Reasons versus Evidence

-- David Faris One of the first hurdles in teaching our method is communicating to students a true understanding of the difference between examples and reasons. There is nothing wrong with examples they are the foundation of reasoning and crucial for any convincing argument. Lets say Im going to argue that the internet has transformed American politics, and my two reasons are the ability of candidates to fundraise on the Internet, and the ability of ordinary citizens to hold politicians accountable for their statements. If I cant come up with a single instance of online fundraising or political accountability I will have a very weak argument indeed. But examples are insufficient to make a truly compelling argument by themselves. If your thesis is Russell Banks is one of the greatest living American novelists, you cant make a persuasive argument to support it by saying that The Sweet Hereafter is a wonderful novel, and that Affliction too is a wonderful novel. You need two reasons why Russell Banks is a great novelist, and you need examples from his novels to support those generalizations something along the lines of Russell Banks creates tragic heroes with whom we can identify. In The Sweet Hereafter, for instance. In my discipline of political science, youll often find many papers in this format, which I like to call the Two Examples Essay. Your students will start off with a perfectly reasonable point, like America loses wars fought without the support of its people. This is, I think, a defensible proposition. The students then provide their two reasons Americans turned against the Vietnam War and the United States lost, and then Americans turned against the Iraq War and the United States lost. The students may even provide ample data public opinion polling and academic essays to support their contentions about the two wars. The essays may look and sound sophisticated. But even if you happen to agree that both of these wars were lost because the American people didnt support them, you are left with the question of why. The central task of providing cause and effect remains untackled. The idea that America loses unpopular wars becomes to use social science jargon a finding in search of a theory. What your students must be able to do is continue their proposition with a because statement. Force them to do this in your meetings. America loses wars fought without the support of its people because. Because why exactly? You should see that to finish that sentence with because America lost the Vietnam war simply will not do. It is tautological reasoning. And so while your students may be quite skilled at illustrating their arguments with examples, they have failed to make a convincing case for their arguments. You can think of many reasons why wars cannot be won without public support. Perhaps soldiers in the field fight halfheartedly if they believe their countrymen are not with them, or perhaps commanders are reluctant to prosecute such a war. Perhaps leaders will not allocate sufficient funding to win an unpopular war. Or perhaps unpopular wars are unpopular because they are unwinnable and the public sees that. Whatever reasons they choose, they must be able to answer the question of why? implicitly posed by the proposition. The great reward of stressing this point is that your students will eventually come to terms with this distinction, and in doing so they will write more provocative essays. They will look at the world around them and start asking Why? when other people are just providing litanies of examples. Their

friends will argue, Democrats cant win national elections! Look at 2002 and 2004! And your students will be able to offer reasoning that either confirms or rejects these kinds of hypotheses. Theyll say things like, Thats because the Democratic coalition includes groups whose values are only shared by minorities of the population. Instead of haggling over examples and reason, as an instructor you can then spend more time debating the merits of these claims, and more time pursuing the truth.