critical thinking
Order Instructions
PLEASE USE THE HANDOUT INFO BELOW FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT
Study Room Forum Assignment Week 6
Please consult the handout provided for how to identify assumptions. This Study Room Assignment will be related to this exercise.
Students must post at least twice. But dialoguing with other students is encouraged.
FIRST POST
Identify and briefly describe TWO common assumptions of one or more of the following groups: 1) your culture or subculture (these might have to do with desirable professional goals, values, obligations of citizenship) 2) an organization (a company that you have worked for, the government, the military or some other organization) 3) a political party (Republican, Democrat, Libertarian) 4) a group with a strong position on a controversial issue, like abortion, the death penalty, gun control, national defense.
Please do some research and try to describe the assumptions accurately to the best of your abilities; some of these assumptions can call for interpretation. Students will not be graded down if they make mistakes or provide a questionable interpretation of an assumption. In evaluating the soundness of the argument, students can comment on the truth/falsity or plausibility of the assumptions. Also, please be respectful. Do not offer assumptions and arguments which may cause offensive to others.
Construct TWO, VALID DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS derived from or related to these assumptions. THESE ARGUMENTS MUST BE VALID, BUT DO NOT WORRY IF THEY FAIL TO BE SOUND.
HANDOUT BELOW
Handout: Basics of Deduction and Induction
The Basics of Induction and Deduction
There are three essential components to an argument. An argument is speech in which one attempts to support a claim (conclusion) with reasons (premises). Such speech entails the statement of 1) the claim (conclusion), 2) reasons (premises) and 3) a relationship of support between reasons and claim. This relationship is absolutely crucial to an argument; it represents an assertion of inferential support between premises and conclusion.
DEDUCTION
There are two distinct ways in which premises can provide inferential support for conclusion in an argument. One way has to do with attempting to establish a strict proof of the conclusion. A proof of the conclusion is established if the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Consider the following examples:
1) If health care costs go up, then our insurance goes up. Health care costs have gone up. So, our insurance will go up.
2) Everybody working for Oracle knows something about HTML. John works there. So, he must know something about HTML.
The premises, conclusion and assertion of inferential support are clear enough in these examples. Consider 1):
(Premise) If health care costs go up, then our insurance goes up.
(Premise) Our health care costs are up.
(Indicator of inferential support) Therefore,
(Conclusion)Insurance will go up.
These arguments have the following trait: let us suppose that the premises of these arguments are true. In that case it is inescapable that the conclusion is also true. But what if one of the premises is in fact false? What if John, for instance, happens to work for Oracle but does not know HTML. Well, in that case the argument certainly does not prove that the conclusion is true, but notice that the conclusion still follows from the premises. It is not possible (from a logical point of view) to imagine that the premises are true and the conclusion is false. Argument 1) has this same trait. The conclusion follows from or is implied by the premises regardless of whether or not the premises are true. Consider some arguments with either false or senseless premises:
3.) Every cat is red. Fluffy is a Cat. Therefore, Fluffy is red.
4) Every alien has gills and a big nose. Jim is an alien. Therefore, Jim has gills and a big nose.
It doesn’t matter that most cats are not red or that aliens might not exist, (if they do let’s hope they don’t all have gills and a big nose. As for Jim, let’s hope that he is not an alien–but that won’t matter as far as the form of the argument goes.) We can still say that it is impossible to imagine that the premises are true and the conclusion is false.
The power of these kinds of arguments is evident when we consider some simple arguments premises that appear compelling.
5) If housing prices go up, then we will need more money to buy a house. Housing prices are up. Therefore, we need more money.
6) Every computer needs software to function. You have a computer. Therefore, your computer needs software to function.
Now consider some arguments whose premises are perhaps a little less compelling:
7) If his blood is on the murder weapon, then the defendant did it. His blood is on the murder weapon. So, defendant did it.
8) Every human male has a genetic tendency to aggression and domination. I am a human male. Therefore, I have a genetic tendency to aggression and domination.
Without knowing anything else about the context of these arguments, we can know something very interesting. If the premises of the arguments are indeed true, then the conclusion is proved to be true! The practical import of these kinds of argument is obvious. Let us say you are on a jury and you hear argument 7). The conclusion that defendant is guilty is presented simply and with great force. Unless it can be shown that the premises are doubtful or false a guilty verdict is inescapable. In argument 8) let us suppose that compelling evidence is presented that “every human male has a genetic tendency to aggression and domination”. In that case individual men are faced with a fascinating self-realization that cannot rationally be denied, because the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises.
Let us call this special relationship between premises and conclusion in these kinds of arguments a relationship of implication. Implication is the relationship that exists between premises and conclusion in an argument if and only if it is impossible that the premises are true and the conclusion false.
Aristotle was the first logician/philosopher to attempt to capture and explain this relationship between premises and conclusion in a theory. One can still find this theory in elementary logic books, know as the theory of the syllogism or syllogistic logic. Much of the history of logic, up to the present day, concerns explaining this wondrous relationship that can exist between premises and conclusion. The development of techniques for critical living must involve learning about the relationship of implication, but the techniques and strategies we develop should have easy and direct practical application to aid us in effective reasoning and argument.
INDUCTION
Arguments can still have great force and be convincing without the relationship of implication existing between premises and conclusion. Rather than construct an argument in which one cannot imagine that the premises are true and the conclusion false, we can attempt to ‘build a case’ for the conclusion based on evidence. When we do so we present evidence that the conclusion is true or probably true. The stronger and more compelling our evidence the more support we provide for the conclusion. In this way we may construct a good argument whose premises support the conclusion without establishing a strict relationship of implication between premises and conclusion. Here are some examples:
9) A DNA test of the blood on the murder weapon indicates that there is approximately a 1/2,000,000 chance that it is not the blood of the defendant. Therefore, the blood on the murder weapon belongs to the defendant.
10) All of the computers that I have used so far require software to function. So, every computer needs software to function.
11) In my PC I can find my bookmark files by looking in the Internet browser’s files on the hard disc. Now this is a Mac and not a PC but they are both personal computers with similar systems. So, I bet the bookmarks files can be found in the Internet browser’s files on the hard disc.
Can we say that the conclusions of these arguments follow from or are implied by the premises in the sense that one cannot imagine the premises are true and the conclusion false, i.e. does a relationship of implication exist between premises and conclusion? No. It is possible that the premises are true and the conclusion is false. In the first case this is very difficult to imagine, but it is nevertheless possible. In the second case, it may very well be true that the conclusion is true, but one can certainly imagine that the premises are true and conclusion is false. Likewise in the third case, the premises give us some reason for believing that the conclusion is true, but perhaps the premises are true and conclusion false. In each case one can say that the premises support the conclusion, albeit, in varying degrees. These are all INDUCTIVE arguments, i.e. the relationship of support that exists between premises and conclusion is inductive not deductive.
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