In Chapter 8, I learned about general claims and their contradictory. General claims are vague arguments that have little precision or detail. They most commonly use the words "all" and "some". These arguments leave out a lot of important details that could support or refute their claim. For example, my English professor last semester said during one of his random discussions "all smart women can change the oil of their own car. My daughter knows how to change the oil of her car. Therefore my daughter is a smart woman." According to Epstein "all" means every single one, no exceptions. But my professor's argument was bad because it is too general to be plausible. Just because his daughter knows how to change the oil of her car it does not mean that she is knowledgeable about everything. Being able to change the oil of a car could make you knowledgeable about cars but it does not make you an expert either. A woman could know how to change the oil in her car but that could be because someone taught her and not because she knows quantum physics.
The contradictory phrases of the word "all" are "some are not" and "not every". For the word "some", the opposites would be "no", "all are not", and "not even one". The contradictory of my professors argument could be "Not every smart woman can change the oil of their own car..."
I agree with your post when you said that you need to really pay attention to the words we state when we are stating a claim. Common words that people, including myself, use frequently on a daily basis are the words “all” and “some.” I can say “I hope some of them do,” but in reality, that does not communicate a clear image to who you are speaking to. “Some” can be a select few, a little bit, or the majority. The same principle applies to the word “all.” Sometimes I’ll say “all” but really mean to say “the majority.”
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