My latest Praxis lesson talked about the actual prerequisites required to develop an argument and what an argument actually is. An argument is the idea that backs up a claim which is a determined side of an issue, you need both an issue and a claim to have an arugment.  I can sometimes be argumentative, and for a while I was led to believe that this was mostly bad. This isn’t true at all, in fact -one could argue- you are making a claim if you aren’t stating an explanation, question, command, phrase, or pronouncement; and if you are making a claim you should therefore have an argument to back…

Hypotheticals in philosophy are part of the reason I’ve been frustrated by philosophy in the past. My latest Praxis lesson was how to navigate hypotheticals, and appreciated that the article acknowledged that some hypotheticals are not helpful and do not need to be analyzed. Others, though, provide an opportunity for us as people to think about where our convictions and beliefs lie.  Good hypotheticals are qualified by two very different functions. Either they devise practical contingency or the help to achieve intellectual clarity. The first helps us consider different options while the other clears up different points of view and what they might mean – in a nutshell. So now…