, then the final stage is going to be 00:01:34.765 --> 00:01:39.069 assess the argument. If we are able to come up with a sound reconstruction, we 00:01:39.069 --> 00:01:43.934 know that the conclusion has to be true. Because as we learned in the previous 00:01:43.934 --> 00:01:48.824 lecture, the conclusion of sound arguments is always true. But if we don't come up 00:01:48.824 --> 00:01:53.050 with a sound reconstruction, then we've got to decide, is it the fault of the 00:01:53.050 --> 00:01:57.832 argument or is it our own fault because we didn't come up with a sound reconstruction 00:01:57.832 --> 00:02:01.780 when there really is one that we didn't find. So, that's going to be something we 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:05.839 have to discuss. We're g oing to discuss all of these stages over the next few 00:02:05.839 --> 00:02:10.304 lectures. Now, the first stage of reconstruction is to do a close analysis. 00:02:10.304 --> 00:02:15.322 But we already learned how to do that, that was easy. Boy, I hope the rest of 00:02:15.322 --> 00:02:20.880 them are that easy. This lecture is mainly going to be about the second stage, namely 00:02:20.880 --> 00:02:26.233 getting down to basics. And what we want to do is to pull out the explicit premise 00:02:26.233 --> 00:02:31.873 and conclusion from all the other words around it. And the first step is to remove 00:02:31.873 --> 00:02:36.786 all the excess verbiage. You know, it might seem very surprising but people 00:02:36.786 --> 00:02:41.632 often repeat themselves, I'm sure you've all run into it. I mean, you listen to 00:02:41.632 --> 00:02:47.141 somebody give a, a talk and it takes them fifty minutes to say what they could have 00:02:47.141 --> 00:02:52.651 said easily in five minutes and one of the reasons is that they say everything ten 00:02:52.651 --> 00:02:57.051 times. You know, for instance, people often say the same thing twice, they 00:02:57.051 --> 00:03:02.160 repeat themselves. They say the same thing over again and they restate the point in 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:07.023 different words and they utter sentences that mean the same thing. And they say 00:03:07.023 --> 00:03:12.071 something and then, you know, they say it again and they make a claim twice or more. 00:03:12.071 --> 00:03:17.303 They exert exactly what they just said and they reformulate their claim in different 00:03:17.303 --> 00:03:22.104 words that are equivalent. They say it once and then, they say it again, you get 00:03:22.104 --> 00:03:27.610 the idea. Now, here is a real example from a US politician during a debate. I'm going 00:03:27.040 --> 00:03:34.457 to be honest with people, we can't eliminate this deficit. People have heard 00:03:34.457 --> 00:03:42.160 that over and over again in four years, we cannot do it, we're in too deep a hole. 00:03:43.380 --> 00:03:49.404 Now, if you think about it, it's going to be obvious that we cannot do it. Repeats, 00:03:49.404 --> 00:03:54.895 we can't eliminate this deficit, cuz that's what it's doing, it is eliminating 00:03:54.895 --> 00:04:00.733 the deficit. But also, we're in too deep a hole. Well, that's just a metaphorical way 00:04:00.733 --> 00:04:05.805 of saying the same thing. Why is the hole too deep? Because we can't get out of it. 00:04:05.805 --> 00:04:10.688 What hole is it? It's the deficit hole. So, to say we can't get out of this hole, 00:04:10.688 --> 00:04:15.446 we're in too deep a hole. It's just another way of saying we can't eliminate 00:04:15.446 --> 00:04:20.330 the deficit. So, in these three lin es, he's already repeated himself three times. 00:04:20.330 --> 00:04:24.856 Now, why does this politician repeat himself? It might be that he thinks people 00:04:24.856 --> 00:04:29.498 will remember it better or one version will make more sense than another. But he 00:04:29.498 --> 00:04:34.489 might have a special reason cuz this was a live debate and he had to give a 90-second 00:04:34.489 --> 00:04:39.131 answer. So, he had to fill up the time. Sometimes people repeat themselves just to 00:04:39.131 --> 00:04:43.890 fill up the time or maybe to give himself time to think cuz he didn't have a real 00:04:43.890 --> 00:04:48.474 answer ready yet and repeating himself is easy while he thinks about what he's 00:04:48.474 --> 00:04:52.818 really going to say in the next few sentences. Fine. But repeating it still 00:04:52.818 --> 00:04:58.232 doesn't make the argument any better and we want to get down to the basics of the 00:04:58.232 --> 00:05:04.043 argument that is the parts of the argument that really affect how good it is, so we 00:05:04.043 --> 00:05:09.589 can cross out those repetitions that don't make the argument any better. So first, we 00:05:09.589 --> 00:05:15.041 can cross out we cannot do it. Then, we can cross out, we're in too deep a hole. 00:05:15.041 --> 00:05:20.139 We already saw that those are just repeating the claim that we can't 00:05:20.139 --> 00:05:26.270 eliminate the deficit. In addition, we can cross out, I want to be honest with people 00:05:26.270 --> 00:05:32.084 because that's not a reason to believe we're in too deep a deficit. And next, we 00:05:32.084 --> 00:05:37.922 can cross out that people have heard that over and over again in four years. Well, 00:05:37.922 --> 00:05:43.977 that might be seen as a reason to believe that we're in a deficit because everybody 00:05:43.977 --> 00:05:49.743 seems to say it, but let's assume that's not part of his argument here and we'll 00:05:49.743 --> 00:05:55.746 cross it out. Now, let's move on. A second form of excess verbiage that is words that 00:05:55.746 --> 00:06:00.861 don't contribute to the force of the argument is what I like to call road 00:06:00.861 --> 00:06:05.846 markers. A lot of times, people, you know, good speakers, they tell you what topic 00:06:05.846 --> 00:06:11.026 they are talking about and why they are talking about it. Why it's important and 00:06:11.026 --> 00:06:16.270 worth talking about. But to say why it's an important issue and to say what issue 00:06:16.270 --> 00:06:21.384 it is, doesn't provide any reason to believe that what they say about the issue 00:06:21.384 --> 00:06:25.834 is true or false. So, it doesn't contribute to the argument. Here's an 00:06:25.834 --> 00:06:30.875 example from the same politician in the same debate as we j ust saw. This 00:06:30.875 --> 00:06:37.193 politician said, now, I want to go back to the whole issue of healthcare, because we 00:06:37.193 --> 00:06:43.049 touched it, and I think the American people deserve to know what we would do 00:06:43.049 --> 00:06:48.399 different. And notice that he says, he's going to talk about healthcare but he 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:53.273 doesn't say anything about healthcare. He didn't tell you what he's going to say 00:06:53.273 --> 00:06:58.273 about healthcare. All he says is he wants to go back to that issue. And he tells you 00:06:58.273 --> 00:07:03.522 why he wants to go back to that issue. But he doesn't add any reason to believe that 00:07:03.522 --> 00:07:08.020 what he's about to say about the issue is true. Now, this can, of course, still be 00:07:08.020 --> 00:07:12.702 useful because you might get confused about what the issue is and he might be 00:07:12.702 --> 00:07:17.743 changing the topic and he wants to signal that he is changing the topic, and that 00:07:17.263 --> 00:07:22.005 will help his listeners. But it still doesn't add to the argument, it doesn't 00:07:22.005 --> 00:07:26.506 give you any reason for the conclusion that he's going to want to draw. We can 00:07:26.506 --> 00:07:31.368 cross out these excess words. we can cross out, now, I want to go back to the whole 00:07:31.368 --> 00:07:36.109 issue of healthcare because that doesn't show that his views on healthcare are 00:07:36.109 --> 00:07:40.451 correct. And we can cross out because we touched it. That's a reason why we're 00:07:40.451 --> 00:07:44.760 going to that issue, but again, that doesn't give any reason why his views are 00:07:44.760 --> 00:07:49.404 correct. And we can even cross out, but I think the American people deserve to know 00:07:49.404 --> 00:07:53.993 what we would do different because the fact that they deserve to know what you're 00:07:53.993 --> 00:07:58.246 going to do doesn't show that what you're going to do is the right thing to do. So, 00:07:58.246 --> 00:08:02.667 none of these claims are really reasons that are going to be reasons for the main 00:08:02.667 --> 00:08:07.256 part of his argument, which is to support the particular views on healthcare that 00:08:07.256 --> 00:08:12.182 he's going to tell you about a few seconds after this. The next type of excess 00:08:12.182 --> 00:08:18.920 verbiage is tangents. People go off on tangents all the time. Here's an example. 00:08:19.580 --> 00:08:24.224 You know, you really ought to think about taking a History course. I, I still 00:08:24.224 --> 00:08:29.179 remember my History courses in college. There was this one time when, there was a 00:08:29.179 --> 00:08:34.010 dog that one of the students brought to class and, and the dog like barked and 00:08:34.010 --> 00:08:38.593 then he ran up on stage and he, he cut under the professor and knocked the 00:08:38.593 --> 00:08:43.671 professor on his rear-end. It was really funny. So, you know, I think that History 00:08:43.671 --> 00:08:49.339 is a good thing to study. Now, notice that all this stuff about the dog has nothing 00:08:49.339 --> 00:08:54.465 to do with History. It's no reason to take a History course instead of a Philosophy 00:08:54.465 --> 00:08:59.343 course or a Classics course or a Science course. The same thing could happen in 00:08:59.343 --> 00:09:03.975 those courses just as well. So, the tangent plays a certain role. It makes it 00:09:03.975 --> 00:09:08.730 interesting. It keeps your attention. Maybe it makes it memorable for you, what 00:09:08.730 --> 00:09:13.732 he said. But it doesn't actually provide a reason why you ought to take a History 00:09:13.732 --> 00:09:20.428 course. So, since those parts of the words were just a tangent that don't provide any 00:09:20.428 --> 00:09:26.546 reason we can cross them out, too, because they are excess verbiage. But sometimes, 00:09:26.546 --> 00:09:32.253 people go off on irrelevant tangents. Not just by accident because they lose their 00:09:32.253 --> 00:09:37.404 train of thought, but because they're trying to fool you. They're trying to 00:09:37.404 --> 00:09:42.983 produce what is called a red herring. The name red hearing supposedly comes from 00:09:42.983 --> 00:09:48.322 somebody who crossed the red herring over the trail and then the hound couldn't 00:09:48.322 --> 00:09:53.394 track its scent anymore. And that's basically what's going on here. Sometimes, 00:09:53.394 --> 00:09:58.866 people produce tangents that distracts you from the main line of argument because 00:09:58.866 --> 00:10:03.871 they know that there are weaknesses in that line of argument and they don't want 00:10:03.871 --> 00:10:08.659 you to notice them. That's what a red herring is. And it's a type of tangent 00:10:08.659 --> 00:10:14.249 that you have to learn to watch out for. Because if you want to see the problems in 00:10:14.249 --> 00:10:19.908 your opponent's arguments or even in your friend's arguments, then you need to not 00:10:19.908 --> 00:10:26.143 get distracted by tangents that are in effect red herrings. Yet, another example 00:10:26.143 --> 00:10:33.872 of excess verbiage is, well, examples. Here's an example of that. A different 00:10:33.872 --> 00:10:40.330 politician in the same debate said this. Here's what happened. In the time that 00:10:40.330 --> 00:10:46.939 they have been in office in the last four years, 1.6 million private sector jobs 00:10:46.939 --> 00:10:53.622 have been lost, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. And it's had real 00:10:53.622 --> 00:10:59.277 consequences in places like Cle veland. Cleveland is a wonderful distinguished 00:10:59.277 --> 00:11:05.151 city. It's done a lot of great things, but it has the highest poverty rate in the 00:11:05.151 --> 00:11:12.174 country. One out of almost two children in Cleveland are now living in poverty. Now, 00:11:12.174 --> 00:11:18.310 notice that this politician is talking about the unemployment rate in the rest of 00:11:18.310 --> 00:11:23.619 the country, in the country as a whole. So, why bring in Cleveland? Well, you 00:11:23.619 --> 00:11:28.357 might be saying that Cleveland shows that there's problems throughout the rest of 00:11:28.357 --> 00:11:32.863 the country, but that can't be right because Cleveland is just one example. And 00:11:32.863 --> 00:11:37.081 it might be an outlier that doesn't represent the general trends. So, what 00:11:37.081 --> 00:11:41.587 he's doing with this example is he's trying to bring it down the home, and make 00:11:41.587 --> 00:11:45.983 you feel for the real effects. But he doesn't come out and say that you can 00:11:45.983 --> 00:11:50.861 generalize from Cleveland to the rest of the country, or that everyone else is 00:11:50.861 --> 00:11:55.427 suffering in exactly the same way. He's just giving one example. And so, it 00:11:55.427 --> 00:12:00.181 doesn't really support his general claim that the unemployment is a problem 00:12:00.181 --> 00:12:05.859 throughout the whole country. That means that it's not an extra premise in the 00:12:05.859 --> 00:12:12.695 argument and we can cross it out like other forms of excess verbiage. Now, we've 00:12:12.695 --> 00:12:19.358 seen that excess verbiage can take the form of repetition or road markers or 00:12:19.358 --> 00:12:26.165 tangents or examples. And people use these a lot. Matter of fact, I like to think of 00:12:26.165 --> 00:12:32.158 a general trick that people use called the trick of excess verbiage. A lot of people 00:12:32.158 --> 00:12:37.938 talk too much and they keep saying things over and over again, go off on tangents, 00:12:37.938 --> 00:12:43.646 and give more examples than they really need. And all of that is a way of hiding 00:12:43.646 --> 00:12:49.282 the problem with their position. It's a trick to use too many words because the 00:12:49.282 --> 00:12:55.151 real point gets lost in the middle of those words. So, you can fool people by 00:12:55.151 --> 00:13:02.320 throwing in those extra words. That's the trick of excess verbiage but be careful. 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:07.615 What seems like excess verbiage that's just there to trick you might really be an 00:13:07.615 --> 00:13:12.513 essential part of the argument. So what you need to do when you have a passage and 00:13:12.513 --> 00:13:17.352 you're trying to get the argument out of it, is to cross out all the exc ess words 00:13:17.352 --> 00:13:22.094 but also look at what's left over. If what's left over is enough premises and 00:13:22.094 --> 00:13:27.039 conclusion to make a good argument, then the stuff that you crossed out probably 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:31.862 really is excess. But if it turns out that what's left over is not a very good 00:13:31.862 --> 00:13:37.117 argument, to autocheck all those words you crossed out and make sure they really 00:13:37.117 --> 00:13:41.444 weren't necessary. Cuz you're not being fair to the person that you're 00:13:41.444 --> 00:13:46.143 interpreting if you crossed out something that was an essential part of the 00:13:46.143 --> 00:13:51.823 argument. And some cases are going to be tricky. Its not going to be clear whether 00:13:51.823 --> 00:13:57.840 or not to cross the noun. Some small words that are tricky are guarding terms. Here 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:03.490 is an example. I think Miranda is at home so we can meet her there. What's the 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:09.433 guarding word? You already found that out when you did the close analysis, right? I 00:14:09.433 --> 00:14:15.524 think. Now, one way to read this argument is that the premises I think Miranda is at 00:14:15.524 --> 00:14:20.848 home and the conclusion is we can meet her there. But that's kind of weird because 00:14:20.848 --> 00:14:25.478 the fact that you think she is at home is not what makes it true that you can meet 00:14:25.478 --> 00:14:28.811 her there, it's the fact that she is at home that can make it the case that you 00:14:28.811 --> 00:14:32.840 can meet her there. So, if the premise is about what you think, and the conclusion 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:37.302 is about where she is and where you can meet her, then the argument doesn't make 00:14:37.302 --> 00:14:42.423 any sense. So, in this case, what we want to do is to cross out the words I think, 00:14:42.423 --> 00:14:47.395 because that's going to make the argument silly and the argument really amounts to, 00:14:47.395 --> 00:14:52.242 Miranda is at home, so we can meet her there. And the I think covers that whole 00:14:52.242 --> 00:14:57.276 thing. It's saying, I think she's at home, so I think we can meet her there. But the 00:14:57.276 --> 00:15:02.751 argument doesn't involve some premise about what your thoughts are and contrast 00:15:02.751 --> 00:15:08.741 this with a different argument. Miranda is at home, so we can probably meet her 00:15:08.741 --> 00:15:15.174 there. Now, there's another guarding term, right? Probably. Can you get rid of that? 00:15:15.174 --> 00:15:20.062 Well, then the argument becomes Miranda is at home, so we can meet her there. But 00:15:20.062 --> 00:15:24.527 that's clearly not what the speaker was trying to say, if they included the word 00:15:24.527 --> 00:15:27.373 probab ly. They realized that the fact that she's at 00:15:27.373 --> 00:15:31.837 home right now doesn't mean that we can meet her there because it might take us 00:15:31.837 --> 00:15:36.301 awhile to get there and she might leave while we're on the way. So, it's not fair 00:15:36.301 --> 00:15:40.989 to the person giving the argument. And it makes the argument look worse to cross out 00:15:40.989 --> 00:15:45.617 the word, probably. So, in that case, you want to keep the guarding term in order to 00:15:45.617 --> 00:15:50.542 properly represent the force of the argument. So, it looks like sometimes, you 00:15:50.542 --> 00:15:55.533 need to keep the guarding terms and sometimes, you need to cross them out. And 00:15:55.533 --> 00:16:00.588 there's not going to be any strict rule that you can follow. You have to use your 00:16:00.588 --> 00:16:05.578 sense of what's going to make the argument as good as possible. What's going to fit 00:16:05.578 --> 00:16:11.810 what the speaker was really trying to say. Another tricky case is assuring terms. 00:16:11.810 --> 00:16:17.086 Suppose I'm writing a letter of recommendation and I say, he is clearly a 00:16:17.086 --> 00:16:24.900 great worker. I know that. So, you ought to hire him. The assuring terms are 00:16:24.900 --> 00:16:31.528 clearly and I know that. But now, the question is, is the argument really first 00:16:31.528 --> 00:16:37.041 premise, he's clearly a great worker. Second premise, I know that. Conclusion, 00:16:37.041 --> 00:16:41.966 you ought to hire him. It's kind of weird. Again, if you think about it, cuz you're 00:16:41.966 --> 00:16:46.555 not hiring him because it's clear. If he's a great worker but it's not clear that 00:16:46.555 --> 00:16:50.974 he's a great worker, then you're still ought to hire him because he is a great 00:16:50.974 --> 00:16:55.506 worker. Or if he's a great worker and I don't know he's a great worker, you still 00:16:55.506 --> 00:17:00.209 ought to hire him cuz he's a great worker. The fact that I know it is irrelevant to 00:17:00.209 --> 00:17:04.798 whether you want to hire him cuz that's about my mental states not his abilities. 00:17:04.798 --> 00:17:09.047 So, that representation of the argument doesn't really capture the force of 00:17:09.047 --> 00:17:14.070 somebody who writes this letter of recommendation. So, we can cross out the 00:17:14.070 --> 00:17:19.897 words I know that and we can cross out clearly, and then the argument is he's a 00:17:19.897 --> 00:17:27.258 great worker so you ought to hire him. But contrast this example. I am certain that 00:17:27.258 --> 00:17:33.928 Jacob is cheating on his wife, so I ougt to tell her. Now, you might think I am 00:17:33.928 --> 00:17:38.017 certain that is just another assuring term so we can cross it ou t. 00:17:38.017 --> 00:17:42.912 And then, the real argument is Jacob is cheating on his wife so I ought to tell 00:17:42.912 --> 00:17:48.602 her. But now, think about that argument. The mere fact that he's cheating on his 00:17:48.602 --> 00:17:53.207 wife doesn't mean I ought to tell her if I'm not certain cuz if I have some 00:17:53.207 --> 00:17:57.932 suspicions or I'm just guessing, but I really don't know, then I probably ought 00:17:57.932 --> 00:18:02.883 not to tell Jacob's wife that, you know, Jacob was cheating on her. So here, the 00:18:02.883 --> 00:18:09.161 force of the argument, does seem to depend on my certainty. If I'm not certain, I 00:18:09.161 --> 00:18:14.162 shouldn't tell her. If I am certain, maybe I should. So, we can't cross out the 00:18:14.162 --> 00:18:19.405 assuring term in this case cuz that would distort the argument. And, of course, some 00:18:19.405 --> 00:18:23.165 people might disagree with that. They might say, well, look, if you have some 00:18:23.165 --> 00:18:27.143 reason but your not certain then you ought to tell her and that could be 00:18:27.143 --> 00:18:32.335 controversial. But we're talking here not about what those people think but what the 00:18:32.335 --> 00:18:37.061 speaker thinks, the person giving this argument when this person said,"I'm I'm 00:18:37.061 --> 00:18:41.667 certain that Jacob is cheating on his wife." They seemed to indicate that to 00:18:41.667 --> 00:18:46.465 them, the fact that they are certain provides an even better reason why he 00:18:46.465 --> 00:18:51.526 should tell Jacob's wife. So, if we want to capture what the person giving the 00:18:51.526 --> 00:18:56.955 argument intended in this case, we have to leave them the assuring term. So, you're 00:18:56.955 --> 00:19:01.481 seeing one example, where you ought to get rid of the assuring terms. And another 00:19:01.481 --> 00:19:05.712 example, where you ought to keep the reassuring terms. And just like with 00:19:05.712 --> 00:19:10.899 guarding terms the same point applies. There is no mechanic rule that will apply 00:19:10.899 --> 00:19:16.152 to every case. You have to think through the argument and decide whether crossing 00:19:16.152 --> 00:19:21.664 out those words and removing them distorts the argument or instead, crossing them out 00:19:21.664 --> 00:19:26.398 makes the argument look even better because the point of removing excess 00:19:26.398 --> 00:19:31.845 verbiage is to get rid of the things that aren't necessary but keep everything that 00:19:31.845 --> 00:19:37.880 is necessary to make the argument look as good as it possibly can look. Finally, 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:42.944 once we've removed all the excess verbiage, what's left over? The answer is 00:19:42.944 --> 00:19:46.617 the explicit premises and conclusion in the argume nt. 00:19:46.621 --> 00:19:52.379 The point of removing the excess verbiage was to separate those essential parts of 00:19:52.379 --> 00:19:58.096 the argument, those basics of the argument from all the stuff that's unnecessary. Of 00:19:58.096 --> 00:20:02.194 course, we still have to decide which ones are premises and which ones the 00:20:02.194 --> 00:20:06.515 conclusion, right? And that's why the close analysis helps because we indicated 00:20:06.515 --> 00:20:11.167 which ones were reason markers and which ones were conclusion markers and that lets 00:20:11.167 --> 00:20:15.875 you to identify that these are the premises and that's the conclusion. And so 00:20:16.152 --> 00:20:20.251 now, we can do step three. We can put the argument standard form. We put the 00:20:20.251 --> 00:20:25.330 premises above the line and we put dot pyramid, and then the conclusion below the 00:20:25.330 --> 00:20:30.451 line. And we've got the argument in standard form, which completes stage two 00:20:30.451 --> 00:20:35.371 of the reconstruction project. At this point, it's useful to look back at the 00:20:35.371 --> 00:20:40.427 passage and see whether you've gotten rid off all the excess included all of the 00:20:40.427 --> 00:20:45.171 basics of the argument. So, you can look at the passage and say, is everything 00:20:45.171 --> 00:20:50.165 that's not crossed out in a premise or a conclusion of the standard form. And if 00:20:50.165 --> 00:20:55.283 there's something that's still there in the passage that isn't used, you've got to 00:20:55.283 --> 00:21:00.027 decide at that point is it really excess or not. And, of course, if the argument 00:21:00.027 --> 00:21:04.685 looks really bad, you've got to look back and see whether it's missing something 00:21:04.685 --> 00:21:09.461 that you had crossed out as being excess verbiage when it really was an essential 00:21:09.461 --> 00:21:14.178 part of the argument. So, we can use this process of putting it into standard form 00:21:14.178 --> 00:21:19.287 as a test of whether we've performed properly the other step of getting rid of 00:21:19.287 --> 00:21:25.426 excess verbiage. So, steps two and three really work together in this stage two of 00:21:25.426 --> 00:21:31.337 getting down to basics. That's what helps us to use the different parts to see 00:21:31.337 --> 00:21:34.445 whether we've done each of them properly.