CriticalThinking Tutorial 10

1 Chapter 8: Assessing Adequacy1.1 The Criterion of AdequacyWe now move to the third criterion for assessing the soundness of an argument, adequacy. Evenif the premises of an argument are acceptable and relevant to the conclusion, this does not meanthat they provide adequate support for the conclusion. This chapter is concerned with how todetermine if a conclusion is adequately supported.One thingtonotice aboutthecriterionofadequacyis howitdiffers fromtheothertwocriteria.The premises of an argument are either acceptable or they are not and they are either relevantor they are not. Acceptability and relevance do not come in degrees. Adequacy, however, doescomeindegreesanditisresponsibefordeterminingthedegreeoflogicalstrengthofanargument.A set of premises can range from being totally inadequate, in which case the premises provideno support for the conclusion, to fully adequate, in which case the argument follows necessarily,though this only occurs in the case of deductive arguments.The main two things to look out for when assessing adequacy are the strength of the conclusionand the strength of support of the premises. The strength of the conclusion can vary considerablyand the strength of the conclusion determines how likely it is that the conclusion will not beadequately supported. Strong conclusions, which, for instance, make claims that certain thingwill happen or are the case, are more likely to have inadequate support than weak conclusions,which, for ...