Orange Coast College
Philosophy 150
Homework #1
Due Date: November 12, 2015
Instructor David Kelsey
This homework covers lectures 1-5
Version B
Part 1:
Question: Is the following an argument? If so, what are the premises and what is the conclusion of the argument.
Whatever we believe, we think agreeable to reason, and, on that account, yield our assent to it. Whatever we disbelieve, we think contrary to reason, and, on that account, dissent from it. Reason ought then to be allowed to be the principle by which our belief and opinions are regulated.
Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man
Question: What is the issue discussed in the following passage:
…If minds are immaterial, then, we cannot see or touch or otherwise perceive any mind but our own mind, of which we seem to be directly aware. But, then, how do we know that other bodies are really, as is our body, animated by minds at all? Perhaps our mind is the only mind in the world, and every other being seemingly like us is just some sort of automaton?
...Even if we are convinced of a world external to our own minds, how can we know that there are minds lying behind these other human bodies?
Question: Identify the premises and conclusion in the following argument:
He made threats, plus he had the motive. Not only that, but who else had access to a gun? If Mitchell didn’t do it, I don’t know who did.
Question: True or False, both sound arguments and cogent arguments are valid. (Please explain your answer.)
Question: supply a universal principle that turns the following into a valid deductive argument:
Summer believes abortion is permissible when the mother’s life is at stake so she’s liberal for sure.
Exercise 5-1: #3
Exercise 5-3: #8
Exercise 5-9: #9
Chapter 6: #s 14, 19, 46
Chapter 7: # 26, 42
Question: what is the fallacy that occurs in the following passage?
Ken: I think I’ll vote for Andrews. She’s the best candidate.
Robert: Why do you say she’s best?
Ken: Because she’s my sister-in-law. Didn’t you know that.
Question: what is the fallacy that occurs in the following passage?
Moe: You going to class tomorrow?
Joe: I suppose. Why?
Moe: Say, don’t you get tired of being a Goody Two-Shoes? You must have the most perfect attendance record of anyone who ever went to this school—certainly better than the rest of us, right, guys?
Part 2:
Formalize the argument seen in the following passage:
David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Hunan Understanding (page 264)
For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion…It implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects…Is there any more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and January, and decay in May and June?
1