Joy Lawlor
02/09/2012
HUMN 210
Miriam Abbott
Assignment 6-1

Assignment 6-1: Validity of an Argument

Part 1:

Cartoon stock. (n.d). Retrieved February 9, 2012 from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/articles.asp

This article has too many errors in it, right? If you are smart, you are Greek. And if you are Greek, you will write grammatically correct articles. But you cannot write grammatically correct articles. If you write grammatically correct articles, you are not Greek.

Contradiction: You can write grammatically correct articles and you cannot write grammatically correct articles.

Part 2:

Form: If it is a cat, then it has four legs. It has four legs. ---------------------------------------------- Thus, it is a cat.

A. What is the conclusion? The conclusion is it is a cat.

B. What is the premise? There are two premises. If it is a cat, then it has four legs and it has four legs.

C. Translating the argument. C → F
F
------------
C

D. Inductive or deductive argument? The argument uses premise and conclusions to provide an explanation. The use of two premises is another clue to determine whether the argument is inductive or deductive. Also, the premises in the above arguments are intended to prove the conclusion. This argument is a deductive argument. More specifically, the argument is fashioned in the form of modus ponens. The basic form of this is: If p, then q.
p.
---------------
Thus, q.

E. Can the conclusion be a false statement? Most definitely the conclusion can be a false statement. Just because the reader is assuming the premises to be true (If it is a cat, then it has four legs and it has four legs) does not automatically justify that the conclusion will be true. Here it is not. In the example of the cartoon, the picture clearly indicates that the animal is a dog, not a cat. There are many possible outcomes to q. It could be a cat, but also a dog, horse, mule, camel, donkey, etc. Just because it has four legs does not prove that all four legged animals are cats.

F. Is it valid or invalid? This argument is invalid or considered a deductive fallacy. It clearly lacks soundness to the argument. As stated above, the picture is of a dog. The argument states that cats have four legs; the animal has four legs; and thus, the animal is a cat. But here it is definitely a dog. The two premises are assumed to be true, while the conclusion is false.

G. Name the basic form? Modus Ponens is the basic form to this argument. The modus Ponens is a form under deductive arguments. It deals with substation instances where there are a variety of substitutions. The basic form of this is: If p, then q.
p.
---------------
Thus, q.

H. Explain the argument in my own words? The example provided in this assignment just lacks the validity and soundness to make the conclusion true. If the premise in the argument were to have the expression C to be changed to D (dog), the argument would have been entirely different. If this were to occur, the deductive statement would be a valid argument with the premises and conclusion being true. The argument turns out to be a weak and invalid one.