PHLA10 Tutorial #1

Sept. 16 2014
Daniel Walsh

(The following are largely talking points for use in tutorial and are not meant to be comprehensive.)

Arguments: deductive and non-deductive

An argument is a set of premises meant to give support to a conclusion.

A deductive argument is an argument intended as valid.

A valid argument is a deductive argument such that if its premises are true its conclusion must be true.

NB: Only arguments are valid. Statements are not valid.

Everything in the conclusion of a valid argument can be derived from its premises and so is, in a sense,
contained in the premises.

A valid argument may beg the question. An argument begs the question just in case you wouldnt
accept the premises unless you already accepted the conclusion. This argument begs the question:

The world had a cause outside of itself.
Therefore, the world had a cause outside of itself.

Question-begging arguments dont convince or persuade anyone of anything. If you want to convince
someone of something you have to show them that what you want them to believe is implied by what
they believe already.

Question begging arguments like this are not very interesting. A valid argument is interesting when its
conclusion is implied by its premises taken together.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause outside of itself.
The world (the universe) began to exist.
Therefore the world has/had a cause outside of itself.

This argument is interesting because its conclusion is not explicitly contained in its premises.

An argument, if valid, is valid in virtue of its form. It doesnt matter if its premises are true. What makes
it valid is simply that its conclusion follows from the truth of those premises:

If the moon is made of cheese we can eat it.
The moon is made of cheese.
Therefore, we can eat the moon.

An invalid argument is such that the pemises may be true and the conclusion false.

How can you tell if an argument is invalid? One way is to provide a counterexamples.

All parents are mothers.
But Jimmy is a parent and hes not a mother.

A sound argument is a valid argument whose premises are true.

Deductive arguments involve conditionals. A conditional features an antecedent and a consequent.

If p then q.
If p (the moon is made of cheese) is true then q (we could eat it) is true.

Here are four forms of deductive argument. Two are valid. Two are invalid.

If p then q. If the battery is dead the car wont start.
p. The battery is dead.
Then q. Affirming the antecedent Therefore, the car wont start.

If p then q. If the battery is dead the car wont start.
q. The car wont start.
Then p. Affirming the consequent Therefore, the battery is dead.

If p then q. If the battery is dead the car wont start.
Not p. Its not true that the battery is dead.
Then not q. Denying the antecedent Therefore, its not true that the car
wont start.

If p then q. If the battery is dead the car wont start.
Not q. Its not true that the car wont start.
Then not p. Denying the consequent Therefore, its not true that the battery
is dead.

Conditionals can be understood in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.

p is sufficient for q just in case if p is true then q must be true, and
q is necessary for p just in case if p is true then q must be true.

In a conditionsl, the truth of the antecedent is positioned as sufficient for the truth of the consequent.
And the truth of the consequent is positioned as necessary for the truth of the antecedent. Think on this
one.

A proposition p is objective if its truth is independent of what anyone thinks. P is subjective if its truth
dependends on what persons think or on what is in the mind.

Is truth subjective? Can we be right or wrong? Some people say Its true for me. Does this just mean
that they believe it? Does it mean that that there are no objective realities and each persons reality is
determined somehow by them? What do persons mean when they say that there is no truth or that
truth is subjective? Is this a coherent idea?

A reductio ad absurdum argument is one in which you assume the negation of what you want to show
and then show that something absurd follows from it. We do this all the time:

If a law can save even one life its worth passing.
This sounds nice but suppose that we take it seriously
We will have to ban not just guns but also bicycles, marbles, bannana peels

Non-deductive arguments are arguments not intended as valid.

Valid arguments come with a guarantee. If their premises are true the conclusion is true. But the cost of
the guarantee is that nothing genuinely new is gained (although previously unnoticed implications are
noticed).

Non-deductive arguments do increase our information but at the guarantee is lost.

An inductive argument is an inference from items in a sample to items outside of the sample. These can
be generalizations or perhaps predictions.

Every swan Ive seen so far has been white.
Therefore, all swans are white. (generalization)
Therefore, the next swan I will see will be white. (prediction)

When doing induction its important to consider sample size and sample bias:

I sample 200 persons at the Toronto Convention Centre. 80% of respondents report as their
favorite movie Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Am I entitled to generalize to the population
generally? Suppose that I learn that there is a Star Trek convention taking place there that
weekend.

An abductive inference is an inference to the best explanation. You have an observation in need of
explanation. You make an inductive inference when you determine that something or other (something
that constitutes what you judge is the best explanation of the thing) must exist or have occurred.

The existence of black holes seems to be an inductive inference.

Confirmation vs. disconfirmation. Only the latter is valid.

H implies O. O then H. Confirmation involves affirming the antecedent.
H implied O. Not O then not H. Disconfirmation is denying the consequent.

The surprise principle is a principle for determining which of several competing explanatory hypotheses
best explains the observation. The idea: O favors H1 over H2 if O is less surprising given H1 than given
H2.

NB: The surprise is relative to the hypothesis. What your asking is: If H1 were true would O be
surprising? And if H2 were true would O be surprising? If Yes to the first question and no to the second
and there are no serious alternative hypotheses and you have no independent reasons to reject H1,
then H1 is the best explanation.

The olympic weightlifter illustration. The Jeanne Dixon illustration.

The only game in town fallacy: The idea that a theory is right or must be accepted if its the only theory.
You dont have to make an abductive inference. If there are no plausible explanations available of that
you can think of, then you can reserve judgement.

The gremlins in the attic illustration.