Review Stuff for Tonight...

As promised, here's a recap of what you're doing tonight for homework: on the "Deductive Arguments" side of the worksheet, try numbers 9, 11, and 12; on the "Inductive Arguments" side, try 9, 10, and 11. REMEMBER: the validity or strength of an argument is independent of the truth of its statements...

For the official record, the test has been moved to Thursday.

Also: tonight's the last chance to comment on my posting about the possible field trip.

O, that this too, too solid flesh...

...would not get sick at inopportune times. I awoke Friday morning in a state of illness; hence my absence.

Two items of business for Monday.

Item the First: If you have any interest in the proposed theatric-philosophical field trip, comment on that posting THIS WEEKEND. Time is short to arrange it, so I will need to get it moving on Monday if it's to happen at all.

Item the Second: Our first exam will be on Tuesday. You should make sure you know (and love) the important terms, and their definitions, reviewed on Thursday in class. (For those of you who were not there, the handout is online here - but it will be VERY HELPFUL for you to get in touch with a classmate who was present, since the online version is MUCH LONGER than you need). Also, re-read Descartes' First Meditation, making sure you understand what radical skepticism is, and why Descartes believes it is the only choice (cf. the Hopeful/Doubtful arguments).

Monday will be your chance to ask for any clarifications. The test format: expect to spend 30-40 minutes answering 15-20 multiple-choice questions, plus approx. 10 argument-evaluation questions (like what we did on Thursday at the end of class): in each of these, I will present a short argument, and it will be your job to evaluate it (what are the premises, and what is the conclusion? is the argument inductive or deductive? if inductive, is it strong (and, possibly, good)? if deductive, is it valid (and, possibly, sound)?

Field Trip...?

How many of you would be interested in seeing a play?

The Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield is currently staging Freud's Last Session, a play built around some of the "big questions" of philosophy. From the BSC website:

After escaping the Nazis in Vienna, legendary psychiatrist Dr. Sigmund
Freud invites a young, little known professor, C.S. Lewis, to his home in
London. Lewis expects to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a
recent book but the dying Freud has a more significant agenda. On the day
England entered WW II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex
and the meaning of life – only two weeks before Freud chose to take his
own.

I've been in touch with the BSC directors, and they offer a student rate of $15. They would arrange a Q&A with the actors after the show for us, too. They suggest the performance on Sunday, October 4 at 7:30 pm, but there are other dates and times.

Comment if you're even possibly interested; if there's enough feedback, I'll look into the logistics of arranging it.

Reviewing Basic Logic Skills!

In addition to today's handout from Professor Trelogan at the University of Northern Colorado, another great resource is the Critical Thinking Web at Hong Kong University. For tonight's homework/review, comment by responding to the following:

Is there anything wrong with these arguments? Use "official" terms (e.g. deductive, valid, etc.) if you can.

* “Philosophy” originally means love of wisdom in Greek. If you are a philosopher,
you must have a lot of wisdom.

* “Art” originally means “to make”. So art is created whenever someone makes
something.

Txt iz Gr8!! OMG!!

From the Ars Technica blog:

A recent study out of the University of Alberta says that kids who are well-versed in proper spelling are not only unaffected by the atrocities introduced by shortened words and text slang, they actually use complex structures when chatting with each other in addition to new words.

There are some differences by gender, too:

[...]boys who frequently used text speak and abbreviations were less likely to
be good spellers, while the opposite was true of girls—girls who used more
abbreviations tended to be better spellers than girls who did not. This could be
an indication that girls who use abbreviations have a better understanding of
the language and how it relates to "normal" spelling.

Unit's End...

Now that we've completed the reading from Descartes' Meditations, we have reached the end of our first official unit on Epistemology. Starting tomorrow, we begin our review for the unit test next week. Be prepared to deal with issues like the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning, valid and invalid arguments, the plethora of informal fallacies, and more...!

Descartes' Radical Skepticism

As promised, here is the link to Descartes' Meditations (a *.pdf document). Your mission is to read the First Meditation (about 2 and a half pages), in which Descartes asks the question, "Dude...what if reality really is a dream?"

As you read (by the way, it's pretty easy going), pay attention to the stages of Descartes' thought experiment. Why, exactly, does he reach his final decision at the end of the Meditation? What about God? Notice how the "Doubtful" character uses our everyday experiences of dreaming to make very strong skeptical claims.

Grrr, Sniff, Arf

"Dogs, it seems, are Aristotelians, but with their own doggy teleology."

The above quote comes from a book review in The New York Times for the newly-published book INSIDE OF A DOG: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, by Alexandra Horowitz.

Even though we haven't read any Aristotle yet, and "teleology" makes you think of ginseng, the review will be a fun read. In your comment below, include 1 quote from the review that expresses a neat fact, and your reaction or any interesting thoughts that popped into your head as you read.

The Fallacy Files

Yep, it's a website dedicated to recognizing, cataloguing, and poking some fun at the various fallacies - that is, arguments that use poor reasoning (and/or fail to use good reasoning). You'll probably find it helpful in completing your homework sheet for tomorrow; you'll certainly find some of the examples funny.

Word of the day: schadenfreude.

Tuesday Night HW, Plus Venn Link.

So, hopefully you're getting a little more comfortable with deductive arguments. To kinda emphasize one of the main points - that TRUE statements don't always guarantee VALID arguments - your short homework assignment tonight is to create three different kinds of argument:

Argument the First. Write a sound deductive argument. (Remember what two features are required to make it sound.)

Argument the Second. Write a valid deductive argument which contains at least one false premise.

Argument the Third. Write an invalid deductive argument with all true sentences (premises and conclusion).

Hint: When writing Arguments the First and the Second, remember that the goal of a deductive argument is to absolutely guarantee that, if someone accepts the premises, s/he is absolutely compelled to accept the conclusion - 0% room for exceptions. You want a totally iron-clad logical connection between your premises and conclusion. (Remember my "Socrates is mortal" example.)

If you found the Venn diagram helpful in visualizing the quarterback-steak argument on the board today, you might find this page (from Washington State University) of interest. It gives several examples of how to evaluate deductive arguments using Venn diagrams (visually), giving you the chance to decide for yourself and then check your answers.

Take the Deductive Argument Quiz!

Follow this link to a quick (10-question) online quiz on the Lander University Philosophy website. See if you can navigate the connections between truth, validity, and soundness in deductive arguments. (The quiz is toward the bottom of the page; they kindly give a brief refresher first, in case you want to review before you take it).

Keep track, and bring your results to class tomorrow. We'll review.

Schrodinger's Virus?

Ask a biologist if a virus is a living thing, and you'll find that it's not exactly an easy question to answer - viruses, like the much-ballyhooed H1N1, do show some properties of living things...but not all of them. The debate rages on.

But now...the question is about to get murkier, thanks to an awesome experiment being proposed by researchers at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Quantenoptik (what a mouthful) in Germany. They plan to take a virus, put it in a vacuum, shoot it with a laser (lasers!), and thereby put it into a state of superposition - a fancy term from quantum physics that means, in very simple terms, that it will be in two places at once.

Seriously.

If you're curious about how anything can be in two places at once, search for "Schrodinger's Cat" - a classic thought experiment in quantum physics.

If I Only Had A Brain...

Your handy-dandy Roomba might soon have no reason to lament its lack of brain cells - an article in New Science reports that two researchers at the University of Reading, UK, have been working on controlling simple robots with neurons - that is to say, honest-to-gosh live brain tissue. Their current work has been done with rat neurons; but they hope to upgrade to human cells in their next phase.

Scary? Awesome? What potential uses for such technology can you think of?

Thursday homework

Oops, almost forgot...

Tonight: comment below, addressing one (or both!) of the following questions (from p. 37 in the text):

3. If everything in the universe were to grow proportionally one-thousand times larger, would we be able to detect it?

4. Does one have the obligation to be a hero? Does one have the obligation to be a saint? Discuss whether of not the needs of others should always be put before one’s own.

Bonus points for the first to correctly identify the branch of philosophy each question deals with.

Local Philosophy News!

Hey everybody - I was just talking with two of my colleagues in the philosophy department at MCLA who've just published a book together. They're going to be doing a reading of the book at the Water Street Grill on October 15 in the evening.

More details to follow; but the proprietor of the venue was interested in inviting interested high school students for the audience. It's a really accessible book they'll be reading (translation: no jargon!). Both authors are former profs of mine, and have become good friends - plus they're smart philosophers. Save the date!

Wednesday Homework

Reading (or listening to) pages 20-25 of chapter 3 - up to, but not including, the "Barometer story".

Homework

PLEASE CHANGE YOUR OLD BOOKMARK TO THIS LINK!

Now that I've got your attention...

My original idea of using this post as a permanent homework link didn't pan out so well. It just got too messy keeping up with the new batches of comments every day. So, here's the new plan: simply go to the main blog site (http://mountiesphilosophy.blogspot.com/) for the daily homework. It will always be visible as the most recent post (i.e., the post at the top of the page).

To Talk, or to Listen?

That is the question Bill Schubart ponders in this commentary I heard on the radio Monday morning, driving to Williamstown. Read the transcript (or listen to the stream/mp3), and see if you agree with him that

[t]he shrill chaos of a million tweets, blogs and call-in cable and radio
shows has entranced us with the sounds of our own voices and immersed us in the
white noise of narcissism.

Comment: do you think that Facebook and Twitter, utilities that let us immediately share any little detail of our lives, makes us more self-absorbed or narcissistic? Can you give an example of something or someone that supports your view?

First!

I Thought that this was a rather interesting opinion.... if slightly cliched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq5R9wHCJVg

--Chris
p.s. if you're feeling really courageous watch "BRICKS"
(I will not be held responsible for any mental and /or physical harm incurred via the watching of "BRICKS")

Twitter: Better Than Your English Professor

One Stanford University study seems to indicate that Twittering might just help improve writing skills.

Read it. Buy it?

What Good Is Summer Homework?

Fair question. Take a look at this blog discussion from a few days ago at the New York Times. Notice how many different opinions there are - professors, psychologists, authors... even very educated, smart people can't all agree on the issue. Whose argument and evidence makes the most sense to you?

Identify your favorite contributor, and sum up the important pieces of evidence s/he presents. Why are you convinced by the argument? Alternatively... identify a contributor whose argument you think DOESN'T work, and point out why his or her evidence isn't convincing.

Post Some Comments: If you regularly do summer homework, do you feel as though it's worth your while? Do you actually benefit from reviewing, or previewing material, or do you still do most of your actual learning in the classroom? If you tend to blow it off, do you think that it puts you at a disadvantage compared with students who do it, or do you feel like you don't really miss out on anything important?

P.S. If you're really interested in following this issue, there are more comments and analysis here at the Chronicle of Higher Education, a popular educators' newspaper.