PHL137 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Modus Tollens, Arwen, Soundness
Document Summary
The overall principle is that we"re aiming for a clear representation of the argument, that is faithful to the author"s intentions, with as much detail as is relevant for our purposes. By working with a very clear representation of the argument, we can make sure we know what is supposed to support what else, so we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the argument. We"re going to look first at an argument where we need to extrapolate a bit further from what"s given, to get the standardised form and then one where we"ll need to extrapolate a lot. The further we get from simple examples as we have seen, the more variation there will be in our standardisations. Example: as i"ve told you many times, your essay is due tomorrow. So it looks like yours is going to be late, doesn"t it. The actual argument is that the essay will be late.