What is a good argument?

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109103 wrote:

"Map" is a metaphor. We created it, both the "map" and the metaphor for it.

"Map" is not a metaphor. It is used as a metaphor for what we believe about the world. We did not, so far as I know, create our beliefs about the world. They happened to us.

@kennethamy,

But philosophers actively talked or wrote. And scientist actively pursued their experience, and tested equations of their choosing. It's our passions that motivated the making of this map in the first place. The "map" is a tool for survival, among other things. It has also served religious purposes, such as the notion of a personal god.

And I think Spinoza was motivated by the beauty of the idea of Nature as God, etc. "All is one and one is all" has deep roots in the psyche, I think.

Do you know much about Jung's theory of archetypes? If so, what do you make of it?

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109111 wrote:

But philosophers actively talked or wrote. And scientist actively pursued their experience, and tested equations of their choosing. It's our passions that motivated the making of this map in the first place. The "map" is a tool for survival, among other things. It has also served religious purposes, such as the notion of a personal god.

And I think Spinoza was motivated by the beauty of the idea of Nature as God, etc. "All is one and one is all" has deep roots in the psyche, I think.

Do you know much about Jung's theory of archetypes? If so, what do you make of it?

I don't make much of Jung. Except for the notions of introversion and extroversion. Not my cup of tea. As I said, we don't create our own beliefs. We acquire them. Beliefs are not voluntary.

@kennethamy,

His psychological types are much less significant, I think, than his theory of archetypes.

What makes Jung a great and significant thinker, in my opinion, is precisely this theory of archetypes.

The mind has an inherited structure. Humans are programmed, if you will, to respond emotionally to certain myths, certain symbols. The same kinds of myth appear in isolated cultures all over the world, and also in our dreams.

I feel that meta-physicians have infused these myths into their systems. Which is what I think Hume missed about their value. Humans want more, I think, than the practical.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;109113 wrote:

I don't make much of Jung. Except for the notions of introversion and extroversion. Not my cup of tea. As I said, we don't create our own beliefs. We acquire them. Beliefs are not voluntary.

Naive and group think people aquire them, just a few people can actually think for themselfs.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;109113 wrote:

I don't make much of Jung. Except for the notions of introversion and extroversion. Not my cup of tea. As I said, we don't create our own beliefs. We acquire them. Beliefs are not voluntary.

They are to some extend but not as much as some people think (Pascal's argument comes to mind).

@Emil,

Emil;127481 wrote:

They are to some extend but not as much as some people think (Pascal's argument comes to mind).

Yes, it does. And that is an issue. His argument does not show anything about this issue. He just assumes that belief is voluntary He does talk about how someone might acquire beliefs. He advises, for instance, that people start going to Mass, and practicing Catholic ritual. And says they will acquire Catholic beliefs that way. It sounds implausible to me. It is a little like the old joke about a well-known skeptic, who puts a horseshoe on his door for good luck. A friend of his sees the horseshoe and says, "But I thought you did not believe in that kind of thing". To which the skeptic replied, "I don't, but I hear that it works even if you don't believe it".

@kennethamy,

A good argument is one where we all really listen to each other. Very Happy

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;127497 wrote:

A good argument is one where we all really listen to each other.

I guess then that arguments about quantum mechanics are not good arguments, since I don't listen to them because I don't understand them. Too bad.

@Emil,

Quote:

Not all d. valid arguments have a d. valid form.

This is an idea I'm not familiar with. Can you supply a reference?

Google Books throws up the suggestion that Stephen Read, Relevant Logic: A Philosophical Examination of Inference (1988) might be, well, relevant!

(I'm sorry that the quotation above is unattributed. When I try to reply to a message, I am taken to the end of the thread, and I cannot see what I am replying to, unless I quote the whole thing, which is usually otherwise unnecessary. Is there some simple trick I'm missing?)

---------- Post added 02-12-2010 at 05:53 PM ----------

Quote:

Too bad.

I guessed you missed the:D. Too bad.:brickwall:

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;127520 wrote:

This is an idea I'm not familiar with. Can you supply a reference?

Any standard elementary logic book. I. M. Copi explains it in his, "Introduction to Logic". But it was already explained quite well by Emil.

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;127520 wrote:

This is an idea I'm not familiar with. Can you supply a reference?

Google Books throws up the suggestion that Stephen Read, Relevant Logic: A Philosophical Examination of Inference (1988) might be, well, relevant!

(I'm sorry that the quotation above is unattributed. When I try to reply to a message, I am taken to the end of the thread, and I cannot see what I am replying to, unless I quote the whole thing, which is usually otherwise unnecessary. Is there some simple trick I'm missing?)

---------- Post added 02-12-2010 at 05:53 PM ----------

I guessed you missed the:D. Too bad.:brickwall:

Swartz and Bradley, 1979. I don't have the book here and so I cannot cite the page but it is mentioned many times throughout the book.

---------- Post added 02-12-2010 at 07:14 PM ----------

kennethamy;127523 wrote:

Any standard elementary logic book. I. M. Copi explains it in his, "Introduction to Logic". But it was already explained quite well by Emil.

I don't know about this. Swartz and Bradley mentions that many textbooks fail to understand this point, but the book was written i 1979, maybe times (and the content of textbooks) have changed in a relevant way. Do you know?

@Emil,

Emil;127536 wrote:

Swartz and Bradley, 1979. I don't have the book here and so I cannot cite the page but it is mentioned many times throughout the book.

---------- Post added 02-12-2010 at 07:14 PM ----------

I don't know about this. Swartz and Bradley mentions that many textbooks fail to understand this point, but the book was written i 1979, maybe times (and the content of textbooks) have changed in a relevant way. Do you know?

But I do know about this. Copi explains it at length. Very much as you do. Any competent logician knows this. It is not abstruse. It is explained in a text meant for beginning logic students.

@kennethamy,

Quote:

it was already explained quite well by Emil

Excuse me, but where was that?

This is a long thread, and I'm only on the second page (where I just wasted a lot of time obsessing about begging the question, then thought better of what I had been writing). If it is considered bad form to reply to articles early in a thread without reading the whole thing first, I had better not bother! Too exhausting! (And hard to remember what one wanted to say early on.)

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;127667 wrote:

Excuse me, but where was that?

This is a long thread, and I'm only on the second page (where I just wasted a lot of time obsessing about begging the question, then thought better of what I had been writing). If it is considered bad form to reply to articles early in a thread without reading the whole thing first, I had better not bother! Too exhausting! (And hard to remember what one wanted to say early on.)

Emil pointed out that amodus ponens argument is an argument that has a valid form, but it could just be represented by: just:

P
Q

Therefore, R.

As Copi says, the valid form must also be the specific form of the argument.

@Twirlip,

It has probably been said already;
QWhat is a good argument?
AOne that has a good solution.

No arguments should go on forever.

Or are the best ones the ones which never end?

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;128304 wrote:

It has probably been said already;
QWhat is a good argument?
AOne that has a good solution.

No arguments should go on forever

Or are the best ones the ones which never end?

U R such a poetic person:listening:

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