The Latin word indebĭli came to our language as weak . This adjective refers to one or something that is fragile, unstable or weak .
For example: “The investigators stated that the suspect's alibi is weak,” “The local team took advantage of their rival's weak defense and scored a hundred points in just thirty minutes,” “I'm afraid of crossing the river over such a bridge.” flimsy…”
The weak lacks strength , resistance or support . The concept can refer to something physical or to symbolic issues. A flimsy house , to cite one example, is a precarious construction whose structure could collapse at any time. In general, the homes that are built in an informal and disorganized manner in the poorest settlements (such as slums, favelas, cantegriles or shacks, depending on the country) are weak due to the materials and techniques used. A house with cardboard walls and a tin roof can receive this description, since it is likely to collapse in a strong storm.
Life in a slum has many negative consequences, and many of them are directly related to the characteristics of the buildings. A weak house does not exist as such by decision of the owners, but rather by the impossibility of using the appropriate materials and methods to make a more resistant one. Physical health is affected by poor insulation from extreme temperatures, as well as by the impossibility of maintaining hygiene in the same way as in a home that meets minimum health conditions. On the other hand, poverty also affects self-esteem, and in this way it becomes a death trap that very few people can overcome.
A weak argument , on the other hand, can be easily disproved or contradicted. Suppose that the technical director of a national soccer team tries to justify his team's defeat due to the “lack of time” to train, because his players only had three practices before the game. However, his rival had the same time and the same amount of practices to prepare. That is why it can be said that the argument put forward by the coach is weak: both teams came to the match in the same conditions.
It is important to differentiate a weak argument from a fallacy : although the former lacks the necessary weight to appear correct and valid, the latter manages to deceive its interlocutor easily. This type of argument is also known as deception , although in some cases they are not synonymous; For example, logical fallacies are simply faulty reasoning whose logic does not work properly, but they are not always used to create lies or manipulate others.
One of the features that a weak argument lacks is legitimacy , that characteristic of things that are true, genuine, and certain from any point of view. To create a lie that passes for a legitimate argument, there are different tools and resources, which fall into the group of so-called legitimation mechanisms : including quotes in our speech can increase its apparent validity , especially if our interlocutor respects the people cited, in the same way. So we have to provide examples to justify our words, even if they could not be put into practice.
When preparing an argumentative speech, we can choose to demonstrate the veracity and validity of the objective facts that we present, talk about the causes and consequences using the most appropriate language for the thesis or focus on the description of the problem. to start an open debate; In a weak argument, on the other hand, none of these three paths can be appreciated, since it is not done with solid foundations or with the truth as an objective.