9.3 Rebutting and refuting

1. Example 1

   Paine rebuts, then moves toward refutation

   Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776; public domain, text from Project Gutenberg): "I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe." (Fallacious means based on bad reasoning; precedent means a rule set by an earlier case.) Identify Paine's rebuttal and his attempt at refutation.

   Show the solutionHide the solution

   1. 1Step 1: State the opposing claim: America prospered under Britain, so it needs Britain to keep prospering.
   2. 2Step 2: Find the rebuttal: Paine attacks the reasoning with an analogy. A child who thrived on milk still needs meat later; past conditions don't decide future needs. This reframes dependence as a stage to outgrow.
   3. 3Step 3: Notice the turn: "But even this is admitting more than is true." His analogy granted that Britain helped America grow; now he takes that back.
   4. 4Step 4: Find the refutation attempt: he claims America would have flourished anyway, and gives a reason: its exports are "necessaries of life," which Europe will always buy.
   5. 5Step 5: Evaluate: the analogy rebuts by exposing faulty reasoning; the trade argument tries to disprove the claim's premise with evidence about what America sells. It's an asserted reason rather than hard proof, so it counts as an attempted refutation: it works only if readers accept his claim about trade.

   Answer: Paine first rebuts the opposing claim by exposing its faulty reasoning: the milk-and-meat analogy shows that past prosperity under one arrangement doesn't mean the arrangement will always be needed. He then goes further, saying "even this is admitting more than is true," and tries to refute the claim's premise outright: America would have prospered without Britain because the food it sells "will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe." The two steps work together, first loosening readers' belief that dependence is necessary, then offering a reason to think it was never necessary at all.

Common mistakes

• !Calling any disagreement a "refutation." A refutation shows with evidence that the claim is wrong; offering a different view is a rebuttal.
• !Rebutting a straw man instead of the strongest version of the opposing argument.
• !Attacking the people who hold a view instead of their reasoning and evidence.
• !Raising a counterargument and then never answering it.

On the exam

• ✓In your essays, one well-developed counterargument, conceded where fair and then rebutted or refuted with specific evidence, does more than several objections mentioned in passing.
• ✓Reading questions may ask how a writer responds to an opposing view. Decide whether the writer grants it, offers another way to see it, or disproves it with evidence.