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This is directly to Andy, a string of thoughts I had that peaked my curiosity. I’m not trying to ruffle feathers. I really do want to know what you think. Disclaimer: Matt pointed this out, as great evidence of what can knock down a conditional argument. I was going with what I was taught of the Pope being the voice of God. Andy might not believe that.
Andy is a Catholic. The Catholics believe the Pope is the voice of God. So, defying the Pope is defying God. Defying God is a sin. The Pope opposes the war. Andy supports the war. So, Andy is defying God and sinning.
What is your reaction to that?
That was my vernacular version of the argument. Below, you will see it in a more logical format, aka what you see in logic class. I’m not sure if it’s 100% right. But, I checked the truth table, and it’s a conditional argument. For those who have not taken logic, a conditional argument is one that can be either true or false based on factual information. Also, truth tables are constructed with variables. I had to break it down so it made more sense to me, too. This table looked like:
a&b=>c; conditional
[(a&b)=>c]&d&e&f=>g; another conditional
Here’s what the argument looked like, broken down:
Catholics believe the Pope is the voice of God. (a)
Defying God is a sin. (b)
Therefore, defying the Pope is defying God. (c)
Defying the Pope is defying God. [(a&b0=>c)]
The Pope opposes the war. (d)
Andy supports the war. (e)
Andy is a Catholic. (f)
Therefore, Andy is defying God. (g)
& stands for “and”, => is for “if…then” statements, which “therefore” represents.
I wouldn’t fuss so much about it, but I wanted to see if my argument was valid or not, and I wanted everyone to know that I checked. An argument is valid unless there are true premises with false conclusions. There can be a false-false answer and the argument is still valid, just conditional. That’s what happened here.
Go here to test out a java-based Truth Table constructor. Go here to learn more about argumentation. I haven’t studied fallacies yet, that starts tomorrow.
posted by
Anonymous at 6:13 PM
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