Handout: Chapter 1
Determine whether the following passages are arguments or not. In those that are, underline the conclusion and tell whether the argument is deductive or inductive, and state character or form. If deductive, tell whether it’s valid or invalid, and sound or unsound. If inductive, tell whether it’s strong or weak, and cogent or uncogent. (4 points each)
1. All birds can fly. I’ve never seen one that can’t.
2. A= B and B= C; therefore, A= C.
3. “The stoical theme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”
4. Among the suspects, only the butler and Sir Chisholm knew how to shoot accurately at a distance with a .38 revolver. Lady Lawford was shot at a distance of 100 feet at 9 o’clock Tuesday night. Therefore, the butler did it.
5. Rick must be a conservative, since most supporters of President Reagan are conservatives and Rick is a Reagan supporter.
6. Bill is a Sagittarian; therefore, he is impulsive.
7. The Eiffel Tower is in London. London is in Germany. Germany is in Africa. Therefore, the Eiffel Tower is in Africa.
8. According to the polls, 54% of the voters favor Senator Erskine. Therefore, he will probably win the election.
9. The United States, England, France, and Germany all underwent great cultural change during industrialization. Consequently, China will undergo great cultural change as it industrializes.
10. The sea painter is now toggled at the thwart. Only one thing can be toggled at the thwart at one time. Therefore, nothing else is toggled at the thwart.
11. If it came to the point where we had the means of knowing what was going on in a person’s brain and could use this as a basis for predicting what he would do, and if this knowledge extended to our own future conduct, it is unlikely that our present view of life would remain the same.
12. Yes, and if horses and lions and oxen had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, then horses would paint the forms of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds.
13. Every American boy should serve a hitch in the Army; it sure did Joe and Bill a lot of good.
14. For the Lord says (Gen. Vi 7): “It repenteth Me that I have made man.” But whoever repents of what he has done, has a changeable will. Therefore, God has a changeable will.
15. Since the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal, the bisector of the vertex angle of an isosceles triangle bisects the base.
16. If John has a high I.Q. he must be intelligent, for intelligence is simply what intelligence tests measure.
17. “How did you know that I did manual labor? It’s true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.” “Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it and the muscles are more developed.” (Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red- Headed League)
18. If we continue to allow Germany to build up a large army, there will be war. Each time in the past that Germany felt strong enough, it began a disastrous war.
19. Words ending in silent e usually drop the e before a suffix beginning with a vowel. From the foregoing rule it follows that a verb ending in a silent e drops the e when –ing is added.
20.The identity (a + b)2 – c2 = (a + b -c) (a + b +c) holds for any numbers a, b, and c, because the identity x2 - y 2 = (x - y) (x + y) holds for any numbers x and y, and we can let x stand for a + b and y for c.
21.“If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand for ever.” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health)
22. “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.” (Martin Luther King, letter from Birmingham City Jail)
23.“Since everything that God wills is fair and just for the very reason that He wills it, the terrible fate of the nonelect does not violate the principle of justice. (John Calvin)
24. Both ancient and modern instances prove that no great events ever occur in any city or country that have not been predicted by soothsayers, revelations, or by portents and other celestial signs. And not to go from home in proof of this, everybody knows how the descent into Italy of Charles VIII, King of France, was predicted by Brother Girolamo Savonarola.” (Machiavelli, The Prince)
25. “Some young men think that the best way to prepare for the political game is to practice speakin’ and becomin’ orators. That’s all wrong. We’ve got some orators in Tammany Hall, but they’re chiefly ornamental. You never heard of Charlie Murphy delivering a speech, did you? Or Richard Roker, or John Kelly, or any other man who has been a real power in the organization?” (George Washington Plankett, as reported by William L. Riordan, 1905)
26. “The influence of a teacher is always problematical. What makes an artist great an individual must be created out of himself. To which teachers did Raphael, Michelangelo, Hayden, Mozart and all the great masters owe their immortal creations.” (Wolfgang von Goethe)
27. If children are repressed, they will suffer psychologically when they grow up. But either a child is repressed or he is allowed free expression. It follows that if an adult does not suffer psychologically, he must have been allowed free expression as a child.
28. Agriculture Department experts were able to calculate that the 1970 grain harvest in the Soviet Union was 8% above previous record because a Soviet official reported the average production from 1966 through 1970. Although the exact figures were not announced, the department experts merely deducted figures already on hand for the 1966-1969 harvests.
29.“Studies of digestion made on animals are evidently comparable with the same phenomena in man, as W. Beaumont” observations on his Canadian, compared with those he made by means of gastric fistula in a dog, have superabundantly proved.” (Claude Bernard, Experimental Medicine)
30. “If there is such a thing as space, it will be in something, for all being is in something, and that which is in something is in space. So space will be in space, and so on ad infininum. Accordingly, there is no such thing as space.” (Zeno of Elea)
31. “A study of history reveals a somewhat humiliating fact about organization. Whenever an increase in the size of organizations has been desirable in the interests of those concerned, it has had to be brought about (with negligible exceptions) by means of force on the part of the stronger. When voluntary federation was the only available method no unity has been achieved. It was so with ancient Greece in the face of Macedonian, with sixteenth- century Italy in the face of France and Spain, with present day Europe in the face of America and Asia.” (Bernard Russell, Skeptical Essays)
32. “We observe that all nations, barbarous as well as civilized, through separately founded because remote from each other in time and space, keep these three human customs: all have some religion, all contract solemn marriages, all bury their dead. And in no nation, however savage and crude, are any human actions performed with more elaborate ceremonies and more sacred solemnity than the rites of religion, marriage and burial. For by the axiom that uniform ideas, born among peoples unknown to each other, must have a common ground of truth, it must have been dictated to all nations that from these institutions humanity began among them all, so that the world should not again become bestial wildness. For this reason we have taken these three eternal and universal customs as the first principles of this Science.” (Giovanni Vico, The New Science)
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |