Week 7-Post 1: Consider Alternatives

In Chapter 6 of the Epstein text I came across a section name "Compound claims and 'or' claims". Epstein defines compound claim as "a compound claim is one composed of other claims, but has to be viewed as just one claim" (113). According to Epstein I learned that some words or sentences can have two or more claims together to come out with a new claim. The compound claim depends on the "truth value" that means is the claim truthful or is the person making the claim being truthful. For example, you tell your friend, "Can I borrow your car or can you take me home which will take more time out of your day if this is the case". I also came across a section in Chapter 6 called "The Contradictory of a claim" where I learned about a "contradictory claim". According to Epstein, a contradictory claim is " The contradictory of a claim is one that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances. Sometimes a contradictory is called the negation of a claim" (114). So the difference between the contradictory claim compared to a claim is the opposite of what the claim states. For instance a claim is "Bobby is afraid of horror movies". The contradictory claim would be "Bobby is not afraid of horror movies".