PHIL105 Test 2

what is a worldview

what is a worldview

• set of beliefs about the world or part of it

• not static -- can make inferences, adding to model

• not passive – applied to irl

what is critical thinking as a reasoning process

developing a better worldview and using it

what is critical thinking as an academic discipline

new hybrid subject that studies human judgment with an eye to improving it.

what is a sentence

grammatical string of words in a language

what is a statement

either true or false

what is a simple statement

statement that does not contain any other statement as part or component;

• ‘sue is rich’

what is a compound statement

does contain one or more statement as components;

• negation, unary

what is a question

request for info

what is an interrogative sentence

ends in a question, rhetorical Q’s to make a statement

what is a direct answer

statement that completely answers the question but gives no more info than is needed

• who’s the president? Joe Biden

what is a corrective answer

statement that denies one or more presupposition; negation

• ‘have you stopped cheating on your wife?’ —> I’m not married

what is a presupposition to a question

• questions often but not always presuppose

• any statement that has to be true if that question is to have any true direct answer

what is a loaded question

false or debatable presupposition

• why do you Dems want to eliminate the military

what is an argument

a set of one or more statements called premises taken as potential evidence for another statement called conclusion

• your claim with reasons, evidence, or justification

deductive validity

argument is VALID if and only if

• is completely mathematically impossible for all the premises to be true while the conclusion is false

inductive strength.

argument is STRONG if and only if

• it is not impossible but it is unlikely that all the premises would be true while the conclusion is false

fallacy

argument that is neither valid nor strong

sound

valid + true premises

ambiguous

has more than one meaning

lexical ambiguity

ambiguity due to ambiguity of a word in a sentence

• police discover crack in in Australia —> “crack” = fissure; coke

grammatical ambiguity

ambiguous to bad grammar

• tuna biting off coast of San Clemente —> tuna biting off fishermen hooks off cost

erotetic concept

related to the concept of questions

indirectly relevant

if it is evidence for a responsive answer

• can dogs really dance? ‘Fefe the poodle is a member of a ballet troupe”

conditional

if a first component is true, then a second one will be true too

amphiboly

grammatical ambiguity; ambiguous to bad grammar

composition

• arguing that what is true of a part must be true of the whole

• using a general term distributively in the premises and collectively in the conclusion

division

• what is true of the whole must be true of the parts

• using a general term collectively in the premises and distributively in the conclusion

Ignoring the Issue

you (unemotionally and responsively) talk about something different

directly relevant

statement is responsive answer:

• direct, corrective, an admission of ignorance, or an explanation of why the question is impertinent

What are the three key elements of the theory of cognitive dissonance?

1. People are aware of cognitive inconsistencies in themselves and others

2. Awareness of inconsistencies causes an unpleasant psychological feeling, “dissonance

3. To relieve dissonance, people employ 2 strategies, one more logical, one less

What are the two strategies people employ to relieve or lessen cognitive dissonance? Give some examples of each.

1. decrease # of inconsistent cognitions — more logical

   1. drop beliefs from world view

   2. change behavior

2. increase # of conscious cognitions — less logical, more common

   1. find confirming info

   2. avoid new info

   3. forget dissonant info (drugs…)

   4. convert other people

   5. rationalize

Identify the 5 factors or criteria for assessing the reliability of observation

1. the better the physical conditions the more accurate the observation

2. the better the sensory acuity of the observer, the more accurate the observation

3. the more normal the perceptual situation the more likely the observation is accurate

4. the more adequate the cultural and educational background the more reliable the observation

5. the more adequate my vocab the more reliable the report

How good the physical conditions; how good the sensory acuity; how normal the perceptual situation; how adequate the cultural and education backgound; and how adequate the vocabulary.

Identify the 7 factors or criteria for assessing the reliability of memory?

1. the more recent the event, the more reliable

2. the more consistent the memory the more reliable

3. the more plausible the event remembered, the more reliable

4. the more continuous the memory the more reliable

5. the less suggestible the person, the more reliable

6. the less the prompting the more reliable

7. the more the corroboration, the more reliable (other evidence)

Identify the 5 factors or criteria for evaluating eyewitness testimony

• Rule 1: The greater the personal credibility of the witness, the more credible the testimony.

• Rule 2: The more well positioned the witness, the more credible the industry.

• Rule 3: The more consistent the testimony, the more credible the witness.

• Rule 4: The more plausible the testimony, the more credible the witness.

• Rule 5: The more corroborated the testimony, the more credible the witness. Corroboration includes:

  • 1. supporting testimony

  • 2. physical evidence

  • 3. written documents

  • 4. video and audio tapes

What is the difference between an epistemic authority (i.e., an expert) and a deontic authority

epistemic = expert = authority because of the knowledge he/she possesses.

deontic = authority based on power

Identify the 10 factors for evaluating expert testimony

• Rule 1: The better identified the authority, the more credible the testimony.

• Rule 2: The more well qualified the authority, the more credible the testimony.

  • Terminal degree – i.e. the more published papers a researcher has, the more credible

• Rule 3: The more personally credible the authority, the more credible the testimony.

  • Look for evidence of financial bias (bribery, incentives…)

• Rule 4: The more the expert’s testimony in within his/her area of expertise, the credible the testimony. Beware of the “halo effect.”

  • Positive association – i.e. just bc you respect ur pe teacher doesn’t mean they have good opinions on politics

• Rule 5: The more current the authority, the more credible the testimony.

• Rule 6: The more the authority bases his/her opinion on evidence open to the inspection by other experts.

  • Ex) getting second opinion in medicine

• Rule 7: The expert's testimony should be based upon theories & methods generally accepted in the field.

  • 1. Frye Rule – no judge can allow into a trial expert testimony unless it’s already been widely accepted

  • 2. Peter Huber, Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in Courtroom —> led to junk pseudoscience

• Rule 8: If quoted, the authority should be quoted in full, and not distorted.

• Rule 9: The larger the number of expert opinions, the better.

  • Yaniv points out that more experts can cancel out biases, with 3-6 being optimal in this regard.

  • Now, there is a law of diminishing returns here: more than 6 or so doesn’t result in much greater accuracy--because experts in a domain all typically share common domain of training.

• Rule 10: The more varied the experts, the better.

Identify the 4 criteria for judging a generalization

Rule 1: The larger the sample, the more representative it is, so the better the inference

Rule 2: The more the sample matches pop in ALL relevant respects, the stronger the inference

Rule 3: The more randomized the sample, the more representative it is, so the stronger the inference

Rule 4: The greater the margin of error stated in the conclusion, the stronger the inference, but the less informative the conclusion

What does it mean for a property to be relevant to a generalization

• A property R is relevant to a generalization = individs with R are either more likely or less likely than avg for that population to have the projected property

  • Ex) wealth is relevant to voting behavior i.e. rich = repub

Define “sample”

the cases we observe

Define “population.”

the whole group

Define “projected property.”

projecting the property P from the sample to the population

What does it mean for a sample to be stratified (or matched to the general population)?

if it shares in the same percentages all properties relevant to the project property with the population.

What does it mean for a sample to be randomly selected?

when every individ in every population has a precisely equal chance of being in the sample

What is a time-lapse sample

do sampling at exactly the same way at set times

What is exclusion bias

tends to include some group less in the sample than that group’s percentage in the overall population would indicate

What is self-selection bias

people select themselves to be in the sample

What is push-polling

fake polling; propaganda pretending to conduct a poll and asking loaded questions

What does it mean to say that laws are defeasible

the law can be nullified by exceptional circumstances

What are the three rules for judging an instantiation

1. person can take a property that correctly describes most members of a group, that is, rightly describes the typical members of the group, and projects that property onto an atypical or unrepresentative case

2. person can misapply a rule by applying it in a way it was not meant to apply

3. person can attempt to refute or disprove a rule by deliberately misapplying it to an atypical case

What is the key factor or criterion for assessing the application of a general rule to a new case (i.e., inductive instantiation)

that the case be typical

What are the 4 uses of analogy

1. Descriptive use.

2. Definitional use.

3. Heuristic use. – rules for discovery

   1. Using an analogy to guide research

4. Argumentative use – use an analogy to drive reasoning

   1. Analogical statement is the key premise

Identify the 5 factors or criteria for assessing analogical arguments

Rule 1: All things being equal, the more numerous the analogs, the stronger the inference.

Rule 2: All things being equal, the more the relevant similarities that hold between subject & analogs, stronger the inference.

Rule 3: MOST IMPORTANT: All things being equal, the more the relevant differences the weaker the argument.

Rule 4: The greater the variety of analogs, in other respects, the stronger the inference.

Rule 5: (Margin of Error) The greater the range of the projected property in the conclusion, the stronger the inference.

What is the most important rule for assessing the strength of an analogical argument

major, relevant differences undercut the comparison

What are the 3 rules for judging an inductive instantiation?

 

The closer the general rule is to 100%, the stronger; the case the rule is applied to must be typical, not unusual; and the bigger the margin of error, the stronger the inference.

What is a proximate cause?

closer in time

What is a remote cause?

far away in time

What is a necessary cause

a factor in whose absence the effect cannot occur

What is a sufficient cause

factor that by itself alone produces the effect

What is a compound cause

one with component factors that work together to produce effect

simple cause

one that does not have any component factors

deterministic cause

one that produces its effect in all cases (like gravity)

statistical cause

one that tends to produce its effect in populations

2 kinds of temporal linkage

1. Precedence: A precedes B = A occurs before B

2. Simultaneity: A simultaneous with B = A and B happen at the same time

constant conjunction

If A & B always temporally linked

What does it mean to say two factors are correlated (statistically linked) within a population

Two factors F1 & F2 are correlated a pop iff the percentage of those with F2 is higher or lower among those with F1 than among those without F1

inference to the best explanation

Argues for a conclusion on the basis that it is the best explanation of some phenomenon

Briefly describe the set-up in a control group experiment

First, draw a large, representative sample of the target population. Second, divide the initial sample into two closely matched sub-samples, the control and the experimental group. Third, measure the frequency of the effect. Fourth, administer the suspected cause to the experimental group, but otherwise treat the control group the same way. Fifth, measure the frequency of the effect again. Sixth, compare the frequencies, and if the frequency of the effect is significantly higher (or lower) after administering the cause than it was before, we conclude that the suspected cause is real.

Identify the 4 factors or criteria for assessing a control group experiment

1. The more representative the initial sample, the better (sufficiently large)

2. The experimental group should be matched to control group in all relevant respects

3. Where feasible, the experiment should be double blind

4. The larger the observed difference between the frequency of the effect in the experimental & control groups, the stronger the inference

Describe a purely observational cause-to-effect study

First, draw a large representative sample of the target population; divide it into two groups, the first of individuals who have been subjected to the suspected cause, the other of those who haven't; examine the frequency of the effect in both groups; if there is a significantly greater amount of the effect in the first group, the suspected cause is probably real.

Describe a purely observational effect-to-cause study

First, draw a large representative sample of the target population; divide it into two groups, the first of individuals who have the effect, the other of those who don't; examine the frequency of the suspected cause in both groups; if there is a significantly greater amount of the suspected cause in the first group, the suspected cause is probably real.

What are the four types of decision situation

1. decision-making under certainty

2. under risk

3. under uncertainty

4. under conflict

What are the six steps in rational choice under certainty

1. Frame your decision question accurately;

2. Identify the alternatives, i.e., choices;

3. Identify criteria of choice, i.e., goals;

4. Weigh criteria, i.e., rank goals;

5. Weigh alternatives;

6. Calculate the best alternative accordingly.

What are the six factors for judging rhetoric

1. evidence based

2. truthful

3. logical

4. directed at fully autonomous agents

5. not coercive

6. transparent

What is “due diligence”

research the products you are considering

Identify the 12 psychological mechanisms exploited by sales agents

1. Contrast—we judge by comparison.

2. Reciprocity—we return favors for favors.

3. Entrenchment—once started on something, we tend to stay the course.

4. Social proof—we determine what to do by looking at others.

5. Authority—we tend to obey authority.

6. Scarcity—we value more what we perceive is scarce.

7. Sympathy—people tend to want to help others in need.

8. Greed—people always want more.

9. Association—(positive, negative)—we tend to see causal linkage in every linkage in space, time and populations.

10. Salience—we notice what is novel.

11. Familiarity—we value things that are familiar to us more highly.

12. Egalitarianism—we desire equal outcomes.