PP110 Lecture Notes - Reductio Ad Absurdum, Eiffel Tower, Everytime
Document Summary
Insofar as such questions are difficult the philosopher relies on her reasoning to try to answer them. Argumentation is therefore at the core of philosophical practice. An argument (to paraphrase monty python) can be defined as: an intellectual process which consists in a series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition (claim). In other words, it is a set of premises aimed to support a particular conclusion. Deduction is all or nothing in the sense that one has no choice but to accept that the conclusion is true if one accepts that the premises are true, so long, that is, as the argument is valid. Validity- an argument is valid when its conclusion must follow from its premises. However, the conclusion of a valid argument does not have to be true. Validity is only a measure of the argument"s logical virtue. Either the eiffel tower is in london or it is in paris.
