PHIL 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: National Enquirer
11 Mar 2019
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Last time, we were speaking about testimonial arguments. This fourth premise is called pta, in our book: Ideally, we would like some reason to think s is (i) (ii) sincere knowledgeable about the subject matter. Sometimes, we are not in a position to have an opinion on this, so we might use a pattern that does not refer to these. Any testimonial argument following any of the standard patterns is cogent, so evaluation will focus on the truth of the premises, and whether the argument is defeated. Evaluating the premises except for the generalisation, this must be done on a case by case basis. You might, if you are an expert in the field in question, or if you have two competing testimonial arguments, each of which seems initially equally strong. Our book describes competing arguments in terms of the conclusions being contradictories, but the term also applies if they are contraries.
