Discussion Question Number One, Part Deux

Epstein, "The Tests for an Argument to Be Good"


My laptop was in my room this morning, but now it's in the living room. It's now dark and my sister is the only other person in the house besides me, therefore my sister moved the laptop.


This argument has some validity and promise, however, to essentially jump to the conclusion that my sister has moved the laptop because she is, at the time, the only other person in the house besides me, ultimately weakens the argument. There is the gap of hours from morning to evening that have been left without question, where anyone could have entered in the home and moved the laptop toward a different area without my knowledge, but I chose to believe otherwise. In another instance, there could be the possibility that I had moved my laptop to the living room that morning and simply forgotten.


"The premise are plausible": Laptop being moved from bedroom to living room. Very likely and plausible. Eventually, the laptop will be moved from a completely different area from where it originally is. This event is safe to say that it happens very frequently as numerous people, especially students, acquire laptops for convenient use when studying, doing homework, or simply surfing the web. If at college, specifically in a common commuter school, as there are plenty of college students who take their laptops from their dorms to their homes, and vice versa. It makes sense, and there's not much to argue with otherwise since everything seems logical and plausible.


"The premises are more plausible than the conclusion": The fact that the laptop was moved from one place to another is plausible, and a strong, reasonable argument. There is physical evidence of the change in area of the laptop, and because of that, there is no question that someone had to have moved it. The only thing stopping from the argument becoming solid is the interpretation that of my sister being the person having moved it, simply because she is the most convenient person to say had moved it, is a little out of place and unreasonable. The way the conclusion is formed is not entirely well thought out and very rash.


"The argument is valid or strong": In consideration, if one simply looks at what is written without looking into it, one can say that this argument holds valid and strong. According to Epstein, the premise cannot be true and the conclusion false simultaneously, and because of that, the argument is fine and/or strong with validity. My laptop was in my room this morning. Now it's not. My sister is the only person here. I believe I did not move it. Therefore, she did. Done. Evidently, if the hours from the morning to evening come into factor, then the conclusion of the argument having promise is no longer there, but in fact the opposite. Depending how one chooses to look at it, one can see the distinction of how the argument can be flawed. 


The perception taken into this statement is what truly makes whether or not I or someone else besides my sister moved my laptop, or if in fact, my sister did herself.