The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [19]
Adventures in Argumentation
An argument is made up of two or more statements, one of which is the conclusion. The conclusion is the statement in the argument that is supposed to be justified by, warranted by, supported by, shown to be the case by, demonstrated by, or proved to be the case by the premise or premises. A premise is a statement in the argument that is supposed to justify, warrant, support, show, demonstrate, or prove the conclusion.
The basic goal of an argument is to convince or persuade others of the truth of one’s concluding statement. So, if Link were to lay out an argument, presumably he’d want others to be convinced or persuaded of the conclusion he arrived at and believes to be true, and he would use another statement, or other statements, as supposed support for the truth of his conclusion.
Rob’s fallacious argument from the beginning of this chapter can be laid out, simply, like this: “Because every gamer I have ever met has been a geek (the argument’s premise), therefore all gamers are geeks (the argument’s conclusion).” There’s at least one premise and only one conclusion in a fully complete argument, but they usually have two or more premises. So for example, a typical Zelda gamer reasons like this:
Premise 1: If I want to reach the chest on the ledge, I’ll need the Clawshot.
Premise 2: If I want to find the Clawshot, I need to search for it in dungeons.
Conclusion: Therefore, if I want reach the chest on the ledge, I need to search for the Clawshot in dungeons.
And so, the gamer enters a dungeon in the hope of locating the Clawshot and reaching the chest on the ledge.
The premises and conclusions in an argument are also statements. A statement is a claim, assertion, proposition, judgment, declarative sentence, or part of a declarative sentence—resulting from a belief or opinion—that communicates that something is or is not the case concerning the world, self, states of affairs, or some aspect of reality. Statements are either true or false. Our beliefs and opinions are made known through statements, either in spoken or written form. For example, the statements “This chapter was typed on a computer” and “Din is a goddess” are true, whereas the statements “Rob and Dennis were president and vice-president of the United States in 2000” and “the sun revolves around Venus” are false.
Statements are shown to be true or false as a result of evidence, which can take the forms of either direct or indirect observation, the testimony of others, explanations, appeal to definitions, appeal to well-established theories, appeal to appropriate authority, and good arguments, to name just a few. So, that this chapter was typed on a computer is shown to be true by observation, that Din is a goddess is true by definition of “Din,” (as defined in Zelda universe mythology) that we were president and vice-president of the US is false because of the testimony of others and authorities, and that the sun revolves around Venus is false because of observation as well as the well-established heliocentric theory.
As critically thinking adults we must defend our beliefs. And we must give a reason (the premise of our argument) for why we hold to a particular belief (the conclusion of our argument). So, for example, there is a debate among Zelda gamers about the exact chronology of events as they happen to Link and others. Let’s say you believe that the storyline in the original The Legend of Zelda represents the earliest adventure for Link and want to convince others that your belief is true. You might put forward an argument that looks like this:
Premise 1: