ACC 406 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Logical Form, Nuclear Winter, Mountain View, California
17 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Wisdom, however, is not the same thing as knowledge or information. We aren"t merely trying to amass list of interesting ideas, or believe anything that sounds good. Wisdom is, at least in part, the reflection on and critical evaluation of what we ourselves and others around believe about some very heady topics. Philosophers have always used arguments as their main tool of exploration. Part of the pursuit of wisdom is the creation and critical reflection on our own arguments, as well as the understanding, evaluation, and critical assessment of those of others. It is often difficult, however, to determine just what the argument is when you are reading philosophy. This activity helps us to reconstruct an argument, and shows us where the argument may be criticized. For example, consider the following argument from descartes" third meditation concerning the origin of his idea of god: The basic argument can be represented by the following diagram:
