SEMINAR 4. LAWS AND ARGUMENTATION

FINAL TEST. SYLLOGISM

1. Basic laws of logic.

2. Argumentation rules and mistakes.

CONCEPT

A. In each of the following sentences, replace any boldfacedwords with more abstract ones, and any italicized with more concrete ones (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning). Name the logical operations. Diagram the sets of concepts.

1. The tall stranger whirled around and dashed his drinking implement against the fireplace.

2. “So the elephant has turned westward,” said the inspector. “However he will not escape, for my men are scattered all over that region” (Mark Twain, The Stolen White Elephant)

3. She took out a jar, and, looking around for a plate, found half of one by the door. These things she carried out to the porch steps, where she sat down. (Toni Morrison, Beloved)

4. About suffering they were never wrong

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position... (W.H. Auden, Museé des Beaux Arts)

5. In secret we met –

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive. (Lord Byron, When We Two Parted)

В. Each of the following passages proposes a system of classification. Identify the concepts, and note any points at which the passages fail to make genus-species relationships clear (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

· “The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.” (Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia)

· “Q. What is the difference between turtles, tortoises and terrapins?

o Turtles, tortoises and terrapins all belong to a group of four-legged reptiles that have hard outer shells, scaly skin, and horny beaks. They are in the order Chelonia or Testudinata. Generally, turtles live in salt water; those that live on land are called tortoises. A few edible fresh-water turtles are called terrapins.” (New York Times, January 6, 1987)

C. Analize the classifications given in the poem below. Define their principles and state whether the classifications are valid.

Finally my Hiawatha

Tumbled all the tribe together,

('Grouped' is not the right expression),

And, as happy chance would have it

Did at last obtain a picture

Where the faces all succeeded:

Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,

Unrestrainedly abused it,

As the worst and ugliest picture

They could possibly have dreamed of.

'Giving one such strange expressions -

Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.

Really any one would take us

(Any one that did not know us)

For the most unpleasant people!'

(Hiawatha seemed to think so,

Seemed to think it not unlikely).

All together rang their voices,

Angry, loud, discordant voices,

As of dogs that howl in concert,

As of cats that wail in chorus… (Lewis Carroll. Hiawatha’s Photographing)

FINAL TEST

Analyze the abstract from the novel by Lewis Carroll:

· Express your opinion on the given variant of applying the Least Common Multiple Rule to books.

· Define the scope and the content of the concepts BOOK, MIND and THOUGHT.

· Diagram the set of concepts SCIENCE, WRITTEN SCIENCE, THOUGHT-OUT SCIENCE, according to the main idea of the abstract.

“One needn’t be a Doctor,” I said, “to take an interest in medical books. There’s another class of readers, who are yet more deeply interested -”

“You mean the Patients?” she interrupted, while a look of tender pity gave new sweetness to her face. “But,” with an evident wish to avoid a possibly painful topic, “one needn’t be either, to take an interest in books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you think, the books, or the minds?”

“Rather a profound question for a lady!” I said to myself, holding, with a conceit so natural to Man, that Woman’s intellect is essentially shallow. And I considered a minute before replying. “If you mean living minds, I don’t think it’s possible to decide. There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn’t yet been written. But, if you mean the whole human race, then I think the minds have it: everything, recorded in books, must have once been in some mind, you know.”

“Isn’t it rather like one of the rules in Algebra?” my Lady enquired. (“Algebra too!” I thought with encreasing wonder.) “I mean. If consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the other way?”

“Certainly we may!” I replied, delighted with the illustration. “And what a grand thing it would be,” I went on dreamily, thinking aloud rather than talking, “if we could only apply that Rule to books! You know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its highest power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought, except in the sentence where it is expressed with the greatest intensity.”

My Lady laughed merrily. “Some books would be reduced to blank paper, I’m afraid!” she said. (Lewis Carroll. Silvie and Bruno)

PROPOSITION

A. Put each of the following statements into standard categorical form and identify the form (A, E, I, or O).

1. “No Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Irving Thalberg to Luis B. Mayer, advising him not to make Gone with the Wind)

2. “Some books are undeservedly forgotten; non are undeservedly remembered” (W.H. Auden, Apothegms)

3. “He that speaks much, is much mistaken” (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack)

4. “All the pretty things put by

Wait upon the children’s eye,

Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks

In the picture story-books.” (Robert Luis Stivenson, Picture-books in Winter)

B. Analyze the abstracts from “Venetian Merchant” by William Shakespeare, define their logical structure. Make the formulae paying attention to the logic connectors.

C. Find out whether the formulae are true or false if all the variables are true. Illustrate the underlined part with the proposition of your own.

· ~A^((Bv~C)→(D^E))

· ((A^B)↔(~C^D))v̇E

· A^((Bv(C↔~D))→E)

· (~AvB)^(Cv̇(D→~E))

· (A→(v̇~C))^(DvE)

FINAL TEST

Make the formulae of the complex propositions (you may choose any ten of the listed below). Diagram the set of the underlined concepts.

1. If every one who is sane can do Logic and no lunatics are fit to serve on a jury, then your sons cannot do Logic or they cannot serve on a jury. (based on Lewis Carroll)

2. Only if my saucepans are the only things I have that are made of tin and none of them are of the slightest use, then if you don’t give me any saucepans as a present, I’ll find all your presents very useful. (based on Lewis Carroll)

3. If I listen when you speak to me

And share your ins and outs,

If I smile your affections and

Endure your angry bouts,

Then the hours that I spend on you

Bring treasures most sublime;

There’s one thing that can buy your love –

The price of love is time. (Papa Talbert. The Price of Love)

4. Only raise your hand when

You want to sharpen your pencil

Or go to the bathroom;

Repeat every ten minutes. (Bruce Lansky. How to Torture Your Teacher)

5. If we argue, scream and fight,

That’s an altercation;

If later we apologize,

That’s reconciliation;

And all these actions added up

Make civilization. (Shel Silverstein. Ations)

6. When the dark hawberries hang down and drip like blood

And the old man’s beard has climbed up high in the wood

And the golden bracken has been broken by the snows

And Jesus Christ has come again to heal and pardon,

Then the little robin follows me through the garden,

In the dark days his breast is like a rose. (Iris Murdoch. A Year of Birds. December)

7. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice)

8. She was at last captured by the English, tried by the Church and burned as a witch, the French made little or no effort to save her. (Amabel Williams-Ellis. A History of English Life)

9. Dame Partelot will not love Chantecleer any more if he goes on being afraid, so he at last cheers up and flies down off the perch as usual, and proudly roams up and down the yard. (Amabel Williams-Ellis. A History of English Life)

10. If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he had been telling us, we shan’t make much out of it. (W.W. Jacobs. The Monkey’s Paw)

11. All puddings are nice and this dish is a pudding, or if no nice things are wholesome then this pudding is too rich for me. (based on Lewis Carroll)

12. My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane. (Robert Frost. My November Guest)

13. All my sons are slim or all gluttons, who are children of mine, are fat; and if no daughter of mine takes any exercise and no child of mine is healthy who takes no exercise, then my daughters are gluttons. (based on Lewis Carroll)

14. From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring. (Edgar Allan Poe. Alone)

15. The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. (Mark Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)

16. Neither boy spoke; if one moved, the other moved – but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. (Mark Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)

17. If the bill comes to more I shall leave my watch and say that that I shall come back and pay later. (W. Somerset Maugham. The Luncheon)

18. If a seaman came to stay at the inn, the captain stood behind the curtain on the door of the parlour and looked at him for a long time before he came. (R. L. Stevenson. Treasure Island)

19. If Rosemary wanted to shop, she went to Paris; if she wanted to buy flowers, her car stopped at the perfect shop in Regent Street. (Katherine Mansfield. A Cup of Tea)

20. He cracks his knuckles when he’s bored,

He whistles when he walks,

He snaps his fingers when he sings

And when he’s mad he squawks. (Bruce Lansky. My Noisy Brother)

SYLLOGISM

A. Put each of the following statements in the standard form of categorical syllogisms; identify the terms and the mood. Determine whether the syllogism is valid or invalid (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

1. Some democracies are tyrannies, because any state that ignores human rights is tyrannical, and some democracies do just that.

2. We should never confuse music and noise: music is an orderly progression of sounds, noise is disorderly one.

3. Some international conflicts arise from honest motives, but no aggressive war arises in that way. Hence some aggressive wars are not international conflicts.

4. “That man must be tremendously ignorant: he answers every question that is put to him.” (Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique)

5. “He who would rejoice loudly of his victories cannot expect to thrive in the world of men, for he who rejoices over victory does so at the expence of other men ” (Tao Te Ching)

B. Determine the type of the hypothetical syllogisms (modus ponens or modus tollens). Put them in standard form and determine whether they are valid (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

1. I knew I would be late if I didn’t hurry, but I did hurry, so I wasn’t late.

2. Robin wasn’t really embarrassed, because the blotch she gets whenever she’s embarrassed wasn’t there.

3. “It is only about the things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiased opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.” (More Letters of Oscar Wild, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis)

4. “Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime...

but at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near...” (Andrew Marwell, To His Coy Mistress)

C. Analyze the arguments, identify their structure, and determine whether the arguments are valid (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

1. “Since happiness consists in peace of mind, and since durable peace of mind depends on the confidence we have in 5the future, and since that confidence is based on an understanding of the nature of God and the soul, it follows that true happiness requires that understanding.” (Gottfried Leibnitz, Preface to the General Science)

2. “Touchstone: ... Wast ever in court, shepherd?

Corin: No,truly.

Touchstone: Then thou art damned...

Corin: For not being in court? Your reason.

Touchstone: Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw’st good manners; if thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. (William Shakespeare, As You Like It)

D. Evaluate the following inductive generalizations. Find some confirming and disconfirming instances (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

1. Women are only interested in clothes.

2. Men are only interested in one thing.

3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

4. People who own homes take better care of them than do people who rent.

E. Analyze the situations, define the type and structure of the syllogisms. Formulate the premises and the conclusion, evaluate the latter.

1. I had three encouragements - 1st, a smooth, calm sea; 2ndly, the tide rising, and setting in to the shore; 3rdly, what little wind there was blew me towards the land. And thus, having found two or three broken oars belonging to the boat - and, besides the tools which were in the chest, I found two saws, an axe, and a hammer; with this cargo I put to sea. For a mile or thereabouts my raft went very well, only that I found it drive a little distant from the place where I had landed before; by which I perceived that there was some indraft of the water, and consequently I hoped to find some creek or river there, which I might make use of as a port to get to land with my cargo. (Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe)

2. It was Mrs. Poppets that woke me up next morning.

She said: “Do you know that it's nearly nine o'clock, sir?"

"Nine o' what?" I cried, starting up.

"Nine o'clock," she replied, through the keyhole. "I thought you was a-oversleeping yourselves."

I woke Harris, and told him. He said: «I thought you wanted to get up at six?"

"So I did," I answered; "why didn't you wake me?"

"How could I wake you, when you didn't wake me?" he retorted. "Now we shan't get on the water till after twelve. I wonder you take the trouble to get up at all."

"Um," I replied, "lucky for you that I do. If I hadn't woke you, you'd have lain there for the whole fortnight." (Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)

F. Analyze the example of analogy. Find the informational links between the concepts compared that make the analogy possible.

Cruelty has a human heart,

And Jealousy a human face;

Terror the human form divine,

And Secresy the human dress.

***

The human dress is forged iron,

The human form a fiery forge,

The human face a furnace sealed,

The human heart its hungry gorge. (William Blake. A Divine Image)

FINAL TEST

Analyze the abstract from the poem by Lewis Carroll. Find all the premises and conclusions. Define the type of the syllogisms.

THERE are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost,

The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three -

That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most

Is a thing they call the Sea.

***

Pour some salt water over the floor -

Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:

Suppose it extended a mile or more,

THAT'S very like the Sea.

***

Beat a dog till it howls outright -

Cruel, but all very well for a spree:

Suppose that he did so day and night,

THAT would be like the Sea.

***

I had a vision of nursery-maids;

Tens of thousands passed by me -

All leading children with wooden spades,

And this was by the Sea.

***

Who invented those spades of wood?

Who was it cut them out of the tree?

None, I think, but an idiot could -

Or one that loved the Sea.

***

It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float

With 'thoughts as boundless, and souls as free':

But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,

How do you like the Sea?

***

There is an insect that people avoid

(Whence is derived the verb 'to flee').

Where have you been by it most annoyed?

In lodgings by the Sea.

***

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

A decided hint of salt in your tea,

And a fishy taste in the very eggs -

By all means choose the Sea.

***

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

Then - I recommend the Sea.

(Lewis Carroll. A Sea Dirge)

LAWS AND ARGUMENTATION

[...]

2. SECOND APPARITION.
Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth. Descends.

[…]

MACBETH.
Thou losest labor.
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF.
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd. (William Shakespeare. Macbeth)

3. OPHELIA.
I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede. (William Shakespeare. Hamlet)

С. Analyze the abstract from the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Find the example of Law of Identity violation. What meanings of the concept “MAKE” have led to misunderstanding?

"Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, «thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?"

Now Pearl knew well enough who made her, for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl, therefore - so large were the attainments of her three years' lifetime - could have borne a fair examination in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works.

But that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson’s question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door.

This phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window, together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither.

Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features - how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen - since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward.

"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further." (Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter)

Abstract 1.

I reminded him that there was concentrated lemonade in the hamper, and a gallon-jar of water in the nose of the boat, and that the two only wanted mixing to make a cool and refreshing beverage.

Then he flew off about lemonade, and "such-like Sunday-school slops," as he termed them, ginger-beer, raspberry syrup, &c., &c. He said they all produced dyspepsia, and ruined body and soul alike, and were the cause of half the crime in England. (Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what HE was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all. […]

I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I'm ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. "What a doctor wants," I said, "is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each." So I went straight up and saw him, and he said: "Well, what's the matter with you?"

I said: "I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what the matter with me is. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why I have not got housemaid's knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got."

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn't expecting it - a cowardly thing to do, I call it - and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.

I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist's, and handed it in.

The man read it, and then handed it back.

He said he didn't keep it.

I said: "You are a chemist?"

He said: "I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me."

I read the prescription. It ran:

"1 lb. beefsteak, with

1 pt. bitter beer

every 6 hours.

1 ten-mile walk every morning.

1 bed at 11 sharp every night.

And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand." (Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)

Girls, also, don't look half bad in a boat, if prettily dressed. Nothing is more fetching, to my thinking, than a tasteful boating costume. But a "boating costume," it would be as well if all ladies would understand, ought to be a costume that can be worn in a boat, and not merely under a glass-case. It utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip. It was my misfortune once to go for a water picnic with two ladies of this kind. We did have a lively time!

They were both beautifully got up - all lace and silky stuff, and flowers, and ribbons, and dainty shoes, and light gloves. But they were dressed for a photographic studio, not for a river picnic. They were the "boating costumes" of a French fashion-plate. It was ridiculous, fooling about in them anywhere near real earth, air, and water. (Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)

E. Look through the descriptions of some argumentation fallacies. Using the theory scheme, find the traditional terms corresponding with the mistakes (based on David Kelley. The Art of Reasoning).

· Subjectivism: using the fact that one believes or wants a proposition to be true as evedence of its truth.

· Appeal to majority: using the fact that large numbers of people believe the proposition to be true as evidence of its truth.

· Appeal to emotion: trying to get someone to accept a propositon on the basis of an emotion one induces.