4.
Identifying Premises and Conclusi
Rewrite the following arguments listing the conclusion first and the premise(s) afterwards. Each line should be a single statement written as a complete sentence. Feel free to modify the sentences as you deem necessary, without changing their basic meaning. (After all, you want to be restating this argument, not writing a new one!) Label the premise(s) P¹, P², P³, etc. and the conclusion C. Leave out any indicator words and any fluff (i.e., sentences which are neither the conclusion nor a premise). 10 points each.
EXAMPLE:
Cats with long hair shed all over the house so you should not get a long-haired cat.
I have heard that they also have lots of fleas.
C
You should not get a long haired cat
P¹
Long-haired cats shed all over the house
P²
Long-haired cats have a lot of fleas
- Fairdale will win the championship because they have the best team.
- Since the housing market is depressed and interest rates are low, it’s a good time to buy a home.
- China is guilty of extreme human rights abuses. Further, they refuse to implement democratic reforms. Thus, the U.S. should refuse to deal with the present Chinese government.
- The revocation of the 55 mph speed limit has resulted in an increased number of auto fatalities. We must alleviate this problem with stricter speed limit enforcement.
- We may infer that the U. S. military is both capable and competent from the results of the Persian Gulf War.
- Scientific discoveries are continually debunking religious myths. Further, science provides the only hope for solving the many problems faced by humankind. Hence, science provides a more accurate view of human life than does religion.
- Jesse is one year old. Most one-year-olds can walk. It follows that Jesse can walk.
- I deserve a raise. I’m very good at my job.
- Florida must have two US senators because all US States have two senators. (Hint: There is a unstated premise.)
- Without universal healthcare in this country, we will continue to have millions of American citizens and residents without access to even basic health care, including children. We simply cannot have this if we are to consider ourselves a compassionate, civilized nation. (Hint: There is an unstated conclusion.)
5.
I want you the fragment and analyze a text. Please watched the accompanying PowerPoint where i explain what I have in mind and review the example I have provided that I have done this myself. I want you to take the text I give you below and do the following:
- Fragment the text into separate sentences breaking up conjunctions and deleting “window dressing” text.
- Identify the Thesis Statement
- The rest of the sentences are either premises, restatement of the thesis, or irrelevant
- Draw Arrows as a Graphic as to which sentences are offered in support of which sentences. (e.g. A —> B indicates that you think sentence A was offered as support for sentence B.
- *Schematize Argument (Optional)
- *Flow Chart It (Optional)
https://online.fiu.edu/videos/?vpvid=06047cb5-a6b6-4116-b0f7-e35f14ccebb5 (Links to an external site.)
Socrates makes the point in the Apology that it is silly and a sort of false wisdom to fear death. If one thinks about the matter with due care, one will see that we really lack any rational grounds to fear death. This is because it is only legitimate to fear something when one knows that it is in fact bad. But to know that death is bad, it is not enough to believe it. One would have to have a justified belief that death is a bad thing. Since no one who has dies can tell whether death is a bad thing, we lack the justification to claim we “know” that it is a bad thing. For all we know. It might be the greatest of all blessings. Since we don’t know that death is bad or not, we shouldn’t fear it and to fear death despite this is to pretend to have knowledge one does not in fact have.
6.
Same directions as Short Writing Assignment 5
Text to Analyze:
Therefore, just because I know certainly that I exist, and that meanwhile I do not remark that any other thing necessarily pertains to my nature or essence, excepting that I am a thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing [or a substance whose whole essence or nature is to think]. And although possibly (or rather certainly, as I shall say in a moment) I possess a body with which I am very intimately conjoined, yet because, on the one side, I have a clear and distinct idea of myself inasmuch as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other, I possess a distinct idea of body, inasmuch as it is only an extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that this I [that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am], is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist without it.[1]
[1] Descartes, Rene, “Meditation VI,” in Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911).
