Week 3 Topics, Argument Practice, and Discussion Board
Greetings, Students! Welcome to our 3rd Week. So far you have read about, reflected on, and discussed the general purpose of philosophy (seeking the Truth and truths, for the further sake of living a life that’s conducive to or aligned with wisdom, including making wise choices, learning from mistakes, finding the will to regroup and strive etc.), the general guidelines for doing philosophy (Code of Intellectual Conduct, with 13 Principles of ethically sound and purposeful reasoning and debate, as well as 42 Fallacies to avoid as best as possible), and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. This week we will dive into more specific guidelines, including argument structure, kinds of arguments, and a few formal rules of logic. Avoiding fallacies is one standard of logic, but the formal rules are specific methods in the form of little laws of logic for structuring arguments (Hello, #6 Structural Principle from the Code!:). Specifically, we’ll look at Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Disjunctive Syllogism, and Hypothetical Syllogism, as well as a few formal fallacies that stem from incorrect usage of those 4 formal rules of logic; denying the antecedent and affirming the consequent. This will all make much more sense after I post more content this week, but for now please re-read Cahn’s essay The Elements of Argument, which you can find in Files. Also read the newly posted 4 Rules of Logic, a one-pager that will help you make sense of deductive argument structure and Standard Form.
From Cahn and/or my one-pager, take note of the following:
The definition of an argument for our purposes.
The two main categories of argument and general methods for evaluating an argument.
The Prompt for Discussion 3 will be posted by 12pm today, but here’s what you’ll be doing for that so that you can get started:
Based on the readings by Cahn and Lang’s one-pager 4 Rules of Logic, create two 3-lined arguments in Standard Form (Standard Form is simply listing the premises and the conclusion, similar to what you see in Cahn as well as in the one-pager; it helps abide by the Principle of Clarity, the Structural Principle, and more).
Part One: Create or Share an original (or as original as you can) Deductive Argument in Standard Form using one of the 4 rules of logic; this can be about any topic, but try to be creative or at least choose a topic that is of interest or meaningful to you.
Provide a quick evaluation: What’s the specific structure of the argument? Is the argument valid? Is it sound? It is okay to share an argument that is unsound as long as you know it is unsound and if it’s for demonstration purposes only, or to share an argument to show that it’s been made in the world and that it’s problematic (such as part of a presidential debate or statements from the floor of Congress or even from your own living room). Arguments that are unsound have premises that are untrue.
Part Two: Create an Inductive Argument in Standard Form about any topic.
Provide a quick evaluation of your argument: What kind of inductive argument is it? Is it strong or weak? Why? (Note: inductive arguments are not evaluated in the same terms as deductive arguments, which use validity/invalidity and soundness/unsoundness. Inductive arguments are evaluated in terms of weakness or strength, sometimes probability or likelihood. Also interesting is that an argument could have many sub-arguments, which can be either inductive or deductive or a combination, as long as everything is well-structured.)
Initial Response is Due Wednesday 9/3 at 11:59pm.