It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Your grades are now posted. Harpy Nu Year!

Final Exam

Just a reminder: the final exam is Monday, December 19th, in our normal classroom at 11:00 a.m. You'll have 50 minutes to take it.

Rational-Empirical Babies

Psychologist Alison Gopnik wrote a book called The Philosophical Baby. It's loaded with cool insights on the rationalism-empiricism debate. Here's an interview with Gopnik about the book, and here's a review. Below is her appearance on The Colbert Report.

Nihilism

Here is the (mildly depressing) approach to the meaning of life mentioned in our class discussion on Wednesday:

• "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus
• "The Absurd" by Thomas Nagel

It Pays to Believe?

Here are some links on Pascal's Wager:

• Links to several articles on the argument.
• Here's an audio interview on the argument and Pascal's entire work Pensées.
• NOTHING TO LOSE? Is there really not much to lose in this wager? This cartoon thinks otherwise.
• WHICH GOD? With so many religions out there, which God should we believe in? This cartoon dinosaur has the most practical solution.
• More on decision theory, the branch of math Pascal uses to argue that belief in God is a good bet.
• Some related entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: evidentialism vs. nonevidentialism, religious versions of nonevidentialism (or fideism), other pragmatic arguments for believing in god, and Pascal's other contributions to philosophy.

My Identity is Personal

Two cartoons on personal identity:

1. Does physical or psychological continuity matter? Let's think about teletransportation...
2. Perhaps our identity is all in the way we're arranged:

Vaudevillian Dialectic

Kantian Links

Here are some links related to Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics:

• An intermediate overview of Kant's theory of ethics.
• An advanced overview of Kant's ethics.
• Kant's theory is deontological (which is a fancy word that basically means morality is about more than just the consequences of an action). Here's an advanced overview of deontological ethics.
• Some harsh criticisms of Kant's ethical judgments. My favorite excerpt: "Kant's philosophical moral reasoning appears mainly to have confirmed his prejudices and the ideas inherited from his culture. Therefore, we should be nervous about expecting more from the philosophical moral reasoning of people less philosophically capable than Kant."
• A 3-minute video on Kant's ethics is below:

The Psychology of Happiness

Since utilitarianism focuses so much on happiness, I thought I'd share some links on the cool new psychological research on happiness popping up lately.

• Here's a great overview of the psychology of happiness. And here is another, and another.
• Recent studies suggest that our baseline level of happiness doesn't change much throughout our life. So, even if we won the lottery, we wouldn't wind up that much happier. This is potentially very depressing news, although some say there's room for some optimism, and others think the research is wrong.
• There's an insightful, accessible book by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert called Stumbling on Happiness. One of his big points is that we often don't know what makes us happy. Here's Gilbert's appearance on The Colbert Report:
• And here's Gilbert giving an awesome TED talk on his research:
  
  

Utilitarios!

Here are some links on the theory of utilitarianism:

• A neat little biography of know-it-all John Stuart Mill
• An advanced encyclopedia article on utilitarianism and other theories that focus on consequences of an action.
• The trolley problem gets brought up a lot when evaluating utilitarianism. A short video intro on it is below. Also, there's some new research on the psychology of the trolley problem.

Religion and Free Will Journal Guideline

Worth: 15% of your overall grade

New Due Date: the beginning of class on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Assignment: The assignment is to keep a journal during our section on philosophy of religion and free will. I want you to write several short journal entries about the various arguments for and against the existence of God, as well as an entry on our section on free will. We’ll be going over all these topics in class during the next few weeks. Each entry should be around two paragraphs long.

This assignment is a chance for you to do philosophy. I want you to demonstrate that you understand what we are reading and discussing. (Present each argument in your own words.) In addition to this, I want you to critically evaluate each argument we read and discuss. (Are any premises questionable? Does the argument provide enough support for its conclusion?) It is also a chance for you to give your opinion on these arguments, and defend your opinion with good reasons.
You should have the following journal entries, in this order:

1) An entry explaining and evaluating the cosmological argument (Aquinas reading).

2) An entry explaining and evaluating the ontological argument (Anselm & Guanilo readings).

3) An entry explaining and evaluating the design argument (Hume reading).

4) An entry explaining and evaluating the problem of evil argument (Sober and Augustine readings).

5) A philosophy of religion wrap-up entry where you discuss your thoughts about God after reading these philosophers and discussing this in class. Has your opinion about God changed? Have your reasons for your opinion changed?

6) An entry on free will (Nagel, Sober, Maimonides, Aristotle, and Hospers articles). Do you think we have free will? Why or why not? Consider the various arguments for and against free will we’ve studied in class, as well as the various theories (libertarianism, hard determinism, and compatibilism).

There is no length requirement. (Again, the suggestion is around two paragraphs per journal entry.)

Divine Aftknowledge

Here are some links to stuff related to our recent class discussions:

• Here are two encyclopedia entries (one and two) on divine foreknowledge and free will.
• Here's an entry on Augustine.
• Here's an entry on Maimonides (plus an entry on the impact of Islamic thought on his philosophy).
• Here's a review of a recent book on Maimonides in my favorite free online philosophy review publication.

Hear No Evil

If you like to get philosophical on the treadmill, try downloading and listening to these podcasts on the problem of suffering:

• Well-known contemporary philosopher (and ordained priest) Marilyn McCord Adams offers some insights into the problem of evil in this audio interview. (Download)
• The NPR program Fresh Air has an audio interview with Bart Ehrman on the problem of suffering. (Download)
• Here's even more audio from a few philosophers on the problem of suffering. (Download)

Suffer-iness

Here's Stephen Colbert's take on evil:

Bad Things to Good People

Here are some links on the problem of suffering.

• This is a great introductory article on the problem of suffering.
• There is a collection of resources all about the problem of evil, including criticisms of several different responses to the problem. I mean, wow.
• I'd like to highlight one article in particular: a discussion of the "God works in mysterious ways" response: do we have enough evidence to believe that there is a reason for all the suffering in the world, but humans aren't smart enough to understand what that reason is?
• And here's a video talk on the humility response.
• Does everything happen for a reason? This cartoon dinosaur has an interesting take on that question. (T-Rex also occasionally wonders why bad things happen to nice people, and whether we're in the worst possible world.)

Random Comedy

As usual, The Onion nails it:

• "Realistic Announcer Shouting How Kevin Durant Making His Last 4 Shots Has No Bearing On Whether He Will Make Next Shot"
• "Cornell Drains Fun Out Of Cinderella Run By Explaining How On A Long Enough Timeline The Improbable Becomes Probable"

The Importance of Being Stochastic

Here is a bunch of links related to our natural tendency to misinterpret randomness as if it's an intentional pattern:

• Most of us are pretty bad at statistical reasoning.
• Here's a review of a decent book (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives) on this topic.
• What was that infinite monkey typewriter thing we were talking about in class? Someone recently tried it! Well, sort of.
• A radio show I love recently devoted an entire episode to probability.
  
• Another radio show I love ran a great 2-part series on the screening for diseases called "You Are Pre-Diseased".
• What's up with that recent recommendation that routine screenings for breast cancer should wait until your 50s rather than 40s? Math helps explain it.

Design in the Mind's Eye

Here's an interesting approach to explaining the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of the universe: maybe it's all in our mind.

Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that we see intentional design and patterns too much... including in things that are actually random. So things that seem so fine-tuned and unlikely from our perspective might not actually be. Here's a video dialogue on this topic:




Bloom has two great books (Descartes' Baby and How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) on how our minds develop from early childhood on.

Midterm

Just a reminder that the midterm exam will be held on Monday, November 7th. It's worth 20% of your overall grade.

There are a variety of questions on the midterm:  different types of argument evaluation, some short answers, a mini-essay, and extra credit. It covers everything we've gone over in class so far:

• Philosophy
  -Definitions
  -Doing philosophy
• Arguments
  -Evaluation: truth and support tests
  -Types: arguments from example, arguments by analogy, causal arguments, arguments from authority, deductive arguments
  
• Knowledge
  -Definition: Plato says true belief doesn't equal knowledge
  -Skepticism
  -Descartes: uncertain of childhood beliefs, senses, and reasoning; certain he's thinking and he exists
• God Stuff
  -Cosmological Argument: Aquinas's uncaused 1st cause version
  -Ontological Argument: Anselm's version, Guanilo's criticism
  -Design Argument: arg by analogy version, inductive version, Hume's criticisms of the analogy & inductive versions, abductive version

Blind Watchmaking

Here are some more critical links on the design argument for God's existence.

• Here is an audio interview on Hume's criticisms of the design arg.
• One philosophers' take on the debate between evolution and intelligent design.
• Is our universe fine-tuned for life? Maybe not.
• Wait, can science even judge religious claims, or are they talking about different things? Maybe an inference to the best explanation can help us...
• What about all the "design flaws" in nature? Are they evidence against a supreme designer?
• In the video below, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson points to all kinds of "design flaws" in the universe.

Like a Machine, Only More So

Here are some links on the design argument for god's existence.

• Here is a nice explanation of the design argument, along with an explanation of the ontological argument that we just finished studying.
•  Here's an audio interview with Elliott Sober (a philosopher we'll be reading soon) on the design argument:
  
• Here's a long-ish video lecture on the notion of fine-tuning.

10/26 Class Canceled

I'm sick, so Wednesday's class is canceled. This confuses a few things logistically, so here are the changes:

• The midterm will be moved back to Wednesday, November 2nd. 
• We'll be reviewing for it in class on Monday, October 31st.

Think [Tap-Dance] God

Here is some stuff on the ontological argument:

• This article by philosopher Alex Byrne contains the best explanation of the ontological argument I've read.  Here's another good one.
• the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy entry
• the entry on St. Anselm
• Logician and mathematician Kurt Gödel came up with an impressive version of this argument based on modal logic.  Check out a formalization of it below.

Bro-ing Out

Philosophy Bro is a website devoted to summarizing classic philosophical texts in bro-speak.  Recently, P-Bro tackled Aquinas's Five Ways as well as the ontological argument (warning: the summaries contain curses).

Why Is Anything Anything?

The website Closer to Truth has a ton of short interviews with modern-day philosophers (and other smart people) on their thoughts about god. For instance, there's an entire episode on the cosmological argument titled "Did Our Universe Have a Beginning?" and an entire section titled "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Here are some related videos:

• Theist John Leslie says God best explains why there is something.
• Theist Peter van Inwagen believes in God, but doesn't like this arg.
• Atheist Colin McGinn thinks it's a meaningless question.
• Physicist Steven Weisberg says we should wait for science's answer.
• Apatheist Master Shake uses it as an excuse to be lazy.

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.”

And here's a video on the relationship between philosophy and religion:

• Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? Oh, here it is!

• Nick Bostrom (the author of "Do We Live in a Computer Simulation?") argues for agnosticism

Philoso-felines

Cute cats and philosophy captions? You know I can't resist:

Virtual Dinosaurs

Here's a more advanced version of the Nick Bostrom article we passed out in class about the potentially high probability that we're actually living in a Matrix-like virtual reality. If you get really into Bostrom's argument, there's a whole website devoted to debating it (including a FAQ written by Bostrom).

Of course, T-Rex has read this article, too:

McGurk

Here's a neat video on an optical illusion called the McGurk effect:

My favorite illusions are the ones that still work even after you realize they're just illusions.

New Due Date: Paper #1

Just a reminder that the deadline for the first paper has been pushed back.  It's now due at the beginning of class on Friday, October 14th. 

If you're looking for more stuff on external world skepticism for the paper, this entry on skepticism might be helpful. It's a bit more accessible than other entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and it includes several attempts to combat arguments for skepticism, including the fallibilist and contextualist strategies we'll discuss in class on Wednesday.  You don't have to use this source, but if you do, be sure to cite it.

I'm Certain I'm Doubting

Here are some links related to our discussion of René Descartes and skepticism from 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.
• The search for truth is tough. Let's get the FBI on the case!
• Here's an audio interview about Descartes's famous argument that he's certain he exists.
• Can we be abolutely certain of math claims like 2 + 3 = 5? This cartoon dinosaur says we can't.

By the way, if you have any links you think I or others in class might find interesting, let me know. And feel free to comment on any of these posts.

Group Presentation Research

Here are some helpful starter links on your topics for your group presentations. I don't expect you to read them all, but you should at least browse them to see what you might be interested in specifically regarding your topic. 

Team Philosophy of Mind
[dualism: intermediate, advanced] [identity theory] [functionalism: intro, advanced] [consciousness: lengthy overview, intermediate, advanced] [what's it like to be a bat?] [zombies!] [panpsychism?] [why are most scientists physicalists? (audio)] [the extended mind] [more topics] 

Team Philosophy of Art/Aesthetics
[beginner] [intermediate] [defining art] [judging art] [music] [conceptual art] [philosophers' views on art]


Team Personal Identity
[intermediate] [advanced] [summary of "A Dialogue on Personal Identity & Immortality"] [identity in general] [Ship of Theseus] [personal identity & ethics] [cool video] 

Pascal's Wager
[beginner (plus lots of links)] [intermediate] [advanced] [fun links] 

Team Faith and Reason
[intermediate] [nonevidentialism] [evidentialism: intermediate, advanced] ["Believing Without Evidence"] ["The Ethics of Belief"] ["The Will to Believe"] [Flew, Hare (reply), & Mitchell (summary)] [lots of links] 

Team Meaning of Life
[intermediate] [religion links] [Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus"] [Nagel's "The Absurd"] ["Love and Death"] [42?] 

Team Rationalism vs. Empiricism
[advanced] [Chomsky's "Poverty of the Stimulus" argument for rationalism] [Pinker for rationalism] [counterexample to Chomsky? (more) (rationalist responses)] [Chomsky's mistake (video dialogue)] 

Team Pragmatism
[intermediate] [advanced] [other theories of truth] ["Believing Without Evidence"] [William James] [James's "The Will to Believe"] [criticism: "The Ethics of Belief"] [John Dewey] [Charles Sanders Pierce] [pragmatist feminism] [Richard Rorty]

Group Presentations

Here are the group assignments. If you're not in a group yet, let me know as soon as possible so we can get you in one.

Team Philosophy of Mind (1st on Friday, December 9th)
Amber C., Ashley, Brenda, Erin, John, Laura

Team Philosophy of Art/Aesthetics (2nd on Friday, December 9th)
Elliot, George, Holly, Lois, Nzinga

Team Personal Identity (3rd on Friday, December 9th)
Ben, Dan Mc., Jeremy, Katie, Nick

Team Pascal's Wager (1st on Monday, December 12th)
Anthony, Dan Mo., Ryan, Steve

Team Meaning of Life (2nd on Monday, December 12th)
Andre, Amber D., Dillon, Helema, Kyle, Manny

Team Rationalism vs. Empiricism (1st on Wednesday, December 14th)
Dustin, Greg, Max, Zack

Team Pragmatism (2nd on Wednesday, December 14th)
Allwell, Blake, Celia, Derek, Tom

During the last week of the semester (December 9th, 12th, and 14th), groups of 4-6 students will present 10-15 minute presentations on specific topics that their members have researched on their own during the course. Students will choose to present on specific philosophical topics that we have not explicitly studied in class.

Each group must present on a different topic. There will be some time set aside in class for groups to research and prepare for their presentations; however, you should also meet outside class to work on this presentation. I will be helping you with your research, but you should research on your own, as well.

Groups are free to choose how to present their topic to the rest of the class. Be creative! Think about puppets, posters, songs, skits, whatever. Part of your grade will be based on how creative your presentation is. Remember, though, the rest of the class will probably not be familiar with the material you are presenting. I recommend incorporating class participation of some form into your presentation. At the end of each presentation, the group will answer questions from the rest of the class.

The presentation is worth 150 points (15% of your overall grade). Except in unusual circumstances, each group member shall receive the same grade. Attendance is mandatory for each day of the group presentations. If you don't attend on either the days your group isn't presenting (and your absence isn't excused), your own personal presentation grade will drop. Each day you don't attend will lower your grade by a full letter grade.

We're All Skeptics Now

Here are some links related to our discussion of knowledge and skepticism from class.

• What are the philosophical implications of the movie The Matrix?
  
• 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.
  
• I recently interviewed the author of that book for the Owning Our Ignorance club. Here's the audio interview.
  

K = JTB?

I wonder whether Plato would agree with T-Rex's analysis of knowledge:


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!

Do I Annoy Because I'm a Jerk, Or Am I a Jerk Because I Annoy You?

Socrates has a reputation of being a bit of a jerk. The following robot reenactment of one of his dialogues does little to dispel this reputation:

Paper #1 Guidelines

(Want tips on writing a philosophy essay? Check out here and here!)

New Due Date: at the beginning of class on Friday, October 14th, 2011

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 500-800 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 5th.)

An Argument's Support

One of the trickier concepts to understand in this course is the structure (or support) of an argument. This is a more detailed explanation of the term. If you've been struggling to understand this term, the following might help you.

An argument's structure is its underlying logic; the way the premises and conclusion logically relate to one another. The structure of an argument is entirely separate from the actual meaning of the premises. For instance, the following three arguments, even though they're talking about different things, have the exact same structure:

1) All tigers have stripes.
Tony is a tiger.
Tony has stripes.

2) All humans have wings.
Sean is a human.
Sean has wings.

3) All blurgles have glorps.
Xerxon is a blurgle.
Xerxon has glorps.

There are, of course, other, non-structural differences in these three arguments. For instance, the tiger argument is overall good, since it has a good structure AND true premises. The human/wings argument is overall bad, since it has a false premise. And the blurgles argument is just crazy, since it uses made up words. Still, all three arguments have the same underlying structure (a good structure):

All A's have B's.
x is an A.
x has B's.

Evaluating the structure of an argument is tricky. Here's the main idea regarding what counts as a good structure: the premises provide us with enough information for us to figure out the conclusion from them. In other words, the premises, if they were true, would logically show us that the conclusion is true. So, if you believed the premises, they would convince you that the conclusion is worth believing, too.

Note I did NOT say that the premises are actually true in a good-structured argument. Structure is only about truth-preservation, not about whether the premises are actually true or false. What's "truth preservation" mean? Well, truth-preserving arguments are those whose structures are such that if you stick in true premises, you get a true conclusion.

The premises you've actually stuck into this particular structure could be good (true) or bad (false). That's what makes evaluating an arg's structure so weird. To check the structure, you have to ignore what you actually know about the premises being true or false.

Good Structured Arguments (Valid)
If we assume that all the premises are true, then the conclusion will also be true for an argument to have a good structure. Notice we are only assuming truth, not guaranteeing it. Again, this makes sense, because we’re truth-preservers: if the premises are true, the conclusion that follows will be true.

EXAMPLES:
1) All humans are mammals.
All mammals have hair.
All humans have hair.

2) If it snows, then it’s below 32 degrees.
It is snowing right now.
It’s below 32 degrees right now.

3) All humans are mammals.
All mammals have wings.All humans have wings.

4) Either Yao is tall or Spud is tall.
Yao is not tall.
Therefore, Spud is tall.

Even though arguments 3 and 4 are ultimately bad, they still have good structure (their underlying form is good). The second premise of argument 3 is false—not all mammals have wings—but it has the same exact structure of argument 1—a good structure. Same with argument 4: the second premise is false (Yao Ming is about 7 feet tall), but the structure is good (it’s either this or that; it’s not this; therefore, it’s that).

To evaluate the structure, then, assume that all the premises are true. Imagine a world in which all the premises are true. In that world, are you able to figure out from the premises that the conclusion is also true? Or can you imagine a scenario in that world in which the premises are true, but the conclusion is still false? If you can imagine this situation, then the argument's structure is bad. If you cannot, then the argument is truth-preserving (inputting truths gives you a true output), and thus the structure is good.

Bad Structured Arguments (Invalid)
In an argument with a bad structure, you can’t draw the conclusion from the premises – the premises don’t give you enough information. Bad structured arguments do not preserve truth.

EXAMPLES:
1) All humans are mammals.
All whales are mammals.
All humans are whales.

2) If it snows, then it’s below 32 degrees.
It doesn’t snow.
It’s not below 32 degrees.

3) All humans are mammals.
All students in our class are mammals.
All students in our class are humans.

4) Either Yao is tall or Spud is short.
Yao is tall.
Spud is short.

Even though arguments 3 and 4 have all true premises and a true conclusion, they are still have a bad structure, because their form is bad. Argument 3 has the same exact structure as argument 1—a bad structure (it doesn’t preserve truth).

Even though in the real world the premises and conclusion of argument 3 are true, we can imagine a world in which all the premises of argument 3 are true, yet the conclusion is false. For instance, imagine that our school starts letting dogs take classes. The second premise would still be true, but the conclusion would then be false.

The same goes for argument 4: even though Spud is short (Spud Webb is around 5 feet tall), this argument doesn’t guarantee this. The structure is bad (it’s either this or that; it’s this; therefore, it’s that, too.). We can imagine a world in which Yao is tall, the first premise is true, and yet Spud is tall, too.

Evaluating Deductive Arguments

Here are the answers to the handout on evaluating deductive arguments that we did as group work in class.

1) All bats are mammals.
All mamammals live on earth.
All bats live on earth.

P1- true
P2- true
support- valid
overall- sound

2) 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)

3) All males in this class are humans.
All females in this class are humans.
All males in this class are females.

P1- true
P2- true
support- invalid (the premises only tell us that males and females both belong to the humans group; we don't know enough about the relationship between males and females from this)
overall- unsound (bad support)

4) No humans are amphibians.
All frogs are amphibians.
No frogs are humans.

P1- true
P2- true
structure-  valid (the premises say that frogs belong to a group that humans can't belong to, so it follows that no frogs are humans)
overall- sound

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)
support- 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 support)

6) Some dads have beards.
All bearded people are mean.
Some dads are mean.

P1- true
P2- questionable ("mean" is subjective)
support- 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) Oprah Winfrey is a person.
Some people ate tacos yesterday.
Oprah Winfrey ate tacos yesterday.

P1- true
P2- true (you might not have directly seen anyone eat tacos, but you have a lot of indirect evidence... with all the Taco Bells, Don Pablos, etc., surely lots of people ate tacos yesterday)
support- invalid (the 2nd premise only says some ate tacos; Oprah could be one of the  people who didn't)
overall- unsound (bad support)

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) 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)

11) 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)

12) All students in here are humans.
Most humans are shorter than 7 feet tall.
Most students in here are shorter than 7 feet tall. 

P1- true
P2- true!
support- invalid (the premises state a strong statistical generalization over a large population, and the conclusion claims that this generalization holds for a much smaller portion of that population; even though it's likely that most students in here are, in fact, shorter than 7 feet tall, it nevertheless could be true that the humans in here are a statistical anomaly)
overall- unsound (bad support)

13) (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)
support- valid (it's either A or B; it's not A; so it's B)
overall- unsound (bad premises)

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- invalid (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)

15) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Students aren't cringing right now.
Sean isn't singing right now. 

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- true
structure- valid 
overall- unsound (bad 1st premise)

16) If there is no God, then life is meaningless.
Life isn't meaningless.
There is a God.

P1- questionable (that's not an obvious claim to prove or disprove)
P2- questionable (again, that's not an obvious claim to prove or disprove)
support- valid (the same structure as argument #15)
overall- unsound (bad premises)

An Expert for Every Cause

Looking for links on arguments from authority? This is your post! First, here's an interesting article on a great question: How are those of us who aren't experts supposed to figure out the truth about stuff that requires expertise?

Not all alleged experts are actual experts. Here's a method to tell which experts are phonies (this article was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education).

We should judge experts who are into making predictions on how accurate their predictions turn out.  Well, most experts are really bad at predicting, and have the same biases as non-experts.

It's important to check whether the person making an appeal to authority really knows who the authority is. That's why we should beware of claims that begin with "Studies show..."

And here's a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Christopher Walken completely flunks the competence test.

Non-Deductive Arguments

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. China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, and Russia are all countries with populations greater than 100 million citizens. Hence, most countries have populations larger than 100 million citizens.

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. I expect this new pair of cheap, black shoes to last me about 9 months, since the last pair of cheap, black shoes I bought wound up lasting about 9 months until I wore them out.

Analogy
Pretty Good - More information would be better--for instance, it's not clear whether the two pairs of shoes are the same brand and model--but the similarities (same owner, cheapness) are relevant to the conclusion of how long the shoes will last.

10. In 2006, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate in its history. That same year, Mark Wahlberg spent a lot of time in Philadelphia while filming the movie Invincible. Thus, Mark Wahlberg’s presence in Philly probably led to such a high murder rate.

Cause
Bad - This is most likely a coincidental correlation between Wahlberg's stay in town and the high murder rate.

Penguin Digestion Experts? You Bet!

So you didn't believe me when I said that there are experts on the subject of penguin digestion? Oh, you did? Fine, well, I'll prove it to you, anyway. Here are some academic articles on the topic:

• Adjustments of gastric pH, motility and temperature during long-term preservation of stomach contents in free-ranging incubating king penguins from a 2004 issue of Journal of Experimental Biology
  
• Feeding Behavior of Free-Ranging King Penguins (Aptenodytes Patagonicus) from a 1994 issue of Ecology

Of course, no list would be complete without the often-cited, groundbreaking 1985 Ornis Scandinavica article:

• Differential Digestion of Fish and Squid in Jackass Penguins Spheniscus demersus

Perhaps my favorite, though, is the following:

• Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation from a 2003 issue of Polar Biology
  

If any of these articles are above your head (I think they're all above mine!), you might like this, uh, simpler video demonstration of penguin digestion.

Here's yet another stick-figure comic (for those keeping track, that's four total on the blog so far). This one's about correlation.

Our Inductive Minds

 Here are some more thoughtful links on inductive reasoning (or arguments by example).

• What are the benefits and dangers of generalizations?
• What makes stereotyping illogical?
• Beware: we often make snap judgments before thinking through things. Then when we do think through things, we just wind up rationalizing our snap judgments.

Arguments by Example

Here are a few dumb things about arguments by example (also called inductive arguments, talked about in the book chapter titled "Generalizations"). First, a video of comedian Lewis Black describing his failure to learn from experience every year around Halloween:


Next, this stick figure comic offers a pretty bad argument. Why is it bad? (Let us know in the comments!)

That Beyoncé Video WAS Great...

Why doesn't Kanye give a toast to the tools?

Howard Sure Is a Duck

Howard the Duck is my favorite synecdoche for the 80's:

Philosophers In Their Own Words

Photographer Steve Pyke has a cool series of portraits of philosophers. Many of the philosophers also provide a short explanation of their understanding of what it is they do. Here are a few of my favorites:

Delia Graff Fara:

"By doing philosophy we can discover eternal and mind independent truths about the ’real’ nature of the world by investigating our own conceptions of it, and by subjecting our most commonly or firmly held beliefs to what would otherwise be perversely strict scrutiny."

Kit Fine:

"Philosophy is the strangest of subjects: it aims at rigour and yet is unable to establish any results; it attempts to deal with the most profound questions and yet constantly finds itself preoccupied with the trivialities of language; and it claims to be of great relevance to rational enquiry and the conduct of our life and yet is almost completely ignored. But perhaps what is strangest of all is the passion and intensity with which it is pursued by those who have fallen in its grip."

Sally Haslanger (only available in the book):

"Given the amount of suffering and injustice in the world, I flip-flop between thinking that doing philosophy is a complete luxury and that it is an absolute necessity. The idea that it is something in between strikes me as a dodge. So I do it in the hope that it is a contribution, and with the fear that I’m just being self-indulgent. I suppose these are the moral risks life is made of."

Philosophy: The Annoying 3-Year-Old

Here's comedian Louis CK's take on the broad, fundamental questions kids ask.

Louis CK - Why?