PHIL 2020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Deductive Reasoning, Simone De Beauvoir, If And Only If

• School: University of Georgia
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 2020
• Professor: Sean Meslar

Document Summary

Basic criteria for criticizing arguments: there are two ways an argument can fail in its goals. It premises can be unreliable; that is, we can have good reason to think that they are false. It"s pre(cid:373)ises (cid:272)a(cid:374) (cid:271)e irrelevant to its conclusion; that is, even if they are reliable, they do not provide reason to think that the conclusion is true: so arguments can be evaluated along two dimensions: reliability and relevance. Only if a premise is both reliable and relevant is it useful in supporting a conclusion: good arguments can have a bad premise, just not only bad premises. Relevance and induction: what is the standard of relevance in inductive arguments, unclear; somewhere between validity and p(a) p(a i b). The more likely the conclusion is, given the premises, the better the argument: e(cid:454). (cid:862)i like (cid:272)ho(cid:272)olate; (cid:455)ou like (cid:272)ho(cid:272)olate; therefore, 2+2=4. (cid:863, even if true, the premises have nothing to do with the conclusion; they are irrelevant.