The Raven paradox includes three plausible premises, and derives from them a fairly implausible-looking conclusion about the confirmation of generalizations. The first premise is: “All ravens are black.” This premise is a hypothesis that takes a general form -- “all Fs are G”. The hypothesis “All ravens are black” is logically equivalent to the hypothesis “All non-black things are non-ravens.” Logical equivalence can be defined as: “P being logically equivalent to Q,” which means that P and Q are true or false in all the same situations and that each one is a valid argument for the other. In any instance, anything that confirms one confirms the other. Confirmation Theory of Instance says if while testing a hypothesis in the form “All Fs are G”, a particular F (for some instance) is discovered to also be G, then this evidence is enough (at least to some degree) to favor the hypothesis.
So, the hypothesis that “All non-black things are non-ravens” applies because it amounts to a hypothesis which also rules out one possibility: a non-black thing that is a raven. The hypotheses are equivalent to the same hypothesis of there being no non-black ravens (which verifies they must also therefore be equivalent to each other). Their equivalence only provides an incremental confirmation because E can only increase evidential support for H, but cannot provide absolute confirmation, and can only confirm H when E is a black
When all the evidence is noted (and there is even more beyond that which is stated here), one can not ignore the overwhelming presence of a
so that it is possible to compare the style of each with but a little
...ion. Hempel’s solution provides to give a reason as to how induction can lead to confirmation and how the logical gap can be filled through the use of logically equivalent statements. However, his view and answer to the paradox prove to be a stretch and lead to the issue of common sense being broken and illogical observations being made to confirm the hypothesis. Good successfully brings attention to this rather blatant error on the part of Hempel to eventually lead to the Raven paradox being invalid. Not only is Good effective in highlighting errors within Hempel’s solution, but Popper, Scheffler, and Goodman are all equally successful in negating individual parts of Hempel’s argument as well. In the end, it is the addition of all these counterarguments that prove to exhibit that Hempel is unsuccessful in trying to come up with a valid answer to the raven paradox.
The argument posited by Sider (S1) can be seen as an argument by elimination, where the premises if accepted, reject the possibility of S2 and S3. As such, the argument suffers from whether the re...
Premise one is a generalized argument, premise two is a specific argument, and the conclusion is the result of both premises. An explanation is due to be provided for how the argument posed obeys the two rules for a good argument. There are two rules for a good argument:
Essentially this theory states that a theory, once the hypothesis has been made, should go through rounds where the scientist must try to prove the hypothesis false, or null. If the scientist is unable to do so, then the theory must be true.
This instance then leads him to form the presupposed belief that what he sees is indeed a barn. Henry is correct in that his belief is true. Because he happens to be driving through the country, and an individual would not normally expect that some object in the distance that seems to be a barn while cruising through the country would be anything other than exactly what it appears to be. Most would agree that Henry is justified in his belief. Therefore, Henry has a justified true belief that what he sees is a barn. However, it is then revealed that the countryside in which Henry found the barn is scattered with façades of barns, which in simple terms are constructions that are meant to look like barns from a certain perspective (i.e., Henry’s), but are not genuinely barns. In actuality, the barn that Henry did happen to see was the only actual barn in the area, and it is by sheer coincidental luck that Henry happened to form his belief about that particular figure he perceived in the distance. The point of this example is to show the instance I previously stated above of the concept where some information is intended to mislead but just so happened to reveal its true
1) In this paper I argue that Corliss Lamont’s argument for freedom of choice is false because three of his eight arguments against the Determinist illusion argument are the same. These three arguments creates one actual argument, I will call them the master argument. Lamont also never provides the full Determinist explanation on the idea that the perception to choose is an illusion. This falsifies his argument and makes it fail as a whole because he is not giving the Determinist illusion argument proper justice.
Statement 1 is the least extraordinary of the three. It would not contradict the laws of common sense, nor would it contradict our physical experiences. Therefore, little evidence is required for a (rational) person to believe the statement.
For the purposes of this debate, I take the sign of a poor argument to be that the negation of the premises are more plausible than their affirmations. With that in mind, kohai must demonstrate that the following premises are probably false:
In Stephen Jay Gould’s essay, “Some close encounters of a mental kind,” Gould discussed about how certainty can be both blessing and dangerous. According to Gould, certainty can be blessing because it can provide warmth, comfort and secure. However, it can also be a danger because it can trick our mind with false information of what we see and remember in our mind. Gould also talked about the three levels of possible error in direct visual observation: misperception, retention and retrieval. According to Gould, our human mind is the greatest miracle of nature and the wicked of all frauds and tricksters mixed. To support his argument and statements, he used an example of an experiment that Elizabeth Loftus, a professor from University of California Irvine, did to her students and a personal experience of his childhood trip to the Devils Tower. I agree with Gould that sight and memory do not provide certainty because what we remember is not always true, our mind can be tricky and trick us into believing what we see/hear is real due to the three potential error of visual observation. Certainty is unreliable and tricky.
The entire poem including the first stanza, as scanned here, is octametre with mostly trochaic feet and some iams. The use of a longer line enables the poem to be more of a narration of the evening's events. Also, it enables Poe to use internal rhymes as shown in bold. The internal rhyme occurs in the first and third lines of each stanza. As one reads the poem you begin to expect the next rhyme pushing you along. The external rhyme of the "or" sound in Lenore and nevermore at then end of each stanza imitates the haunting nature of the narrator's thoughts. The internal rhyme along with the same external rhyme repeated at the end of each stanza and other literary devices such as alliteration and assonance and give the poem a driving chant-like sound. The musicality of the rhyme also helps one to memorize the poem. This helps keep the poem in your head after you've finished reading it, lingering in your thoughts just as the narrator's thoughts are haunting him. The rhyme also helps to produce a humming beat in the readers mind driving him on steadily..
The structure of Gould’s argument is significant because he introduces the issue then supplies examples that he evaluates in great detail. After evaluating the three examples, he goes into disproving two of the examples and glorifying the other. By not simply going straight into arguing his point, Gould gives the audience a feeling of uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to asking questions and deep thinking as to where he was going with his argument, which is the main point of his argument to begin with. If he had given the audience his evaluation of the three examples at the beginning of the article it would have been less impactful due to the fact that the audience would have already
This structure shows the two initial premises which he argues, in detail, to be correct and in the case that they are correct a logically valid conclusion.
The problem facing induction has been a great challenge presented by epistemology to various philosophers, among them David Hume. Since the 18th century, he has raised the induction concern to various philosophers with the aim of finding a solution to the dilemma. Karl Popper, Chalmers among others philosophers played an imperative role in identifying a considerable solution to the induction problem. In philosophy, induction is defined as a form of reasoning that is derived from a particular observation of a phenomenon and draws conclusions from the phenomenon. For instance, it is certain that the sun will rise tomorrow in the morning simply because it has been observed that it rises every morning. This is an example of inductive reasoning among individuals. On the contrary, philosophers stipulate that inductive reasoning has its challenges that are based on the aspect of justification (Sellars, 2000, p. 64). This essay will aim at evaluating the problems of induction and establishing some possible solutions to the dilemma.