Summary of Reading

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 detail the bones of an effective argument. Each effective argument contains Ethos, Pathos, and logos, which are the tone of an argument. To understand the bones of an argument we will need to name them. Now I don’t have a cool song that goes with it like we had in grade school …the knee bone is connected to the shin bone… but each of the bones of an argument also have a name and are intertwined, or connect to each other to form an effective argument. The first one, Enthymeme is an unsubstantiated statement that requires the audience to be like-minded and be under the assumption that the statement is true. It makes a claim and gives a reason. A good example of this would be the different Christian Religions. We all believe in the one Bible however, I am Methodist and we Methodist’s interpret the same Bible different, from say Baptists. I already have an underlying belief in the way Methodists interpret the bible. This underlying belief is a warrant.  However if you don’t just always believe then the preacher needs to add Grounds to his Enthymeme.

Grounds are facts, examples, or even testimonies that support the reason. If you are talking to like-minded people who already believe your warrant then you are ‘good to go’ however, if not then you have to add Backing to your warrant. Backing supports the warrant and persuades the audience to believe. Ok so now, we have enthymeme with grounds and a warrant with backing and why do we need all this, because there are skeptics with rebuttals, and how great they are. Our world would be so boring without ‘skeptics with rebuttals’. Skeptics can refute any part or all of an argument. Which is why the grounds and the backing of your argument must be strong, but don’t worry, if your argument is not that strong, there is one little trick left to help combat a skeptic, the Qualifier. Qualifiers are words that concede to other options, such as the statement “with exception to” or “in rare cases”, because according to Toulmin “… no argument is 100 percent persuasive.”

The preachers in an hour, (well in the Methodist case about 58 minutes, cause we want to beat everyone else to the restaurant) accomplish all of the above.