On friday we started out discussing the topic of ethics to politics. We tried to determine if values are real are they only real for individuals or for everyone. Also discussed if values are constructed, and who constructs them and determines their merit.
We touched on the idea of economic ideology which means that happiness of an individual equals the masses flourishing of a state. We questioned what is the aim of the city, why is the city created in the first place, and are cities based off of a social contract or simply for transcendence.
Transcendence means that we can become more than we are because of one another and we are dependent of one another. Dr. Layne gave us the example of marriage. Should we enter marriage to stop the other from doing what they please or trust that the other person will make up a better person
Another topic we explored in class we the art if arguing. Many people can agree that philosophers like to argue. Abuse sometimes gets confused with arguing. Abuse is name calling and yelling. Contradiction also gets confused with arguing. Contradiction is repeating what another saying but as the opposite. Arguing is not simply stating beliefs or preferences with reasons to back up the statements. Arguments are not just stating things as facts. Arguments are using facts to prove your statement is true.
There are two kind of arguments, formal and informal.
For formal arguments, premises statements are used. Premises are used to support the conclusion. A conclusion results from two premises that relate to each other to form a truth. An argument is considered valid if the two premises lead to the conclusion. An argument is a process of reasoning that intends to establish the truth of a conclusion based on the bias of the truth of the premises.
An argument can only be valid if the conclusion follows the premises.
An argument is invalid if the conclusion does not follow from the premise. Key words that indicate a conclusion include: thus, so, therefore, hence, consequently, we see that, we many conclude.
If there is a question of the truth of a conclusion than many times the next step is to question validity of a premise.
Often a conclusion is stated before he premises some words to indicate this include: for, since, because.
Sometimes a conclusion from a previous argument can be used as a premise for another argument.
In informal and formal arguments one is said to be valid if the concision really does follow from the premise and invalid if it does not. It is important to remember that validity does not mean conclusion is accurate.
Just because two people have the same belief doesn't mean you have to agree on the same premisses. An example of this that we discussed in class was people's reasoning for believing in a God.
Dr. Layne showed us a video of Nellie Mckay in order to demonstrate how sarcasm can be used for as a way to make an argument. The lyrics " Feminist don't have a since of humor" were used in a playful song in order to show the exact opposite. Towards the end of class we started to discuss different types of common fallacies.
The first fallacy we discussed was faulty cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc). This is defined by mistakes correction or association for cause by assuming that because one thing follows another is is cause by the other.
The second fallacy we discussed was hasty or sweeping generalization ( dicta simperciter). This assumes that what is true of the whole will be true of the part or that what is true in most instances will be true in all instances.
This was how we ended class and monday we will continue from here.
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