PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Political Philosophy, False Premise, Validity

• School: Cornell University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1100
• Professor: Karen Bennett

Document Summary

Subfield: political philosophy (what makes for a just government) Metaphysics: what there is and what the world is like. Subfield: philosophy of mind (what is conscious experience) How do we know that we aren"t living in a grand illusion? (ie. the matrix) What justifies limited data set to a generalization?) Ethics: 4 different approaches to what makes actions count as right or wrong. Argument: a series of premises designed to support a particular conclusion. Example: obama is human, all humans are mortal, conclusion: obama is mortal. This is a logically valid argument: if you accept the premises you cannot accept the conclusion. A: obama is mortal, humans are mortal, obama is human. Wrong because two things can be mortal without being each other; for example, animals are also mortal. B: if anyone is nineteen feet tall, he/she is the tallest person in the world. Conclusion: obama is the tallest person in the world.