How to Analyze an Argument

To analyze something is to break it down into its constituent parts, and to analyze an argument is to break it down into its premises and conclusion. I will focus on analyzing arguments presented by other people in written form. Of course, one hears arguments in conversations all the time, and the process by which one analyses them is essentially the same as with written arguments, but it is more difficult because one does not have a “fixed target” which one can take the time to study at one’s own pace. One also can analyze one’s own arguments as well as those offered by other people, and, indeed we will have occasion to do this over the course of the term, but in doing so it is important to achieve a certain critical distance from the argument, and this is best achieved by writing it out, and then treating it as though it were written by someone else.