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5.1 Premise Objections

Some objections in multi-layer arguments are "targeted" on explicitly stated premises. They are known as premise objections.  They provide evidence that the premise is false.

Consider this objection:

The Van Allen Belt is a band of radiation around the Earth. Some who hold to the conspiracy theories have suggested that the Apollo astronauts could not have survived the journey through the belt, so they cannot, therefore, have been to the Moon. However...they would not experience any immediate health problems that would prevent the journey. [6.4-6]

Here is the objection as stated, diagrammed in a simple format:

Notice that the objection works by providing evidence that the premise is false.  Thus, we can represent it more accurately as follows:

Whenever you have a premise objection, there is a simple argument made up of the objection and one of the already-stated premises.

Note that, strictly speaking, an objection to a main contention is not a premise objection. The claim it is objecting to is not a premise of another simple argument.  It is just a plain or "vanilla" objection.

A premise objection is an objection to a stated premise of another simple argument.

 Last updated 09-Jan-2007