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From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.philosophy
Subject: The missing premise
Message-ID: <3922@alice.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 16:58:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.3922
Posted: Fri Jun 28 16:58:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 04:25:53 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.politics:9633 net.misc:8170 net.philosophy:1995

There is a type of argument that really states two views,
one explicitly and the other implicitly.  This argument
generally takes the form:

	A, therefore B.

The explicit view is obvious.  The implicit view is that
the speaker holds the belief necessary to justify the
statement.

To clarify this, consider an example:

	"The country's cat ranchers are in trouble
	due to competition from strays.  Therefore,
	the government should subsidize cat ranching."

In addition to the obvious, this speaker has implied the
belief that whenever some group of businesspeople is in
trouble, the government should step in with subsidies.
But by leaving this premise unstated, the speaker has made
it much harder to dispute.

Keep an eye out for arguments of this sort.  They can be tricky.