Vague Generalities

Chapter eight introduces a concept that is used quite often in day-to-day life. The concept is called general claims. General claim are claims that involve words like "all" or "some." When a person used the word "all" there is a strong meaning behind it, "all" means every single one. For example if a student were to say to a teacher, "All of the people in this class hate your teaching style." This is too general, even if this student asked around and everyone said they hated his methods, regardless there may be one student who wasn't telling the truth. In this case, this claim would be false. By using the word "some" in a claim, there can be some misunderstanding of what “some” really is. For example if I were to say, some of the people I work with are getting a raise in January and only one person gets a raise, does that constitute some? Generalizing can lead to a weak and invalid argument, it’s better to use real numbers, statistics, or other solid facts when trying to make a good argument.