PHIL 2003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Deductive Reasoning, Goldfish, W. M. Keck Observatory
2 Oct 2017
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Circular arguments - arguments which go in circles (i. e loop: ex. I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were suppose to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why i would not live forever. Truth: the statement which constitute the argument can be true or false (arguments are never true or false! Truth and falsehood are properties of the statements, not of the arguments!: arguments are deductive, inductive, valid, invalid, weak, and sound (statements can never be strong, sound, valid, or invalid!) Is intended to provide logically conclusive support for its conclusion while inductive arguments are intended to provide only probable but not conclusive support: valid/strong and invalid/weak arguments, most philosophical arguments are deductive, make general, universal claims, ex. All dogs are animals, benjie is a dog. If the argument is inductive, then we talk about inductive strong or inductively weak arguments.
