Phil 120 Midterm

Claim / statement / proposition

attempts to describe how things are ; To claim A is to think that A is true

Inferences

movements between claims, where one claim is believed to support the other ; To infer B from A is to think B is true, because A supports B

Inference indicators

words used to signal inferences ; So, therefore, thus for this reason, consequentaly

Arguments

Inferences/ set of statements, called premises, where the claims support claims to end at a conclusion

Argument’s Logical Strength

is the degree to which the premises support the conclusion. Deduction vs Induction

Deductive arguments

arguments whose premises

guarantee their conclusions with logical necessity

Inductive arguments

arguments whose premises dont guarantee their conclusions but can help conclusions seem more reasonable

Argument’s Soundness

(1) all its premises are true and

(2) it has a high degree of logicalstrength

reductio ad absurdum argument

arguments That purposefully involve false premises, in order to demonstrate that these premises are false by showing that they lead to contradictions or absurdities.

God is omnipotent

If god is omnipotent he can make a dancing rock
That is absurd
God is no omnipotent

Critical Thinking skills

3 main ones
(1) Interpretive skills: i.e., the ability to understand the meaning of claims made by others

(2) Verification skills: i.e., the ability to ascertain the truth or falsity of these claims,

(3) Reasoning skills: i.e., the ability to recognize kinds of inferences and apply the correct standards to them.

“sense”

what is understood when the word is understood.

The sense of ‘dog’ might include things like” four-legged, furry, enemies of cats, etc

“refrence”

 what that linguistic entity is about or refers to

“I wasn’t talking about you specefically” “‘dog’ refering to all dogs”

What are the different kinds of definitions

Reportive, Stipulative, Essentialist ,

What are the different methods of definitions

Genus-species, Ostension, Synonym, Operational, Contextual

Reportive

explains the existing, accepted meaning of a word —> dictionary definitions

Stipulative

a declaration that assigns a specific meaning to a word —> usually for a newly invented word/term or reinventing a defenition. Lets just say a “city-slicker” is…

Essentialist

a type of definition that claims to state the true, fundamental, and unchanging nature or "essence" of a thing, rather than just describing how a word is commonly used

Genus-species

grouping by a commonnality/ defining feature; panthera family

Ostension

pointing at something to define it.

Synonym

defining something by describing a close synonym

Operational

clear, precise, and measurable explanation of an abstract concept or variable used in research —> turning qualitative observations into actionable data

Contextual

background information, surrounding circumstances to give meaning/context to a specefic fact

What are ways to criticize definitions

Being too obscure or circular
Too broad, too narrow, or both

Obscure —> narrow, technical defenition not understood by many ppl. Too niche/bad/confusing
circular —> the defention has the term in itself
broad—> too expansive, big, defines things not apart of definition
narrow —> definition doesn’t capture things apart of its definition. Too shallow.
both —> exludes things but also includes things in definition

Principle of charity / clarifying.

whenever two interpretations are possible, we should always adopt the more reasonable one. Just argue your most rational argumenht.

Amibiguity

A statement has more than one interpretation. “this pesticide is the ultimate fix to your ant problems”

Vagueness

Fuzzy statement doesn’t have a precise meaning. “lots of people watch the news.” “lots?”

Referential ambiguity

occurs when a word or phrase could logically point to more than one potential entity, making it unclear what exactly is being referenced

(1) is a term being used collectively or distributivly? memebers of a team or the team itself?
(2)term is used or mentioned. Paddy the name or paddy the person?

(3) grammatic errors. 2 workers. He pays the workers. They do a job every few days. This is so ambiguous,

Analytic truths

truths are true just in virtue of their meaning. “the pope is the leader of the catholic church”

Synthetic truths

statements that provide new information about the world. It will rain today.

Sufficient condition

X is sufficient for Y only if the truth of X guarantees the truth of Y. If its true fido is a fox, it guarantees that fido is a mammal.

Necessary conditions

X is necessary for Y if the falsity of X guarantees the falsity of Y. The falsity of the claim fido is a mammal guarantees the falsity of the claim fido is a fox.

If X is sufficient for Y, then Y is necessary

for X and vice versa.

Missing premises

Arguements that are missing a logical link to reach the conclusion

Presupposition

statements that are logically required for a premise in an argument to be true. Implicit assumption taken beforehand.

Criteria for Soundness

Accecptability, relevance, adequacy

Premises are true/accecptable

The premises are releveant to conclusion

the premises are adequate enough for conclusion

How to assess argument?

Identify conclusion

Identify premises

Identify Structure

Check acceptability

Check Relevance

Check Adequacy

Look for counter arguments

Three theories of truth

Empirical fact/statement

a fact verified by direct observation/experience

Non-empirical truth claims

an assertion whose truth value cannot be verified, falsified, or evaluated by physical observation, data collection, or the scientific method. Instead verified by logic. Like math 1+1=2.

Begging the question

An informal logical error where an argument's conclusion is assumed in one of its premises

Relevance

Relation to premise and conclusion

Confidence/Likelihood

How reasonable or unreasonble is a belief. How confident are you that its true.

Ad homeniem

an informal logical error that occurs when someone attempts to discredit an opponent's argument by personally attacking their character, motive, or other irrelevant trait, rather than addressing the substance of the claim itsel

Appeal to pity

Someone tries to win an argument by maniuplating audience emotions

Appeal to force

intimidation or threat is used to force acceptance of a conclusion

Appeal to popularity

Argument that a claim is true because a lot of people belive it.

Appeal to authority

Claim something is true just because someone with higher popularity/authority said it was true.

Tu quoque

Replying to an accusation when repeating the same accusation,

Equivocation

Premises equivocate if they use a term with different meanings in different premises. Annoying coworkers are a headache. Painkillers get rid of headaces. Painkillers get rid of annoying coworkers.

Inconsistency

Premises are inconsistent if they contradict one another

False Dichotomy

only two extreme, mutually exclusive options, when in fact there are other viable alternatives, compromises, or a spectrum of choices available

Adequacy & relevancy

One of the 3 criteria for soundness

The relation between premises and conclusion.

Relevancy —> premises providing enough support for conclusions

Adequacy for different argument types (deductive/inductive)

deductive — these premises are adequate if and only if they are deductivley valid
inductive — thhese premises are adeuqate if and only if they provide high probablistic support for conclusion

Practical stakes

High stakes of an argument so we might act on the conclusion even if unconvinced by resoning
—> im experience intese chest pain, so theres a chance im havnig a heart attack

Casual Fallacies: post hoc, confusing cause and effect, common cause

occurs when someone assumes that because Event B happened immediately after Event A, Event A must have caused Event B

cause and effect confusion: e.g. wealthier people have fewer children, so wealth must make people less inclined to have children. Doesn’t work both ways.

common cause: e.g. people with larger vocabularies are typically more successful, so vocabulary size must contribute to success. There is def a third factor at play.

Truth-functional statements —> negation, conjuction, disjunction, implication

Statements/premise whose truth depends on the truth of P (previous premise)

Negation truth statement

To say not p/it is not the case that P

Conjunction truth statement

P AND Q. To say both P and Q are truye

Disjunction

P or Q

Implication

If P then Q —> truth of P guarantees Q.

Deductive validity

if deductive valid it implies —> if premises are true, conclusion is true,
if conclusion is false at least one premise is false

A statement can be deductivley valid but be completley false. Moon made out of cheese example/

If p then q; p; therefore q

If P then Q; not Q; therefore not P

Formally invalid argument

An argument which truth of premises dont guarantee truth of conclusion

Inductive generalization

P1. X percent of observed Fs are G.
C. It is probable that X percent of all Fs are G.

Moving from a claim about a sample to a claim about an entire population
- these arguments are stronger when sample is more representative and larger

Statistic syllogism

P1. X percent of all Fs are G.
P2. Z is an F.
C. There is a X percent probability that Z is a G.

More specfic/less generalized than inductive

Induction by confirmation

P1. If H (some hypothesis), then O (some observation statement).
P2. O.
C. It is probable that H.

hypothesis: a statement that attempts to explain a possible phenominom
looks like if p then q. Q. Therefore P.

Analogical reasoning

P1. X has A, B, C.
P2. Y has A, B. C.
Y probably has C. —> propoerties

P1. X is to Y as A is to B.
P2. X stands in R to Y.
C. So, A stands in R to B. —>relations

Correlation

measure that describes the strength of a relationship between two or more variables. The variables move together.

However correlation can occur without causation, so correlation is not sufficicent for causation

cause and effect

relationship between two events where one event (cause) directly makes another event(effect) happen

causal explanation vs noncausal

Causal —> explanation that focuses on cause and effect
noncausal —> explanation that focuses on other things than cause and effect

Abductive reasoning

P1. Some facts (F1, F2, F3…Fn) call for explanation.

P2. Some hypothesis H explains the facts.

P3. No alternative hypothesis would explain the

facts as well as Fs.

C. So, H is (probably) true.

CRITERIA for good explanations/abductive arguments

Precision: refers to how specific,detailed and exact the explanation is. A precise explanation clearly identifies what it means and avoids vagueness.
Scope: An explanation with good scope can account for a wide range of cases or examples

They also need to have:
Simplicity: Having few assumptions needed to understand
consisticy: does not contradict itself. Consistent

Fruitfulness: usefulness in explaining other phenomenons

Piety

part of justice concerned with

attending to the gods (proposal 4)