Phil test 4

Principle of Charity

assume the person advancing the argument is reasonable, well-informed, and knows how to make a well formed argument

principle of accuracy

ensure reconstruxtions based on careful and accurate understanding

principle of economy

ensure argument is concise and simple as possible

argument reconstruction step 1

determine if argument is present

argument reconstruction step 2

idenitfy the conclusion

argument reconstruction step 3

identify explicit premises

argument reconstruction step 4

check if argument is well formed. if it is, then evaluate. if not.. go to next step

argument reconstruction step 5

include implicit premises which will either be specific of general

principle of faithfulness

add implicit premises that are consistent with intentions of author

principle of charity of implicit premises

add implicit premises that are reasonable to accept rather than obviously false ones

generalization principle

when adding implicit premise, add a true wide one rather than true narrow one

argument reconstruction step 6

tidy up reconstruction, uniform language, add ep and ip, etc

necessary condition

a condition A is necessary for B when the absence of A guarantees the absence of B

sufficient condition

a condition A is sufficient of B when the presence of A guarantees the presence of B

conditional statements

in any conditional sentence, p must be a sufficient condition for q and q must be a necessary condition for p

general rule for translating conditionals to proper

part that follows “if” becomes the antecedent

exception for translating conditionals to proper

part that follows “only if” becomes the consequent

unless conditionals

A unless B, if b does not happen, then a will happen