PHILOS 7 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Modus Ponens, Deductive Reasoning, Supererogation
Document Summary
Arguments, validity, and soundness: premise 1: if there was widespread conspiracy among corporate news media to control what informaion americans receive then there would be great similarity in what news companies report. Premise 2: a well qualiied research group found that there is a shocking conformity and similarity in all the corporate newscasts. Conclusion: there is a conspiracy among corporate news media: the argument is valid because it exempliies the modus ponens deducive argument schema of if p then, q. p. therefore q. If p there was a widespread conspiracy then q there would be great similarity in what news companies report. P there is great similarity in the news companies report according to a research group. Therefore, q there is a widespread conspiracy: a deducive argument is valid based on its form and structure. If the assumpions in the premises are correlated to the conclusion truth in the conclusion, then the argument is deducively valid.
