4 ms·

I don't understand why you think that.

• chacham15 14y ago
  The second statement assumes that the reason Romney is not popular with people in the valley is because he does not appear to be what he claims. This contradicts the first statement because it says that we don't know why these people prefer one candidate over another. To be more concrete, people could strongly dislike Romney's stance on abortion. In that case, it would not matter whether Romney appears or does not appear to be what he claims to be, that individual still would not like him.
  • pg 14y ago
    No it doesn't. It merely says he'd be more popular if he were what he claimed. That doesn't require the reason he's not popular to be that he's not what he claims. Suppose a restaurant is unpopular, due to bad food, bad service, high cost, whatever. There's no contradiction in expecting it would become more popular if a movie star started to hang out there every night. We're now arguing about basic logic. I've found threads are usually irrecoverable at that point, so if you don't mind, I'm done.
    • chacham15 14y ago
      I think that you are missing the heart of the matter. That is that the only piece of data that you have is popularity. Given that, how can you determine how well Romney was what he tries to seem? To put this into the context of your restaurant example, how can you differentiate between a restaurant that is unpopular otherwise but has a movie star and a restaurant with the same level of popularity but no movie star (with the movie star being analogous to Romney being what he tries to seem)? I'm sorry if you do not like these kinds of arguments as I try to involve as much base logic as I can. I think that base logic is to arguments what functions are to algorithms. Furthermore, sticking to logic results in an argument at least on the level of DH4 in your essay "How to Disagree."