Critical thinkingChapter 6Issues in argument assessment The role of an argument is to give us reasons for accepting its conclusion as true.The aim is to give an argument by which the intended audience is ought to be persuaded.We cannot always tell whether or not the argument is sound.Sound arguments must have true premises.An deductively sound argument is one that has true premises and which is deductively valid.An inductively sound argument is one with true premises that is inductively forceful.Since we do not always know which propositions are true and which false, we cannot always tell whether an argument is sound or not.To say that an inductively forceful argument is defeated for a person: the person reasonably believes the premises, but, nevertheless, reasonably rejects the conclusion.(They have, for example, extra information).An inductively forceful argument whose premises you have reason to accept is rationally persuasive only if your total evidence does not defeat the argument for you.To say that an argument is rationally persuasive for a person:the argument is either deductively or inductively forcefulthe person reasonably believes the argument’s premises (at the time)it is not an inductively forceful argument that is defeated for that person (at that time).Rationally unpersuasive argument: an argument that is deductively sound and valid, but gets you no closer to knowing the truth-value of the conclusion.Rational persuasiveness is doubly relative.An argument is or is not rationally...