Speaking of silly jokes, here's one of my favorite responses to the cosmological argument (from Gerald Dworkin's list of philosophy quips:)
When a philosopher announced that the title of his talk was “Why is there Something rather than Nothing?”Sydney Morgenbesser said to the man sitting next to him, “If there was Nothing he would still complain.”
The National Public Radio show Fresh Air ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. (Since they're not trained philosophers, some of their arguments aren't the best. Try to spot their mistakes!) The conversations touch on a lot of things we'll be discussing in class.
Optical illusion time! Here is a pair of collections of Julian Beever's sidewalk art that looks three-dimensional when viewed from a certain angle. That's a picture of one of his creations above.
Here's a summary of a cool argument (pdf) for an interesting version of skepticism I call "unsettled debate" skepticism. There's also an entire book on it.
(Want tips on writing a philosophy essay? Check out here and here!) New Due Date: at the beginning of class on Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
Worth: 50 points (5% of final grade)
Assignment: Write an argumentative essay on external world skepticism: the claim that we do not know anything about the physical world beyond our immediate sense experiences. In particular, choose one of the topics below. Papers must be typed, and must be between 300-600 words long. Write down the word count on the first page of the paper.
Possible Paper Topics 1. Criticize skepticism of the external world. Describe what you take to be the best argument for external-world skepticism. Then evaluate this argument. Exactly how is this argument bad? Be specific: what is/are its flaw(s)? How can we avoid giving in to the skeptic’s arguments that we don’t know anything about the world? [NOTE: For this option, you don’t have to present a positive argument for the existence of the external world. Just explain why the skeptical argument you focus on is bad.]
2. Tell me why you’re not a skeptic: Present and defend an argument for the claim that we can know that there is an external world beyond our sense experiences. Be sure to consider and respond to objections to your argument that a skeptic would likely offer.
3. Defend external-world skepticism. Present an argument for external-world skepticism. Then consider and respond to objections to this argument. Pay special attention to your conception of knowledge: defend the conditions you believe are required for knowledge.
4. Explain and evaluate Nick Bostrom’s argument in “Do We Live in a Computer Simulation?” Do you think Bostrom makes a good case for external-world skepticism? Why or why not? Be sure to fully explain your evaluation of his argument, and defend your opinion.
5. Write something else on skepticism. (Sean must approve this topic by Wednesday, October 6th.)
In panel 5, Utahraptor is bringing up a Gettier case counterexample to the claim that knowledge = justified true belief. If you're looking for FUN TIMES, ask me about the Gettier problem in class!
The quiz will be held at the beginning of class on Wednesday, September 30th. You'll have 25 minutes to take it, and it's worth 10% of your overall grade.
The quiz is on our tiny textbook (A Rulebook for Arguments). There will be a section on evaluating deductive arguments, and a section on evaluating the other kinds of arguments (example, analogy, authority, cause). Basically, the quiz will look a lot like the group work we've done in class so far.
Here are the answers to the handout on evaluating deductive arguments that we went over in class. Perhaps I should have titled the handout "So Many Bad Args!"
1) All kangaroos are marsupials. All marsupials are mammals. All kangaroos are mammals.
2) (from Stephen Colbert) Bush was either a great prez or the greatest prez. Bush wasn’t the greatest prez. Bush was a great prez.
P1- questionable ("great" is subjective) P2- questionable ("great" is subjective) structure- valid (it's either A or B; it's not A; so it's B) overall- unsound (bad premises)
3) Some people are funny. Sean is a person. Sean is funny.
P1- true (we might disagree over who specifically is funny, but nearly all of us would agree that someone is funny) P2- true (each "Sean" in this handout refers to your teacher, Sean Landis) structure- invalid (the 1st premise only says some are funny; Sean could be one of the unfunny people) overall- unsound (bad structure)
4) All email forwards are annoying. Some email forwards are false. Some annoying things are false.
P1- questionable ("annoying" is subjective) P2- true structure- valid (the premises establish that some email forwards are both annoying and false; so some annoying things [those forwards] are false) overall - unsound (bad first premise)
5) All bats are mammals. All bats have wings. All mammals have wings.
P1- true P2- true (if interpreted to mean "All bats are the sorts of creatures who have wings.") or false (if interpreted to mean "Each and every living bat has wings," since some bats are born without wings) structure- invalid (we don't know anything about the relationship between mammals and winged creatures just from the fact that bats belong to each group) overall- unsound (bad structure)
6) Some dads have beards. All bearded people are mean. Some dads are mean.
P1- true P2- questionable ("mean" is subjective) structure- valid (if all the people with beards were mean, then the dads with beards would be mean, so some dads would be mean) overall- unsound (bad 2nd premise)
7) This class is boring. All boring things are taught by Sean This class is taught by Sean.
P1-questionable ("boring" is subjective) P2- false (nearly everyone would agree that there are some boring things not associated with Sean) structure- valid overall- unsound (bad premises)
8) All students in here are mammals. All humans are mammals. All students in here are humans.
P1- true P2- true structure- invalid (the premises only tell us that students and humans both belong to the mammals group; we don't know enough about the relationship between students and humans from this; for instance, what if a dog were a student in our class?) overall- unsound (bad structure)
9) All hornets are wasps. All wasps are insects. All insects are scary. All hornets are scary.
P1- true! P2- true P3- questionable ("scary" is subjective) structure- valid (same structure as in argument #1, just with an extra premise) overall- unsound (bad 3rd premise)
10) All students in here are humans. All humans are shorter than 10 feet tall. All students in here are shorter than 10 feet tall.
11) If Sean sings, then students cringe. Sean is singing right now. Students are cringing right now.
P1- questionable (since you haven't heard me sing, you don't know whether it's true or false) P2- false structure- valid overall- unsound (bad premises)
12) If Sean sings, then students cringe. Sean isn't singing right now. Students aren't cringing right now.
P1- questionable (again, you don't know) P2- true structure- invalid(from premise 1, we only know what happens when Sean is singing, not when he isn't singing; students could cringe for a different reason) overall- unsound (bad 1st premise and structure)
13) If Sean sings, then students cringe. Students aren't cringing right now. Sean isn't singing right now.
14) If Sean sings, then students cringe. Students are cringing right now. Sean is singing right now.
P1- questionable (again, you don't know) P2- false structure- valid(from premise 1, we only know that Sean singing is one way to guarantee that students cringe; just because they're cringing doesn't mean Sean's the one who caused it; again, students could cringe for a different reason) overall- unsound (bad premises and structure)
Here are the answers to the group work we did in class on args by example, args by analogy, args from authority, and args about causes. Conclusions are in bold.
1. That Honus Wagner baseball card shouldn’t be that valuable. After all, it’s made out of cardboard, and cardboard boxes at Pathmark are super cheap.
Analogy Bad - Material isn't always a relevant similarity to draw a conclusion about value: baseball cards are typically valued for their rarity, not what they're made of.
2. Canada, Mexico, USA, India, and Australia are all countries that border oceans on the east and west. Hence, most countries border oceans on both the east and west.
Example Bad - 5 countries out of about 200 total nations is too small a sample. Also, the examples are cherry-picked, and so they're unrepresentative.
3. In a recent study, 100% of those who took a new birth control pill didn’t get pregnant. Only males participated in the study. Thus, the birth control pill must be very effective.
Cause Bad - A better explanation of the correlation between taking the pill and not getting pregnant is that males don't get pregnant.
4. Oasis sounds just like The Beatles. We all know that The Beatles were one of the most influential rock bands ever. So Oasis must be one of the most influential bands, too.
Analogy Bad - A similar sound isn't a relevant enough similarity regarding whether a band is influential.
5. Abortion is morally acceptable because renowned linguist Noam Chomsky has defended the practice of abortion, and he’s pretty smart.
Authority Bad - Chomsky's expertise (linguistics) isn't relevant to the topic of abortion. (Chomsky explains his view on abortion in the video to the right.)
6. Most people say the money it costs to go to law school is worth it, because lawyers earn a lot of money. So, since doctors also earn a lot, med school costs must be worth it, too.
Analogy Pretty Good - The similarity (average money earned per profession) is relevant to whether med school is financially worth it. Assuming one thinks a large up-front investment is worth an even larger salary in the future, this arg is good.
7. My friend knows me better than anyone else, and he says I’m a decent guy. Therefore, I must be a decent guy.
Authority Bad - Yes, my friend is a relevant expert, but he's likely to be biased in favor of me since he is my friend.
8. My sis usually keeps her car windows rolled down, though she always rolls them up right before it rains. Her car must be magical, then: rolling up her windows causes it to rain.
Cause Bad - This is reversed! The rain probably causes her to roll up her window, not the other way around.
9. This guitar-shaped flyswatter costs $2 more than that normal one. Most of the expensive stuff I’ve bought in the past turned out to be higher quality than similar, cheaper items. Hence, the guitar-shaped swatter is higher quality than the normal one.
Example Bad - While there may be a general correlation between expense and quality, it is not representative of this kind of novelty item. There is also a correlation between price and novelty: the more unique an object is, the more expensive it typically is.
10. Nearly every time I see Conan O’Brien on television, I wind up falling asleep. Thus, I guess Conan puts me to sleep. Cause Bad - Another way to explain this correlation between Conan and my sleep is the fact that hisshows have been on late at night, a time at which I'm usually tired anyway.
Optical illusion
Here are some links related to our discussion of 
9) All hornets are wasps.
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