Transcript for:
Understanding Stasis Theory in Arguments

hi class thanks for clicking this video I have a little objective to show you exactly what you're gonna get out of watching this whole video through so at the end of this you as a student will be able to understand and be able to apply stasis theory so if you've been looking through the prompts and maybe some assignments for this future for this week and for future weeks you will have seen the words stasis theory and you probably thought to yourself what in the world is this and how am I going to learn well your answer is here you will watch this video and then you should have a good clear understanding moving forward so my first question to kind of set this up is really really important I want you to think about this question and answer a strong yes or a strong no so is a hot dog a sandwich think about it think about your really solid justification for your answer and I'll give you just a few seconds to do that all right when I ask my students on site this question surprisingly it is a very consistent 50/50 split so a lot of people are passionate that hot dogs are sandwiches and then others are passionate that they are not so whichever camp you fall into I want you to think about your answer and hold on to it as we now discuss it and talk about it in terms of stasis theory so this theory basically is this four tiered four leveled approach that lets us categorize arguments of different sources and say where do they align where do they agree and then where is it that they start to disagree so the way that this system kind of works is that it starts with facts and then it builds into definition the used to build into quality and then lastly it culminates into policy so you'll see if two sources maybe disagree at the level of definition they will also disagree at the quality level and the policy level if they perhaps agree at facts and definition that's possible it could be quality where they start to disagree and then that would affect policy if they disagree at the factual level then everything will be disagreement and it is very likely that those two sources will never be able to agree so let's break down each of these levels using that hot dog as a sandwich as an example and then I'll bring in another example too just so you can kind of clearly see what it is that I'm talking about when I throw these terms around so first we have this foundational level of facts it is just what it sounds like it is so this is where two sources have to agree or disagree on the facts of whatever has happened does something exist did something really happen what are the facts here is there even a problem or an issue to talk about so when we talk about our hot dog example whether or not you believe hot dogs or sandwiches you are going to believe that hot dogs do in fact exist boon that's a check right there you all are going to most likely I hope agree on the fact that a hot dog exists now I'm going to bring in another example that we're going to talk about in tandem to kind of give you a more serious kind of example and it's way less fun um but just the classic example in the literature if you read up on stasis theory is going to be a murder trial okay so if you go into a murder trial at court the first thing that everyone has to agree on is did somebody die the facts of the matter did somebody die now if that is not agreed upon then there is no more trial right and the same goes for if someone is saying that a hot dog doesn't exist then the argument with someone who says yes a hot dog exists in the end it's a sandwich that argument will never find common ground the argument is done um but if we do agree that someone died if we do agree that all dogs exist we can move on to issues of definition this too has a pretty good and easily understandable title definition which is we're going to break down different parts of the issue and ask how are they related in other words how do we define different parts of this issue when we're talking about the hot dogs I usually let my students I break them up and they walk to a side of the room whether or not they think that hot dogs are sandwiches or they are not sandwiches and I just let them go out it I let them argue with each other and talk about different reasons they have on either side and I just listen to try to observe where people tend to diverge on this issue which is really what you want to do when you're researching too you want to listen to every side just take it in take it in and then start to see how can I put these things into conversation where is it that I'm seeing they do agree where is it that I'm seeing they just don't agree so in listening to my students I have found that it is the definition of sandwich which really is like the pinpoint crux of the issue of whether or not hot dogs or sandwiches some people will define a sandwich as meat in between bread in that case you have to admit that hotdogs our sandwiches but others counter that a sandwich has to be made of two totally separate pieces of bread with meat in the middle of that in which case a hot dog whose bun is one piece according to some cannot be a sandwich so this is us defining sandwich a part of the issue and we're seeing okay that's where the disagreement starts now if we're bringing back the murder incident example if we agree that someone has died now we have to define that death was this death really murder or was it suicide was it a horrible car accident that no one was to blame for was this a medical issue that caused the person to die was this person just old there are all kinds of deaths there's not just murder and that's it so sorry I got a package so we have to define the nature of that death if we can agree that it was in fact murder then we can move on but once again if it's not the trial is done and so now we're going to move on to the top two tiers of stasis theory and this is where things tend to get a little complicated and a little more murky so that's why I really have these questions posted I'll post this PowerPoint so that you can refer back to it um but now we have to think about the quality of the issue is it a good a bad thing what is what is it that we're valuing here what are the costs of solving the problem or issue in other words who or whom technically-minded affect what stakeholders what is at risk here so if we talk about the hotdog example again if we throw it out here we throw it out there that hot dogs are not sandwiches what would that mean would that mean that hot dogs can't be sold we're sandwiches or salt Firehouse Subs do they sell hot dogs well they shouldn't what about a sub sandwich is that even a sandwich if the bread connects in a sub sandwich like a meatball sub you can see this is kind of silly but you get the idea what are the costs of solving this problem or issue you can also go into it at a different angle that still falls under quality if you think about the murder example so let's say yes someone died yes it was murder now we have to kind of give some kind of quality some kind of value to the murder was it out of rage was this person insane can they claim insanity was this revenge did was it self-defense um what had that person done to evoke this person on trial to murder them right was this person robber in their house there are all of these different questions that we have to decide on um and if we can finally decide say it's first-degree murder then we can go into the last stage which is policy that is what do we do now that we've sorted through everything we know the facts we know the definition we know the quality so what do we do in the murder case the question comes down to okay sinem to jail for does he have to be executed does this person go on probation to see have to go to rehab what do we actually do what are the actionable steps what is the policy that comes out of this for the hotdogs example do we stop selling hotdogs we're all sandwiches are sold and do we say all things that have meat inside some kind of breading our sandwiches is a ravioli a sandwich is a pop-tart a sandwich and how do we move forward and so a lot of times your sources are going to disagree in terms of policy but it's not enough to just say my two sources they're disagreeing on the on the level of policy more than likely they're going to be disagreeing on some kind of level that came before maybe it's the definition of something maybe it's the quality of something but it's your job to investigate where it is that they actually do agree and where it is they start to deteriorate without disrupting the policy now how do you use this well you can use it within the same stakeholder and or you can use it among different stakeholders so let me give you an example one of y'all is actually talking about vaccines and that example really stuck out to me in terms of stasis theory how you could say that one stakeholder is really disagreeing and then you can also say this one stakeholder collectively is disagreeing with this stakeholder collectively right so let me give some life to that example let's say you're one stakeholder maybe this is the one stakeholder that you are going to be talking about in your annotated bibliography is parents we all know that parents have so many different opinions right so with vaccines some parents are going to say that it is my right to my child or not so maybe and then other parents are going to say it is my obligation as a citizen to have my child vaccinated for the sake of general health of all people of humanity right so maybe you could say yes these are two sources within my same stakeholder parents who disagree on the level of well not facts they agree that vaccines exist definition well yes they could disagree on the definition of freedom they could disagree on the level of what it is to be a parent what it is to be a citizen and then that would affect their quality and policy of whether or not they vaccinate their children you can also have different stakeholders disagree you could say parents want the right in how they define Parenthood to be the choices they make for their children and doctors are saying no actually the definition of Parenthood is to do what's best for your children and vaccines are what's best its what science and I was the doctor in this health profession that's what science says these are the different things you can think of and I hope that you work to incorporate this into your own work and your own race