Precise and Vague Generalities

Epstien shows us that there are a lot of quantities between one and all in his example of Precise Generalities. Though we can scale an argument with a low percentage or high percentage of something, we still know nothing about the people or things involved to make certain that an argument is valid or not.

For example, 90% of the Akbayan (Filipino Org) went to CSU Fullerton to participate in Friendship Games. Robin is part of the club Filipino club; therefore Vanessa went to Friendship Games.

This is not valid. Though there’s a high percentage of people that participated in Friendship Games, we know nothing more about Vanessa and how active or interested she was in the club, etc.

In Vague Generalities, you can make generalities without using numbers with words like a lot, almost all, many, etc.

A lot of Akbayan members went to CSU Fullerton to participate in Friendship Games. Robin is part of Akbayan, Robin went to Friendship Games.

Replacing numbers with “a lot” allows us to make the assumption that not many people missed out on Friendship Games.