Argument Analysis TUTORIAL A01: Identifying Arguments A01.1 What is an argument?

A crucial part of critical thinking is to identify, construct, and evaluate arguments. In everyday life, people often use "argument" to mean a quarrel between people. But in logic and critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the others are the premises or assumptions of the argument. Before proceeding, read this page about statements. To give an argument is to provide a set of premises as reasons for accepting the conclusion. To give an argument is not necessarily to attack or criticize someone. Arguments can also be used to support other people's viewpoints. Here is an example of an argument: If you want to find a good job, you should work hard. You do want to find a good job. So you should work hard. The first two sentences here are the premises of the argument, and the last sentence is the conclusion. To give this argument is to offer the premises as reasons for accepting the conclusion. A few points to note: Dogmatic people tend to make assertions without giving reasons. When they are criticized they often fail to give arguments to defend their own opinions. To improve our critical thinking skills, we should develop the habit of giving good arguments to support our opinions. To defend an opinion, think about whether you can give more than one argument to support it. Also, think about potential objections to your opinion, e.g. arguments against your opinion. A good thinker will consider the arguments on both sides of an issue. A01.2 Exercises See if you can give arguments to support some of your beliefs. For example, do you think the economy is going to improve or worsen in the next six months? Why or why not? What arguments can you give to support your position? Or think about something different, do you think computers can have emotions? Again, what arguments can you give to support your viewpoint? Make sure that your arguments are composed of statements. A01.3 How to look for arguments How do we identify arguments in real life? There are no easy mechanical rules, and we usually have to rely on the context in order to determine which are the premises and the conclusions. But sometimes the job can be made easier by the presence of certain premise or conclusion indicators. For example, if a person makes a statement, and then adds "this is because ...", then it is quite likely that the first statement is presented as a conclusion, supported by the statements that come afterwards. Other words in English that might be used to indicate the premises to follow include : since firstly, secondly, ... for, as, after all, assuming that, in view of the fact that follows from, as shown / indicated by

may be inferred / deduced / derived from Of course whether such words are used to indicate premises or not depends on the context. For example, "since" has a very different function in a statement like "I have been here since noon", unlike "X is an even number since X is divisible by 4". Conclusions, on the other hand, are often preceded by words like: therefore, so, it follows that hence, consequently suggests / proves / demonstrates that entails, implies Here are some examples of passages that do not contain arguments. When people sweat a lot they tend to drink more water. [Just a single statement, not enough to make an argument.] Once upon a time there was a prince and a princess. They lived happily together and one day they decided to have a baby. But the baby grew up to be a nasty and cruel person and they regret it very much. [A chronological description of facts composed of statements but no premise or conclusion.] Can you come to the meeting tomorrow? [A question that does not contain an argument.] A01.4 Exercises Do these passages contain arguments? If so, what are their conclusions? Cutting the interest rate will have no effect on the stock market this time round as people have been expecting a rate cut all along. This factor has already been reflected in the market.[Show answer] Yes. The conclusion is that this time, cutting interest rate will have no effect on the stock market. So it is raining heavily and this building might collapse. But I don't really care.[Show answer] Not an argument. Although the first statement starts with so it does not indicate a conclusion. Virgin would then dominate the rail system. Is that something the government should worry about? Not necessarily. The industry is regulated, and one powerful company might at least offer a more coherent schedule of services than the present arrangement has produced. The reason the industry was broken up into more than 100 companies at privatisation was not operational, but political: the Conservative government thought it would thus be harder to renationalise. The Economist 16.12.2000[Show answer] Yes. The main conclusion is that the domination of the rail system by Virgin is not something the government should worry about. Bill will pay the ransom. After all, he loves his wife and children and would do everything to save them.[Show answer] The first statement is the conclusion. All of Russias problems of human rights and democracy come back to three things: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. None works as well as it should. Parliament passes laws in a hurry, and has neither the ability nor the will to call high officials to account. State officials abuse human rights (either on their own, or on orders from on high) and work with remarkable slowness and disorganisation. The courts almost completely fail

in their role as the ultimate safeguard of freedom and order. The Economist 25.11.2000[Show answer] An argument. The conclusion is that the legislative, executive and judicial systems in Russia are not working properly. Most mornings, Park Chang Woo arrives at a train station in central Seoul, South Korea's capital. But he is not commuter. He is unemployed and goes there to kill time. Around him, dozens of jobless people pass their days drinking soju, a local version of vodka. For the moment, middle-aged Mr Park would rather read a newspaper. He used to be a brick layer for a small construction company in Pusan, a southern port city. But three years ago the country's financial crisis cost him that job, so he came to Seoul, leaving his wife and two children behind. Still looking for work, he has little hope of going home any time soon. The Economist 25 .11.2000[Show answer] Not an argument. For a long time, astronomers suspected that Europa, one of Jupiter's many moons, might harbour a watery ocean beneath its ice-covered surface. They were right. Now the technique used earlier this year to demonstrate the existence of the Europan ocean has been employed to detect an ocean on another Jovian satellite, Ganymede, according to work announced at the recent American Geo-physical Union meeting in San Francisco. The Economist 16.12.2000 [Show answer] Not an argument. There are no hard numbers, but the evidence from Asias expatriate community is unequivocal. Three years after its handover from Britain to China, Hong Kong is unlearning English. The city's gweilos (Cantonese for ghost men) must go to ever greater lengths to catch the oldest taxi driver available to maximize their chances of comprehension. Hotel managers are complaining that they can no longer find enough English-speakers to act as receptionists. Departing tourists, polled at the airport, voice growing frustration at not being understood.The Economist 20.1.2001[Show answer] Yes, it is an argument. The conclusion is that English standards are dropping in Hong Kong. A01.5 Presenting arguments in the standard format When it comes to the analysis and evaluation of an argument, it is often useful to label the premises and the conclusion, and display them on separate lines with the conclusion at the bottom : (Premise 1) John is taller than Mary. (Premise 2) Mary is taller than Peter. (Premise 3) Peter is taller than James. (Premise 4) James is taller than Andy. (Conclusion) So John is taller than Andy. (Premise 1) If you want to find a good job, you should work hard. (Premise 2) You do want to find a good job. (Conclusion) So you should work hard. Let us call this style of presenting an argument a presentation in the standard format. It does not matter how many premises there are. But they have to be listed clearer and separately and given a number. Here we rewrite two more arguments using the standard format:

We should not inflict unnecessary pain on cows and pigs. After all, we should not inflict unnecessary pain on any animal with consciousness, and cows and pigs are animals with consciousness. (Premise 1) We should not inflict unnecessary pain on any animal with consciousness. (Premise 2) Cows and pigs are animals with consciousness. (Conclusion) We should not inflict unnecessary pain on cows and pigs. If this liquid is acidic, the litmus paper would have turned red. But it hasn't, so the liquid is not acidic. (Premise 1) If the liquid is acidic, the litmus paper would have turned red. (Premise 2) The litmus paper has not turned red. (Conclusion) The liquid is not acidic. In presenting an argument in the standard format the premises and the conclusion are clearly identified. Sometimes we also rewrite some of the sentences to make their meaning clearer, as in the second premise of the second example. Notice also that a conclusion need not always come at the end of a passage containing an argument, as in the first example. In fact, sometimes the conclusion of an argument might not be explicitly written out. For example it might be expressed by a rhetorical question: How can you believe that corruption is acceptable? It is neither fair nor legal! In presenting an argument in the standard format, we have to rewrite the argument more explicitly as follows: (Premise) Corruption is not fair and it is not legal. (Conclusion) Corruption is not acceptable. If you want to improve your reading and comprehension skills, you should practise reconstructing the arguments that you come across by rewriting them carefully in the standard format. Presenting arguments is not just a way to defend your own opinion. It helps us understand other people as well. A01.6 Exercises Rewrite these arguments in the standard format. 1. He is either in Hong Kong or Macau. John says that he is not in Hong Kong. So he must be in Macau. 2. If the Government wants to build an incinerator here they should compensate those who live in the area. Incinerators are known to cause health problems to people living nearby. These people did not choose to live there in the first place. TUTORIAL A02: Validity and Soundness A02.1 Definition of validity One desirable feature of arguments is that the conclusion should follow from the premises. But what does it mean? Consider these two arguments : Argument #1 : Barbie is over 90 years old. So Barbie is over 20 years old. Argument #2 : Barbie is over 20 years old. So Barbie is over 90 years old. Intuitively, the conclusion of the first argument follows from the premise, whereas the conclusion of the second argument does not follow from its premise. But how should we explain the difference between the two arguments more precisely? Here is a thought : In the

first argument, if the premise is indeed true, then the conclusion cannot be false. On the other hand, even if the premise in the second argument is true, there is no guarantee that the conclusion must also be true. For example, Barbie could be 30 years old. So we shall make use of this idea to define the notion of a deductively valid argument, or valid argument, as follows: An argument is valid if and only if there is no logically possible situation where all the premises are true and the conclusion is false at the same time. The idea of validity provides a more precise explication of what it is for a conclusion to follow from the premises. Applying this definition, we can see that the first argument above is valid, since there is no possible situation where Barbie can be over 90 but not over 20. The second argument is not valid because there are plenty of possible situations where the premise is true but the conclusion is false. Consider a situation where Barbie is 25, or one where she is 85. The fact that these situations are possible is enough to show that the argument is not valid, or invalid. A02.2 Validity and truth What if we have an argument with more than one premise? Here is an example : All pigs can fly. Anything that can fly can swim. So all pigs can swim. Although the two premises of this argument are false, this is actually a valid argument. To evaluate its validity, ask yourself whether it is possible to come up with a situation where all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. (We are not asking whether there is a situation where the premises and the conclusion are all true.) Of course, the answer is 'no'. If pigs can indeed fly, and if anything that can fly can also swim, then it must be the case that all pigs can swim. So this example tells us something : The premises and the conclusion of a valid argument can all be false. Hopefully you will now realize that validity is not about the actual truth or falsity of the premises or the conclusion. Validity is about the logical connection between the premises and the conclusion. A valid argument is one where the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion, but validity does not guarantee that the premises are in fact true. All that validity tells us is that if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. A02.3 Showing that an argument is invalid Now consider this argument: Adam loves Beth. Beth loves Cathy. So Adam loves Cathy. This argument is not valid, for it is possible that the premises are true and yet the conclusion is false. Perhaps Adam loves Beth but does not want Beth to love anyone else. So Adam actually hates Cathy. The mere possibility of such a situation is enough to show that the argument is not valid. Let us call these situations invalidating counterexamples to the argument. Basically, we are defining a valid argument as an argument with no possible invalidating counterexamples. To sharpen your skills in evaluating arguments, it is therefore important that you are able to discover and construct such examples. Notice that a counterexample need not be real in the sense of being an actual situation. It might turn out that in fact that Adam, Beth and Cathy are members of the same family and they love each other. But the above argument is still invalid since the counterexample constructed is a possible situation, even if it is not actually real. All that is required of a

counterexample is that the situation is a coherent one in which all the premises of the argument are true and the conclusion is false. So we should remember this : An argument can be invalid even if the conclusion and the premises are all actually true. To give you another example, here is another invalid argument with a true premise and a true conclusion : "Paris is the capital of France. So Rome is the capital of Italy." . It is not valid because it is possible for Italy to change its capital (say to Milan), while Paris remains the capital of France. Another point to remember is that it is possible for a valid argument to have a true conclusion even when all its premises are false. Here is an example : All pigs are purple in colour. Anything that is purple is an animal. So all pigs are animals. Before proceeding any further, please make sure you understand why these claims are true and can give examples of such cases. 1. The premises and the conclusion of an invalid argument can all be true. 2. A valid argument should not be defined as an argument with true premises and a true conclusion. 3. The premises and the conclusion of a valid argument can all be false. 4. A valid argument with false premises can still have a true conclusion. A02.4 A reminder The concept of validity provides a more precise explication of what it is for a conclusion to follow from the premises. Since this is one of the most important concepts in this course, you should make sure you fully understand the definition. In giving our definition we are making a distinction between truth and validity. In ordinary usage "valid" is often used interchangeably with "true" (similarly with "false" and "not valid"). But here validity is restricted to only arguments and not statements, and truth is a property of statements but not arguments:

So never say things like "this statement is valid" or "that argument is true"! A02.5 Exercises Question 1 Are the following arguments valid? Why or why not? 1. Someone Someone is So someone is unhappy and sick. is sick. [Show answer] unhappy. Invalid.

2. If he loves me then he gives me flowers. [Show answer] He gives me flowers. Invalid.

So he loves me. 3. Beckham is famous. [Show answer] Beckham is a football player. Invalid. Therefore, Beckham is a famous football player. [Explain] Beckham might be a famous chef who is a football player but not a famous football player. 4. If it rains, the streets will be wet. [Show answer] If the streets are wet, accidents will happen. Valid. Therefore, accidents will happen if it rains. 5. John was in Britain when Mary died in Hong Kong. [Show answer] So Mary could not have been killed by John. Invalid. [Explain] Perhaps John shot Mary on Monday, and flew to Britain on Tuesday, but Mary died on Friday. 6. If there is life on Pluto then Pluto contains water. [Show answer] But there is no life on Pluto. Invalid. Therefore Pluto does not contain water. 7. There were two rabbits in the room last week. [Show answer] No rabbit has left the room since then. Invalid. Therefore there are two rabbits in the room now. As you know, can reproduce. 8. All whales Moby does not So Moby is not a whale. have have wings. [Show answer] wings. Valid.

rabbits

Question 2 Consider this argument : If there is a square in the picture then there is a circle as well. Therefore, if there is a circle in the picture there is a triangle in the picture. Now look at these four pictures below. Which of them constitute invalidating counterexamples to the argument, and which do not?

[Show answer] Only the second one from the right. Question 3 Are these arguments valid? 1. John shot himself in the head. So John is dead.[Show answer] Not valid. Although the conclusion is very likely to be true given the premise, it is not a logical consequence of the premise. Perhaps a brillant doctor managed to save John. 2. John shot himself in the head. So John shot himself in the head.[Show answer] Valid. This is a circular argument since the conclusion is also a premise. But it is nonetheless valid since it is impossible for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false. 3. All management consultants are bald. Peter is bald. So Peter is a management consultant.[Show answer] Not valid. Perhaps Peter is a monk who happended to have shaved his hair. 4. If time travel is possible, we would now have lots of time-travel visitors from the future. But we have no such visitors. So time travel is not possible. [Show answer] Valid. 5. Jen is either in San Diego or in Tokyo. Since she is not in Tokyo, she is in San Diego.[Show answer] Valid. 6. Some people are nice. Some people are rich. So some people are rich and nice.[Show answer] Not valid. Those who are rich might not be the same as those who are nice. 7. If I drink then I will be happy. If I am happy then I will dance. So if I drink then I will dance.[Show answer] Valid. 8. Every red fish is a fish.[Show answer] A trick question! This is a necessarily true statement, but it is not an argument and so not a valid argument. 9. The services of mobile phone companies are getting worse as there has been an increasing number of complaints against mobile phone companies by consumers.[Show answer] Not valid, since the increase in complaints might only be due to increase in the number of mobile phone users. 10. All capitalists exploit the weak and the poor. Property developers exploit the weak and the poor. So property developers are capitalists.[Show answer] Not valid. Perhaps there are non-capitalists who also exploit. A02.6 Soundness

It should be obvious by now that validity is about the logical connection between the premises and the conclusion. When we are told that an argument is valid, this is not enough to tell us anything about the actual truth or falsity of the premises or the conclusion. All we know is that there is a logical connection between them, that the premises entail the conclusion. So even if we are given a valid argument, we still need to be careful before accepting the conclusion, since a valid argument might contain a false conclusion. What we need to check further is of course whether the premises are true. If an argument is valid, and all the premises are true, then it is called a sound argument. Of course, it follows from such a definition that a sound argument must also have a true conclusion. In a valid argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusion cannot be false, since by definition it is impossible for a valid argument to have true premises and a false conclusion in the same situation. So given that a sound argument is valid and has true premises, its conclusion must also be true. So if you have determined that an argument is indeed sound, you can certainly accept the conclusion. An argument that is not sound is an unsound argument. If an argument is unsound, it might be that it is invalid, or maybe it has at least one false premise, or both. A02.7 Exercises Question 1: Go to this page. Question 2 : Are the following statements true or false? Why? 1. All invalid arguments are unsound.[Show answer] True by definition - sound arguments have to be valid. 2. All true statements are valid.[Show answer] False. Only arguments can be valid. 3. To show that an argument is unsound, we must at least show that some of its premises are actually false.[Show answer] False. If it is invalid then it is not sound, and we can show that an argument is invalid without showing that some of the premises are actually false. 4. An invalid argument must have a false conclusion.[Show answer] False. 5. If all the premises of a valid argument are false, then the conclusion must also be false.[Show answer] False. Make sure you understand why. 6. If all the premises and the conclusion of an argument are true, then the argument is valid.[Show answer] False. It can still be invalid. 7. All sound arguments are true.[Show answer] What are true or false are statements, not arguments. 8. Any valid argument with a true conclusion is sound.[Show answer] TUTORIAL A03: Patterns of Valid Arguments A03.1 Introduction With valid arguments, it is impossible to have a false conclusion if the premises are all true. Obviously valid arguments play a very important role in reasoning, because if we start with true assumptions, and use only valid arguments to establish new conclusions, then our conclusions must also be true. But which are the rules we should use to decide whether an

argument is valid or not? This is where formal logic comes in. By using special symbols we can describe patterns of valid argument, and formulate rules for evaluating the validity of an argument. A03.2 Modus ponens Consider the following arguments : If this object is made of copper, it will conduct electricity. This object is made of copper, so it will conduct electricity. If there is no largest prime number, then 510511 is not the largest prime number. There is no largest prime number. Therefore 510511 is not the largest prime number. If Lam is a Buddhist then he should not eat pork. Lam is a Buddhist. Therefore Lam should not eat pork. These three arguments are of course valid. Furthermore you probably notice that they are very similar to each other. What is common between them is that they have the same structure or form: Modus ponens - If P then Q.P. Therefore Q. Here, the letters P and Q are called sentence letters. They are used to translate or represent statements. By replacing P andQ with appropriate sentences, we can generate the original three valid arguments. This shows that the three arguments have a common form. It is also in virtue of this form that the arguments are valid, for we can see that any argument of the same form is a valid argument. Because this particular pattern of argument is quite common, it has been given a name. It is known as modus ponens. However, don't confuse modus ponens with the following form of argument, which is not valid! Affirming the consequent - If P then Q.Q. Therefore, P. Note - When we say that this is not a valid pattern of argument, what is meant is that not every argument of this pattern is valid. This is different from saying that every argument of this pattern is not valid. See if you can figure out why this is the case. Giving arguments of this form is a fallacy - making a mistake of reasoning. This particular mistake is known as affirming the consequent. If Jane lives in London then Jane lives in England. Jane lives in England. Therefore Jane lives in London. [Not valid - perhaps Jane lives in Liverpool.] If Bing has gone shopping then Daniel will be unhappy. Daniel is unhappy. So Bing has gone shopping. [Not valid - perhaps Daniel is unhappy because he has run out of vodka to drink.] There are of course many other patterns of valid argument. Now we shall introduce a few more patterns which are often used in reasoning. A03.3 Modus tollens Modus tollens - If P then Q. Not-Q. Therefore, not-P. Here, "not-Q" simply means the denial of Q. So if Qmeans "Today is hot.", then "not-Q" can be used to translate "It is not the case that today is hot", or "Today is not hot." If Betty is on the plane, she will be in the A1 seat. But Betty is not in the A1 seat. So she is not on the plane. But do distinguish modus tollens from the following fallacious pattern of argument : Denying the antecedent - If P then Q, not-P. Therefore, not-Q.

If Elsie is competent, she will get an important job. But Elsie is not competent. So she will not get an important job. [Not valid : Perhaps Elsie is incompetent but her boss likes her because she accepts very low wages.] A03.4 Hypothetical syllogism If P then Q, If Q then R. Therefore, ifP then R. If God created the universe then the universe will be perfect. If the universe is perfect then there will be no evil. So if God created the universe there will be no evil. A03.5 Disjunctive syllogism P or Q. Not-P. Therefore, Q ; Por Q, Not-Q. Therefore,P. Either the government brings about more sensible educational reforms, or the only good schools left will be private ones for rich kids. The government is not going to carry out sensible educational reforms. So the only good schools left will be private ones for rich kids. A03.6 Dilemma P or Q. If Pthen R. If Q thenS. Therefore, R or S. When R is the same as S, we have a simpler form : Por Q. If P then R. If Q then R. Therefore, R. Either we increase the tax rate or we don't. If we do, the people will be unhappy. If we don't, the people will also be unhappy. (Because the government will not have enough money to provide for public services.) So the people are going to be unhappy anyway. A03.7 Arguing by Reductio ad Absurdum The Latin name here simply means "reduced to absurdity". Here is the method of argument if you want to prove that a certain statement S is false: 1. First assume that S is true. 2. From the assumption that it is true, prove that it would lead to a contradiction or some other claim that is false or absurd. 3. Conclude that S must be false. Those of you who can spot connections quickly might notice that this is none other than an application of modus tollens. A famous application of this pattern of argument is Euclid's proof that there is no largest prime number. A prime number is any positive integer greater than 1 that is wholly divisible only by 1 and by itself, e.g. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, etc. 1. Assume that there are only n prime numbers, where n is a finite number : P1 < P2 < ... < Pn. 2. Define a number Q that is 1 plus the product of all primes, i.e. Q = 1 + ( P 1 x P2 x ... x Pn). 3. Q is of course larger than Pn. 4. But Q has to be a prime number also, because (a) when it is divided by any prime number it always leave a remainder of 1, and (b) if it is not divisible by an prime number it cannot be divisible by any non-prime numbers either. 5. So Q is a prime number larger than the largest prime number. 6. But this is a contradiction, so the original assumption that there is a finite number of prime numbers must be wrong. 7. So there must be infinitely many primes. Let us look at two more examples of reductio:

Suppose someone were to claim that nothing is true or false. We can show that this must be false as follows: If this person's claim is indeed correct, then there is at least one thing that is true, namely the claim that the person is making. So it can't be that nothing is true or false. So his statement must be false. One theory of how the universe came about is that it developed from a vacuum state in the infinite past. Stephen Hawking thinks that this is false. Here is his argument : in order for the universe to develop from a vacuum state, the vacuum state must have been unstable. (If the vacuum state were a stable one, nothing would come out of it.) But if it was unstable, it would not be a vacuum state, and it would not have lasted an infinite time before becoming unstable. A03.8 Other Patterns There are of course many other patterns of deductively valid arguments. One way to construct more patterns is to combine the ones that we have looked at earlier. For example, we can combine two cases of hypothetical syllogism to obtain the following argument: If P then Q. If Q then R. If R then S. Therefore if P then S. There are also a few other simple but also valid patterns which we have not mentioned: P and Q. Therefore Q. P. Therefore P. Some of you might be surprised to find out that "P. Therefore P." is valid. But think about it carefully - if the conclusion is also a premise, then the conclusion obviously follows from the premise! Of course, this tells us that not all valid arguments are good arguments. How these two concepts are connected is a topic we shall discuss later on. We shall look at a few more complicated patterns of valid arguments in another tutorial. It is understandable that you might not remember all the names of these patterns. But what is important is that you can recognize these argument patterns when you come across them in everyday life, and would not confuse them with patterns of invalid arguments that look similar. A03.9 Exercises Question 1 Consider the following arguments. Identify the forms of all valid arguments. (To display the correct answer, you need to enable javascript on your browser.) Q1.1. If Jesus loves me, then I love Jesus. I do not love Jesus. Therefore, Jesus does not love me.
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Q1.2. Either Jimmy is walking the dog or Cathy is feeding the cat (or both). Cathy is feeding the cat. Therefore Jimmy is not walking the dog
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Q1.3. Either Jimmy is walking the dog or Cathy is feeding the cat. Cathy is not feeding the cat. Therefore Jimmy is walking the dog.
Choose answ er

Q1.4. If X is a man, then X is a human being. If X is a human being, then X is an animal. Therefore, if X is a man, then X is an animal.
Choose answ er

Q1.5. If I do not have Yellow Tail sashimi, then I shall have scallop sushi instead. Now, I have Yellow Tail sashimi. So I do not have scallop sushi.
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Q1.6. If some sheep are black, then some ducks are pink. It is not true that some ducks are pink. Therefore, it is not true that some sheep are black.
Choose answ er

Q1.7. Either she is right or she is wrong. If she is right, then he is wrong. If she is wrong, then he is also wrong. Therefore, he is wrong either way.
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Q1.8. Paul is a bachelor. Paul is single. So at least one bachelor is single.

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Q1.9. Either she is in China or she is in Europe. If she is in China, then she is in Beijing. If she is in Europe, then she is sleeping. Hence, either she is in Beijing or she is sleeping.
Choose answ er

Question 2 Identify the conclusions that can be drawn from these assumptions. Which basic patterns of valid arguments should be used to derive the conclusion? 1. If God is perfect, then God knows what people intend to do in the future. If God knows what people intend to do in the future, then God can stop people from bringing about evil.[Show answer] If God is perfect, then God can stop people from bringing about evil by hypothetical syllogism. 2. If he is dead, then there will be no pulse. If there is no pulse, then the red light will turn on. There is no red light.[Show answer] The conclusions are there is a pulse and he is not dead by two applications of modus tollens. 3. Either Krypto is hot or Pluto is hot. If Krypto is hot, then there is no ice on its surface. But there is.[Show answer] The conclusions are Krypto is not hot and Pluto is hot by modus tollens and then disjunctive syllogism. 4. Either you speak justly or unjustly. If you speak justly then men will hate you. But if you speak unjustly the gods will hate you.[Show answer] By dilemma, Either men will hate you or the gods will hate you. 5. Johannes is either in Hong Kong or in Thailand. He is not at home. If he is in Thailand he is staying at the Peninsula. If he is in Hong Kong he is at home.[Show answer] By dilemma, we get Either Johannes is at home or he is staying at the Peninsula. By disjunctive syllogism, the conclusion is that Johannes is at the Peninsula. Question 3 If the following statements are all true, who killed Pam and where was Jones in 1997? Which piece of information is not needed? 1. Jones was either in HK or in London in 1997. 2. If Jones did not kill Pam, then Peter did. 3. If Pam died of suffocation, then either Jones killed her, or Pam committed suicide. 4. If Jones was in HK in 1997, then Jones did not kill Pam. 5. Pam died of suffocation but she did not kill herself.

[Show answer] Jones killed Pam, and he was in London. The second piece of information is not needed. Question 4Suppose someone thinks that there is only a finite number of integers. How would he criticize the proof that there are infinitely many primes? Which step would he reject? [Show answer] If there are only finitely many integers, then it might not possible to find a number Q that is larger than P. Question 5 Here is a very nice example taken from the philosopher James Pryor : A computer scientist announces that he's constructed a computer program that can play the perfect game of chess: he claims that this program is guaranteed to win every game it plays, whether it plays black or white, with never a loss or a draw, and against any opponent whatsoever. The computer scientist claims to have a mathematical proof that his program will always win, but the proof runs to 500 pages of dense mathematical symbols, and no one has yet been able to verify it. Still, the program has just played 20 games against Gary Kasparov and it won every game, 10 as white and 10 as black. Should you believe the computer scientist's claim that the program is so designed that it will always win against every opponent? How would you use the reductio method to argue against the computer scientist? [HINT] TUTORIAL A04: Identifying Hidden Assumptions Introduction When people give arguments sometimes certain assumptions are left implicit. Example: Homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural. This argument as it stands is not valid. Someone who gives such an argument presumably has in mind the hidden assumption that whatever that is unnatural is wrong. It is only when this assumption is added that the argument becomes valid. Once this is pointed out, we can of course go on to discuss what this assumption really means and whether it is justified. We might argue for example, that there are plenty of things that are unnatural but are not usually regarded as wrong (e.g. playing video games, having medical operations, contraception). Someone who still wants to put forward such an argument might then distinguish between different types of unnatural acts, some of which are supposed to be permissible, others being morally wrong. Pointing out the hidden assumption in an argument can help resolve or clarify the issues involved in a dispute. In everyday life, the arguments we normally encounter are often arguments where important assumptions are not made explicit. It is an important part of critical thinking that we should be able to identify such hidden assumptions or implicit assumptions. So how should we go about identifying hidden assumptions? There are two main steps involved. First, determine whether the argument is valid or not. If the argument is valid, the conclusion does indeed follow from the premises, and so the premises have shown explicitly the assumptions needed to derive the conclusion. There are then no hidden assumptions involved. But if the argument is not valid, you should check carefully what additional premises should be added to the argument that would make it valid. Those would be the hidden assumptions. You can then ask questions such as : (a) what do these assumptions mean? (b) Why would the proponent of the argument accept such assumptions? (c) Should these assumptions be accepted?

This technique of revealing hidden assumptions is also useful in identifying hidden or neglected factors in causal explanations of empirical phenomena. Suppose someone lights a match and there was an explosion. The lighting of the match is an essential part in explaining why there was an explosion, but it is not a causally sufficient condition for the explosion since there are plenty of situations where someone lights a match and there is no explosion. To come up with a more complete explanation, we need to identify factors which together are sufficient for the occurrence of the explosion, or at least show that it has a high probability of happening. This might include factors such as the presence of a high level of oxygen in the environment. Exercises Identify the likely hidden assumptions in these arguments: We should reduce the penalty for drunken driving, as a milder penalty would mean more convictions.[Show answer] We should increase the number of convictions for drunken driving. Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is a mammal.[Show answer] Anything that is a whale is a mammal, or If Moby Dick is a whale it is a mammal. Giving students a fail grade will damage their self-confidence. Therefore, we should not fail students.[Show answer] We should not damage students' self-confidence. It should not be illegal for adults to smoke pot. After all, it does not harm anyone.[Show answer] Anything that does not cause harm should not be made illegal. There is nothing wrong talking on a mobile phone during lectures. Other students do it all the time.[Show answer] If an action is done by other students (or people) all the time, then there is nothing wrong with it. Killing an innocent person is wrong. Therefore, abortion is wrong.[Show answer] Abortion involves the killing of an innocent person. Traces of ammonia have been found in Mars' atmosphere. So there must be life on Mars.[Show answer] "Only living things produce ammonia." (or something similar) There cannot be more than one God. Otherwise, there would be two Gods equally powerful, or one is more powerful than the other.[Show answer] If something is a God, nothing else can be as powerful or more powerful than it. TUTORIAL A05: Inductive Reasoning A05.1 What is induction? Consider the following argument : Dipsy bought one ticket in a fair lottery with ten million tickets. So Dipsy is not going to win the lottery. This argument is of course not valid, since Dipsy might be so lucky that he wins the lottery. But this is quite unlikely to happen if the lottery is indeed a fair one. If you believe that the premise is true, you probably will accept the conclusion as well. In other words, the conclusion is highly likely to be true given that the premise is true.

Here is another example : Dylan is a man. He is 99 and is in a coma. Therefore, Dylan will not run in the marathon tomorrow. Again, it is not logically impossible for Dylan to recover from his coma and join the marathon, but if the premises are true this is unlikely to happen. Although the two arguments above are not valid, we would still regard them as good arguments. What is special about them is that they are inductively strong arguments : the conclusion is highly likely to be true given that the premises are true. With an inductively strong argument, although the premises do not logically entail the conclusion, they provide strong inductive support for it. There are at least three main differences between an inductively strong argument and a valid argument : 1. As already noted, in a valid argument, the conclusion follows logically from the premises, but this is not the case in an inductively strong argument. It is logically possible for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false. 2. Deductive validity is not a matter of degree. An argument is either deductively valid, or it is not. But inductive support is a matter of degree, depending on the probability of the conclusion being true given the premises. For example, consider this slightly modified argument : Dipsy bought X tickets in a fair lottery with ten thousand tickets. So Dipsy is going to win the lottery. If we replace X by a very small number, say, 10, then the argument is obviously very weak, since it is very unlikely that Dipsy can win by buying so few tickets. However, if we increase X to say 2000, then the inductive strength of the argument will of course increase. If X is 9999, then the argument is even stronger, since it is extremely likely now that Dipsy will win. So you can see that inductive strength is not an all-or-nothing matter. 3. A related point is that inductive strength is defeasible, whereas validity is not. To say that validity is not defeasible is to say that if you have a valid argument, adding new premises will not make it invalid. If it is indeed true that three people have died, then it follows that at least two people died, and this will remain the consequence whatever new information you acquire. However, new information can be added to an inductively strong argument to make it weak. Consider the lottery argument again, and suppose we add the new premise that Po has bought 9000 lottery tickets, and have given all of them to Dipsy. Obviously this new argument will is a lot stronger than the old one. Further reading : Chapter 2 "Probability and Inductive Logic" in Brain Skyrms (2000) Choice and Chance : An Introduction to Inductive Logic Wadsworth. TUTORIAL A06: Good Arguments A06.1 What is a good argument? In this tutorial we shall discuss what a good argument is. The concept of a good argument is of course quite vague. So what we are trying to do here is to give it a somewhat more precise definition. To begin with, make sure that you know what a sound argument is.

Criterion #1 : A good argument must have true premises This means that if we have an argument with one or more false premises, then it is not a good argument. The reason for this condition is that we want a good argument to be one that can convince us to accept the conclusion. Unless the premises of an argument are all true, we would have no reason to accept to accept its conclusion. Criterion #2 : A good argument must be either valid or strong Is validity a necessary condition for a good argument? Certainly many good arguments are valid. Example: All whales are mammals. All mammals are warm-blooded. So all whales are warm-blooded. But it is not true that good arguments must be valid. We often accept arguments as good, even though they are not valid. Example: No baby in the past has ever been able to understand quantum physics. Kitty is going to have a baby soon. So Kitty's baby is not going to be able to understand quantum physics. This is surely a good argument, but it is not valid. It is true that no baby in the past has ever been able to understand quantum physics. But it does not follow logically that Kitty's baby will not be able to do so. To see that the argument is not valid, note that it is not logically impossible for Kitty's baby to have exceptional brain development so that the baby can talk and learn and understand quantum physics while still being a baby. Extremely unlikely to be sure, but not logically impossible, and this is enough to show that the argument is not valid. But because such possibilities are rather unlikely, we still think that the true premises strongly support the conclusion and so we still think that the argument is a good one. In other words, a good argument need not be valid. But presumably if it is not valid it must be inductively strong. If an argument is inductively weak, then it cannot be a good argument since the premises do not provide good reasons for accepting the conclusion. For more information about inductive strength, see the previous tutorial. Criterion #3 : The premises of a good argument must not beg the question Notice that criteria #1 and #2 are not sufficient for a good argument. First of all, we certainly don't want to say that circular arguments are good arguments, even if they happen to be sound. Suppose someone offers the following argument: It is going to rain tomorrow. Therefore, it is going to rain tomorrow. So far we think that a good argument must (1) have true premises, and (2) be valid or inductively strong. Are these conditions sufficient? The answer is no. Consider this example: Smoking is bad for your health. Therefore smoking is bad for your health. This argument is actually sound. The premise is true, and the argument is valid, because the conclusion does follow from the premise! But as an argument surely it is a terrible argument. This is a circular argument where the conclusion also appears as a premise. It is of course not a good argument, because it does not provide independent reasons for supporting the conclusion. So we say that it begs the question. Here is another example of an argument that begs the question :

Since Mary would not lie to her best friend, and Mary told me that I am indeed her best friend, I must really be Mary's best friend. Whether this argument is circular depends on your definition of a "circular argument". Some people might not consider this a circular argument in that the conclusion does not appear explicitly as a premise. However, the argument still begs the question and so is not a good argument. Criterion #4 : The premises of a good argument must be plausible and relevant to the conclusion Here, plausibility is a matter of having good reasons for believing that the premises are true. As for relevance, this is the requirement that the the subject matter of the premises must be related to that of the conclusion. Why do we need this additional criterion? The reason is that claims and theories can happen to be true even though nobody has got any evidence that they are true. If the premises of an argument happen to be true but there is no evidence indicating that they are, the argument is not going to be pursuasive in convincing people that the conclusion is correct. A good argument, on the other hand, is an argument that a rational person should accept, so a good argument should satisfy the additional criterion mentioned. A06.2 Summary So, here is our final definition of a good argument : A good argument is an argument that is either valid or strong, and with plausible premises that are true, do not beg the question, and are relevant to the conclusion. Now that you know what a good argument is, you should be able to explain why these claims are mistaken. Many people who are not good at critical thinking often make these mistakes: "The conclusion of this argument is true, so some or all the premises are true." "One or more premises of this argument are false, so the conclusion is false." "Since the conclusion of the argument is false, all its premises are false." "The conclusion of this argument does not follow from the premises. So it must be false." A06.3 Exercises ? Question 1 - Answer the following questions. 1. Does a good argument have to be sound? [Show answer] A good argument does not have to be valid, and so ... 2. Can a good argument be inductively weak? [Show answer] A good argument must be either strong or valid, and so ... TUTORIAL A07: Argument mapping An (simple) argument is a set of one or more premise with a conclusion. A complex argument is a set of arguments with either overlapping premises or conclusions (or both). Complex arguments are very common because many issues and debates are complicated and involve extended reasoning. To understand complex arguments, we need to analyze the logical structure of the reasoning involved. Drawing a diagram can be very helpful. A07.1 Argument maps

An argument map is a diagram that captures the logical structure of a simple or complex argument. In the simplest possible case, we have a single premise supporting a single conclusion. Consider this argument: Life is short, and so we should seize every moment. This can be represented in an argument map as follows:

Let us now look at another example: Paris is in France, and France is in Europe. So obviously Paris is in Europe. Here is the corresponding argument map:

Note that the two premises are connected together before linking to the conclusion. This merging of the links indicate that the two premises are co-premises which work together in a single argument to support the conclusion. In other words, they do not provide independent reasons for accepting the conclusion. Without one of the premises, the other premise would fail to support the conclusion. This should be contrasted with the following example where the premises are not copremises. They provide independent reasons for supporting the conclusion: [1] Smoking is unhealthy, since [2] it can cause cancer. Furthermore, [3] it also increases the chance of heart attacks and strokes. Instead of writing the premises and the conclusion in full in the argument map, we can label them and write down their numbers instead:

This diagram tells us that [2] and [3] are independent reasons supporting [1]. In other words, without [2], [3] would still support [1], and without [3], [2] would still support [1]. (Although the argument is stronger with both premises.) Finally, it is also possible to have a single reason giving rise to multiple conclusions : [1] Gold is a metal. [2] So it conducts electricity. [3] It also conducts heat.

A07.2 More complicated examples Now that we know the basics of argument maps, we can combine the templates we learn above to represent more complicated arguments, by following this proceudre: 1. Identify the most important or main conclusion(s) of the argument. 2. Identify the premises used to support the conclusion(s). These are the premises of the main argument. 3. If additional arguments have been given to support any of these premises, identify the premises of these additional arguments as well, and repeat this procedure. 4. Label the premises and conclusions using numerals or letters. 5. Write down the labels in a tree structure and draw arrows leading from sets of premises to the conclusions they support. Let us try this out on this argument: Po cannot come to the party because her scooter is broken. Dipsy also cannot come because he has to pick up his new hat. I did not invite the other teletubbies, so no teletubby will come up to the party. We now label and refomulate the premises and the conclusions: 1. Po cannot come to the party. 2. Po's scooter is broken. 3. Dipsy cannot come to the party. 4. Dipsy has to pick up his new hat. 5. I did not invite the other teletubbies. 6. [Conclusion] No teletubby will come up to the party. We can then draw the argument map like this:

This is an example of what we might call a multi-layered complex argument, where an intermediate conclusion is used as a premise in another argument. So [1] and [3] are the intermediate conclusions, which together with [5] lead to the main conclusion [6]. This complex argument is therefore made up of three overlapping simple arguments in total. Of course, in this particular case you can understand the argument perfectly well without using this diagram. But with more complicated arguments, a picture can be an indispensable aid. A07.3 Exercises Draw argument maps for the following arguments: ? Question 1 [1] This computer can think. So [2] it is conscious. Since [3] we should not kill any conscious beings, [4] we should not switch it off. ? Question 2 [1. Many people think that having a dark tan is attractive.] [2. But the fact is that too much exposure to the sun is very unhealthy.] [3. It has been shown that sunlight can cause premature aging of the skin.] [4. Ultraviolent rays in the sun might also trigger off skin cancer.] ? Question 3 [1. If Lala is here, then Po should be here as well.] [2. It follows that if Po is not here, Lala is also absent,] and indeed [3. Po is not here.] So most likely [4. Lala is not around.] ? Question 4 [1. Marriage is becoming unfashionable.] [2. Divorce rate is at an all time high], and [3. cohabitation is increasingly presented in a positive manner in the media]. [4. Movies are full of characters who live together and unwilling to commit to a lifelong partnership]. [5. Even newspaper columnists recommend people to live together for an extended period before marriage in order to test their compatibility.] ? Question 5 [1. All university students should study critical thinking.] After all, [2. critical thinking is necessary for surviving in the new economy] as [3. we need to adapt to rapid changes, and make critical use of information in making decisions.] Also, [4. critical thinking can help us reflect on our values and purposes in life.] Finally, [5. critical thinking helps us improve our study skills.] ? Question 6 Now extract the premises and conclusions yourself: "The Bible says that life was created by God. The Bible is the word of God so what it says must be true. So the theory of evolution is false, even though many people accept the theory. Besides, the theory says that monkeys and humans have the same ancestors, but this cannot be since we are so different." You can check the answers for all the questions here. A07.4 More tutorials If you are interested to learn more about drawing argument maps, you can visit the Australian company Austhink for a set of detailed online tutorials on argument mapping. An earlier version of these tutorials was commissioned by the University of Hong Kong: Online argument mapping tutorials A07.5 Software for drawing argument maps

ArgMAP is a computer program written by Joe Lau at the University of Hong Kong. It is free for non-commercial use, but this program is no longer under development and its functionality is limited. The last version of ArgMAP is v0.9.1, which you can download from this page. The program was still in beta so save your work frequently and expect mysterious crashes now and then!. The Australian philosopher Tim van Gelder has developed a much more sophisticated program Reason!Able. We have obtained a site license for the program and members of the University of Hong Kong can download it for free. Please visit this page for instructions. Your computer has to be within the HKU intranet to access the page. [2007 update] Reason!Able is now replaced by a new version called "Rationale". See the web site for details about getting a trial copy. "argumentative" is a free argument mapping software still under development. These drawing programs can also be used to draw argument maps: You can draw flowcharts and other diagrams online for free at http://www.gliffy.com/. Many of the argument map diagrams on this web site are drawn using the opensource Graphviz package - a very powerful program. IHMC CmapTools is a free program for drawing pretty concept maps. It can be used for argument maps as well Visio is a powerful program for drawing all kinds of charts. You can download a trial version from Microsoft. TUTORIAL A08: Analogical Arguments A08.1 Using analogies To give an analogy is to claim that two distinct things are alike or similar in some respect. Here are two examples : Capitalists are like vampires. Like the Earth, Europa has an atmosphere containing oxygen. The analogies above are not arguments. But analogies are often used in arguments. To argue by analogy is to argue that because two things are similar, what is true of one is also true of the other. Such arguments are called "analogical arguments" or "arguments by analogy". Here are some examples : There might be life on Europa because it has an atmosphere that contains oxygen just like the Earth. This novel is supposed to have a similar plot like the other one we have read, so probably it is also very boring. The universe is a complex system like a watch. We wouldn't think that a watch can come about by accident. Something so complicated must have been created by someone. The universe is a lot more complicated, so it must have been created by a being who is a lot more intelligent. Analogical arguments rely on analogies, and the first point to note about analogies is that any two objects are bound to be similar in some ways and not others. A sparrow is very different from a car, but they are still similar in that they can both move. A washing machine is very different from a society, but they both contain parts and produce waste. So

in general, when we make use of analogical arguments, it is important to make clear in what ways are two things supposed to be similar. We can then proceed to determine whether the two things are indeed similar in the relevant respects, and whether those aspetcs of similarity supports the conclusion. So if we present an analogical argument explicitly, it should take the following form : (Premise 1) Object X and object Y are similar in having properties Q1 ... Qn. (Premise 2) Object X has property P. (Conclusion) Object Y also has property P. Before continuing, see if you can rewrite the analogical arguments above in this explicit form. A08.2 Analogical arguments and induction It is sometimes suggested that all analogical arguments make use of inductive reasoning. This is not correct. Consider the explicit form of analogical arguments above. If having property P is a logical consequence of having properties Q1 ... Qn, then the analogical argument will be deductively valid. Here is an example : (Premise 1) X and Y are similar in that they are both isosceles triangles (an isosceles triangle is a triangle with two equal sides). (Premise 2) X has two equal internal angles. (Conclusion) Y has two equal internal angles. Of course, in such a situation we could have argued for the same conclusion more directly : (Premise 1) Y is an isosceles triangles. (Premise 2) Every isosceles triangle has two equal internal angles. (Conclusion) Y has two equal internal angles. What this shows is that : Some good analogical arguments are deductively valid. Sometimes we can argue for a conclusion more directly without making use of analogies. This might reveal more clearly the reasons that support the conclusion. Of course, analogical arguments can also be employed in inductive reasoning. Consider this argument : This novel is supposed to have a similar plot like the other one we have read, so probably it is also very boring. This argument is of course not deductively valid. Just because the plot of novel X is similar to the plot of a boring novel Y, it does not follow logically that X is also boring. Perhaps novel X is a good read despite an unimpressive plot because its pace is a lot faster and the story telling is more gripping and graphic. But if no such information is available, and all we know about novel X is that its plot is like the plot of Y, which is not very interesting, then we would be justified in thinking that it is more likely for X to be boring than to be interesting. A08.3 Evaluating analogical arguments So how should we evaluate the strength of an analogical argument that is not deductively valid? Here are some relevant considerations: Truth : First of all we need to check that the two objects being compared are indeed similar in the way assumed. For example, in the argument we just looked at, if the two novels actually have completely different plots, one being an office romance and the other is a horror story, then the argument is obviously unacceptable.

Relevance : Even if two objects are similar, we also need to make sure that those aspects in which they are similar are actually relevant to the conclusion. For example, suppose two books are alike in that their covers are both green. Just because one of them is boring does not mean that the other one is also boring, since the color of a book's cover is completely irelevant to its contents. In other words, in terms of the explicit form of an analogical argument presented above, we need to ensure that having properties Q1, ... Qn increases the probability of an object having property P. Number: If we discover a lot of shared properties between two objects, and they are all relevant to the conclusion, then the analogical argument is stronger than when we can only identify one or a few shared properties. Suppose we find out that novel X is not just similar to another boring novel Y with a similar plot. We discover that the two novels are written by the same author, and that very few of both novels have been sold. Then we can justifiably be more confident in concluding that X is likely to be boring novel. Diversity: Here the issue is whether the shared properties are of the same kind or of different types. Suppose we have two Italian restaurants A and B, and A is very good. We then find out that restaurant B uses the same olive oil in cooking as A, and buys meat and vegetables of the same quality from the same supplier. Such information of course increases the probability that B also serves good food. But the information we have so far are all of the same kind having to do with the quality of the raw cooking ingredients. If we are further told that A and B use the same brand of pasta, this will increase our confidence in B further still, but not by much. But if we are told that both restaurants have lots of customers, and that both restaurants have obtained Michelin star awards, then these different aspects of similarities are going to increase our confidence in the conclusion a lot more. Disanalogy : Even if two objects X and Y are similar in lots of relevant respects, we should also consider whether there are dissimilarities between X and Y which might cast doubt on the conclusion. For example, returning to the restaurant example, if we find out that restaurant B now has a new owner who has just hired a team of very bad cooks, we would think that the food is probably not going to be good anymore despite being the same as A in many other ways. . A08.4 Analogical arguments in morality Analogical arguments occur very frequently in discussions in law, ethics and politics. In a very famous article, "A Defense of Abortion", written in 1971, philosopher Judith Thomson argues for a woman's right to have an abortion in the case of unwanted pregnancy using an analogy where someone woke up one morning only to find that an unconscious violinist being attached to her body in order to keep the violinist alive. Thomson argues that the victim has the right to detach the violinist even if this would bring about the violinist's death, and this also means that a woman has the right to abort an unwanted baby in certain cases. For further discussion on the role of analogy in moral reasoning, see this article. A08.5 Exercises Question 1 Evaluate these arguments from analogy. See if you can identify any aspects in which the two things being compared are not relevantly similar :

We should not blame the media for deteriorating moral standards. Newspapers and TV are like weather reporters who report the facts. We do not blame weather reports for telling us that the weather is bad. [Show answer] Weather reports do not change the weather, but newspaper reports and the public media can influence people and have an indirect effect on moral standards. Democracy does not work in a family. Parents should have the ultimate say because they are wiser and their children do not know what is best for themselves. Similarly the best form of government for a society is not a democractic one but one where the leaders are more like parents. [Show answer] There are many relevant ways in which a family is different from a society. First, the government officials need not be wiser than the citizens. Also, many parents might care for their children out of love and affection but government officials might not always have the interests of the people at heart. "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." - St. Paul, Ephesians 5:22. [Show answer] Should a husband be regarded as the head of his wife? In the early 17th century, astronomer Francesco Sizi argued that there are only seven planets: "There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two eyes and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. From which and many similar phenomena of nature such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven." TUTORIAL A09: More patterns of valid arguments A09.1 Introduction In our earlier discussion of valid patterns of arguments, we focus on patterns which can be described using letter symbols that stand for individual statements. Here is modus ponens again: If P then Q. P Therefore, Q. As you may recall, the letters P and Q stand for statements. The patterns of valid arguments below are somewhat different though, because the patterns involve breaking down statements into their individual components. We hope the examples given make it easy to understand what the patterns are. A09.2 More valid patterns Every F is G. x is F. So x is G. Example: Every whale is a mammal. Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is a mammal. Every F is G. Every G is H. So every F is H.

Example: Every whale is a mammal. Every mammal is an animal. So every whale is an animal. Every F is G. x is not G. So x is not F. Example: Every whale is a mammal. Nemo is not a mammal. So Nemo is not a whale. No F is G. x is F. So x is not G. Example: No whale is an insect. Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is not an insect. Every F is either G or H. x is F. So x is either G or H. Example: Every human being is either alive or dead. Einstein is a human being. So Einstein is either alive or dead. Obviously there are lots of such valid patterns of arguments. See if you can construct some more of your own. There are also patterns of arguments that look similar but which are not valid patterns, e.g. No F is G. No G is H. So no F is H. Example: No whale is a spider. No spider is warm-blooded. So no whale is warmblooded. As you can see, this argument is not valid. If you are interested, you can read the tutorials on Venn diagrams, since they are useful tools for evaluating the validity of such arguments. In formal logic, predicate is used to formalize and study such arguments more systematically. ** MODULE: Scientific reasoning TUTORIAL S06: Common causal relations When we observe two events A and B, how do we find out if they are causally related? One possibility is that A is the cause of B. But there are many other alternatives to consider. Here we discuss some of the main ones. Please refer to the diagram below.

Case #1 - A and B are not causally related

The fact that A is followed by B does not make A the cause of B. Even when there seems to be a correlation between A and B, it is possible that they are not causally connected. Perhaps the correlation is accidental. It is important to consider a control situation where A is absent, and see if B would still occur. See also the Simposon's paradox. Case #2 - A is the cause of B For a particular event A to be the cause of B, it is necessary that A happens earlier than B. If a type of event A is positively correlated with B, this is one relevant piece of evidence that A is the cause of B. But we need to rule out the other possibilities which are discussed here. If we can change B by changing A, this also supports the hypothesis that A is the cause of B. See Mill's method of concomitant variation. Case #3 - B is the cause of A Sometimes correlation goes both ways. The fact that A causes B can explain the correlation, but maybe the reality is that B is the cause of A. For example, people who are depressed tend to have low self-esteem. Perhaps the former is the cause of the latter, but it is also possible that low self-esteem causes depression by making a person socially withdrawn and lacking in motivation. We need further observations to determine which possibility it is. Case #4 - A and B form a causal loop In many cases two causal factors can reinforce each other by forming a causal loop. In the example above, it is more plausible to think that depression affects self-esteem, and a lower self-esteem can cause further depression. Of course, causal loops happen only between types of events. If a particular event A is the cause of a particular event B, then A must happen earlier than B and so B cannot be the cause of A. Case #5 - A is a minor cause of B An effect can have more than one cause, and some may be more important than others. Case #6 - A and B have a common cause Young children with larger noses tend to be more intelligent, but it is not because the nose size somehow accelerates cognitive development. Rather young children with larger noses are children who are older, and older children are more intelligent than younger ones because their brains have developed further. So A and B are correlated not because A is the cause of B, but because there is an underlying common cause. Case #7 - B is a side effect of A These are cases where the effect might be wrongly attributed to A when in fact it is due to some side effect of A. It has been shown that medicine can have a placebo effect. The subjective belief that one is being treated can bring about relief from an illness even if the medical treatement being given is not really effective against the illness. For example, a patient might report that his pain has decreased as a result to taking a pill, even though the pill is a sugar pill with no effect on pain. TUTORIAL S08: Fallacies about causation

Here are some not uncommon mistakes in reasoning about causation. Post hoc fallacy - Inferring that X causes Y just because X is followed by Y. Example: "Last time I wore these red pants I got hit by a car. It must be because they bring bad luck." Mistaking correlation as causation - "Whenever I take this pill my cough clears up within a week, so this pill is very effective in curing coughs." But perhaps mild coughs go away eventually even without taking medicine? Reversing causal direction - Assuming that X causes Y without considering the possibility that Y is the cause of X - "Children who like violent video games are more likely to show violent behavior. This must be because they are copying the games." But can it be that children who are more prone to violence are more fond of such video games? Genetic fallacy - Thinking that if some item X is associated with a source with a certain property, then X must have the same property as well. But of course this might not be the case. Example: "Eugenics was practised by the Nazis so it is obviously disgusting and unacceptable." Fallacy of the single cause - Wrongly presupposing that an event has a single cause when there are many causally relevant factors involved. This is a fallacy where causal interactions are being over-simplified. For example, after tragedy such as a student committing suicide, people and the news media might start looking for "the cause", and blame it on either the parents, the amount of school work, the society, etc. But there need not be a single cause that led to the suicide. Many factors might be at work. Confusing good causal consequences with reasons for belief - Thinking that a claim C must be true because believing in C brings about some benefit. Example: "God exists because after I have become a believer I am a lot happier and is now a better person." TUTORIAL S01: The hypothetical deductive method S01.1 The four components of science Scientific research is a complex affair, and the various disciplines within science operate in rather different ways. However, in general we can identify four main components in scientific research:

Theories - The set of hypotheses, laws and facts that are about the empirical world. The world - The objects, processes and properties of the real world form the subject matter of the theories.

Predictions - We employ our theories to make predictions about the world. This might be predictions about the future, but they can also be predictions about the past. For example, a geological theory about the earth's history might predict that certain rocks contains a high percentage of special metals. A crucial part of scientific research is to check the predictions of theories to determine which theory to accept and which to reject. Data - The information that is gathered from empirical observations or experiments. Data provides the evidence to test theories. They might also inspire new directions in research. S01.2 The hypothetical-deductive method The hypothetical-deductive method (HD method) is a very important method for testing theories or hypotheses. It is sometimes said to be "the scientific method". This is not quite correct because surely there is not just one method being used in science. However, it is true that the HD method is of central importance, because it is one of the more basic methods common to all scientific disciplines, whether it is economics, physics, or biochemistry. Its application can be divided into four stages: Identify the hypothesis to be tested. Generate predications from the hypothesis. Use experiments to check whether predictions are correct. If the predictions are correct, then the hypothesis is confirmed. If not, then the hypothesis is disconfirmed. Here is an illustration : Suppose your portable music player fails to switch on. You might then consider the hypothesis that perhaps the batteries are dead. So you decide to test whether this is true. Given this hypothesis, you predict that the music player should work properly if you replace the batteries with new ones. So you proceed to replace the batteries, which is the "experiment" for testing the prediction. If the player works again, then your hypothesis is confirmed, and so you throw away the old batteries. If the player still does not work, then the prediction is false, and the hypothesis is disconfirmed. So you might reject your original hypothesis and come up with an alternative one to test, e.g. the batteries are ok but your music player is broken. This example helps us illustrate a few points about science and the HD method. 1. A scientific hypothesis must be testable The HD method tells us how to test a hypothesis, and a scientific hypothesis must be one that is capable of being tested. If a hypothesis cannot be tested, we cannot find evidence to show that it is probable or not. In that case it cannot be part of scientific knowledge. Consider the hypothesis that there are ghosts which we cannot see and can never interact with, and which can never be detected either directly or indirectly. This hypothesis is defined in such a way to exclude the possibility of testing. It might still be true and there might be such ghosts, but we would never be in a position to know and so this cannot be a scientific hypothesis. 2. Confirmation is not truth In general, confirming the predictions of a theory increases the probability that a theory is correct. But in itself this does not prove conclusively that the theory is correct. To see why this is the case, we might represent our reasoning as follows:

If H then P. P. Therefore H. Here H is our hypothesis "the batteries are dead", and P is the prediction "the player will function when the batteries are replaced". This pattern of reasoning is of course not valid, since there might be reasons other than H that also bring about the truth of P. For example, it might be that the original batteries are actually fine, but they were not inserted properly. Replacing the batteries would then restore the loose connection. So the fact that the prediction is true does not prove that the hypothesis is true. We need to consider alternative hypotheses and see which is more likely to be true and which provides the best explanation of the prediction. (Or we can also do more testing!) In the next tutorial we shall talk about the criteria that help us choose between alternative hypotheses. 3. Disconfirmation need not be falsity Very often a hypothesis generates a prediction only when given additional assumptions (auxiliary hypotheses). In such cases, when a prediction fails the theory might still be correct. Looking back at our example again, when we predict that the player will work again when the batteries are replaced, we are assuming that there is nothing wrong with the player. But it might turn out that this assumption is wrong. In such situations the falsity of the prediction does not logically entail the falsity of the hypothesis. We might depict the situation by this argument: (H=The batteries are dead, A=The player is not broken.) If (H and A) then P. It is not the case that P. Therefore, it is not the case that H. This argument here is of course not valid. When P is false, what follows is not that H is false, only that the conjunction of H and A is false. So there are three possibilities: (a) H is false but A is true, (b) H is true but A is false, or (c) both H and A are false. So we should argue instead: If (H and A) then P. It is not the case that P. Therefore, it is not the case that H and A are both true. Returning to our earlier example, if the player still does not work when the batteries are replaced, this does not prove conclusively that the original batteries are dead. This tells us that when we apply the HD method, we need to examine the additional assumptions that are invoked when deriving the predictions. If we are confident that the assumptions are correct, then the falsity of the prediction would be a good reason to reject the hypothesis. On the other hand, if the theory we are testing has been extremely successful, then we need to be extremely cautious before we reject a theory on the basis of a single false prediction. These additional assumptions used in testing a theory are known as "auxiliary hypotheses". ** MODULE: Strategic reasoning

Strategic thinking is the use of systematic and rational methods in planning, problemsolving, and decision-making. Tutorials [G01] How to classify problems [G02] Problem solving procedures [G03] Complex systems and processes [G04] Using charts and diagrams [G05] Decision theory TUTORIAL G01: How to classify problems Solving problems require good critical and creative thinking. We need to be able to define the problem, analyse the nature of the problem, and come up with effective solutions. The ability to solve problems is a very important skill in the workplace. G01.1 Defining the problem When we are faced with a difficult problem, how should we go about solving it in an efficient and effective manner? An important starting point is knowing what the problem is. In school students are usually solving problems that are already well-formulated. Most problem sets and exam questions are like that. However, in everyday life and in the workplace, most of the time we have to identify the problem and formulate it correctly. In defining a problem there are these points to consider: The formulation of a problem can indirectly influence us in the directions that we take in seeking solutions. So sometimes it might be useful to come up with alternative formulations of the problem, and consider how to best formulate a problem. For example, faced with an unhappy relationship on the verge of breakup, one might think of the problem as "why is she leaving me?", and focus on the faults and reasons of the other person. But thinking of the problem in terms of "what have I been doing wrong" might lead one to focus more on oneself and think about what one might do to rescue the relationship. Similarly, instead of focusing on how a business competitor is taking away business from one's own company, the real problem to focus on might be why one's own company is not doing enough to adapt to the new market. If the problem concerns how a goal or target might be achieved, it is important to avoid vagueness and try to be more specific. If we are thinking about how to improve a company's profit, it would be useful to say more precisely how much of an increase we are looking for, in order to know whether the goal is realistic or not. It is also important to think about whether the problem so-defined is real or not. What data is available to show that there is a real problem to be solved? For example a university might be concerned that student standards are dropping. It would be useful to have information available confirming that this is not a subjective judgment but an actual declining trend. Gathering more data about the problem can also help us understand how serious it is and which are the most important factors to consider in dealing with it. G01.2 Problem classification Having defined the problem, the next thing to do is to know what type of problem it is. Generally, a problem might be posed in the form of a question, and we might classify these questions into three kinds :

Empirical questions Conceptual questions Evaluative questions Empirical questions are questions concerning empirical facts, particular events or causal processes in the world. Here are some examples : Who is the current president of the United States? Did Germany participated in the First World War? Can AIDS be transmitted through kissing? Is the universe expanding? To answer an empirical question, we need observations or experiments, or solicit the help of experts in the relevant field, such as physics, biology, psychology, economics, history, etc. Very often these questions cannot be answered by sitting in the armchair. For example, consider the question of whether human beings evolved from other forms of animals. This is an empirical question to be answered by careful scientific study. We might have certain convictions or intuitions about the answer, and be inclined to believe one way or another. But these prior beliefs should be evaluated according to empirical data. Pure thinking is not going to help find the answer. On the other hand, pure thinking can help us answer conceptual questions. Here are some examples of conceptual questions : Is rule of law sufficient for democracy? Can a woman sexually harass a man? Are there any married bachelors? Is 981567 divisible by 3? To answer these questions, we appeal to logic and the meaning of words and concepts to arrive at the answers without engaging in experiments or observations. In other words, mere thinking is enough to answer these questions. Here, "mere thinking" refers to conceptual analysis and reasoning. For example, in answering the first question, we note that "rule of law" means the consistent use of due procedure and legal processes in a society where the legal principles are not arbitrarily applied or withheld. But we might note that the laws in a society where this is the case might nonetheless discriminate against certain social groups and provide them with inadequate political representation in the government. As long as these rules are not abused and are consistently applied, there is rule of law but no democracy. Using pure reasoning and our understanding of the concepts of "rule of law" and "democracy", we conclude that rule of law is not sufficient for democracy. Similarly, the other conceptual questions are questions which can be answered without empirical observations or scientific study. Finally, let us consider evaluative questions. Evaluative questions are questions which explicitly or implicitly invoke values and norms. These questions relate to value judgments about moral correctness or aesthetic values. Here are some examples : Is abortion immoral? Is Beethoven a more profound composer than Mozart? Should the amount of unemployment benefits be raised? To answer this type of questions, we need to understand the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values. Very briefly, intrinsic value is value that exists on its own. The intrinsic value of an object does not depend on its being used to satisfy some further end.

But if something has value only because and in so far as it can be used to satisfy a further end, and would cease to have value if it fails to do so, then the value involved is instrumental value. (See here for further discussion.) So here is a summary :

G01.3 Mixed questions Conceptual questions might be regarded as the most basic kind of question among the three categories. This is because factual and evaluative questions can only be answered if we understand the relevant concepts invoked by the questions. For example, if we do not know what a black hole is, we cannot answer the question "Can light escape from a black hole?" Similarly, we need to know what abortion is if we want to find out whether abortion is immoral. Empirical questions are generally independent of evaluative questions. We do not have to consider any evaluative judgements if we want to answer an empirical question. However, the reverse is not true. To answer many evaluative questions, we need to know quite a few empirical facts. For example, to evaluate whether an action is morally right or wrong, we usually have to consider the consequences of the action, or the motives behind the action. Once we know these empirical facts, we can then apply the correct moral standards to judge whether the action is good or bad. Suppose we want to find out whether it was right for the US to drop two atomic bombs onto Japan. We have to consider empirical facts such as Japanese atrocities during the Second World War, the extent of the destruction caused by the atomic bombs, the number of innocent civilians killed as a result, and whether there are other alternative ways of ending the war. These are all empirical matters which are important to consider in answering the questions. Many disputes and controversies persist because of bad thinking, and bad thinking techniques might take the form of failure to understand the nature and type of the questions that have to be answered. The distinction between three types of questions discussed here is a simple and crucial part of the methodology in problem-solving. G01.4 Exercises

Suppose "sexual harassment" is defined as any unwelcome sexual behavior or conduct which is offensive, humiliating or intimidating. How would you answer the question of whether telling sexual jokes constitutes sexual harassment? Describe how you might answer the question of whether animals have languages. TUTORIAL G02: Problem solving procedures Polya's 1971 book How to solve it is a classic text on problem solving. According to Polya, most problem-solving strategies can be classified under four general principles: Understand the nature of the problem Draw up a plan to solve the problem. Try out the plan. Monitor the outcome of the plan. Let us highlight some important points to consider when we have to apply these four principles: 1. Understand the nature of the problem Is the problem well-defined? Can the problem be analysed into smaller subproblems? What type of problem is it? (See the last tutorial on classifying problems.) What information can we gather about the problem? Have I / other people solve this problem before? What lessons might their experiences offer? What are the constraints (time, money, resources, etc) in solving the problem? 2. Draw up a plan Determine the time and resources needed. Carry out necessary preparations, e.g. research, coordination, etc. For solving problems that require a complex plan, write down the plan in a systematic manner. 3. Try out the plan Monitor progress to make sure that things go according to plan. Record errors or special considerations for future review. 4. Monitor the outcome of the plan This is the part of problem-solving that most people tend to ignore. One way for us to improve is to review past experiences and understand why we succeed or fail. So it is important to monitor our own performance review the whole exercise in order that we can do even better in the future. TUTORIAL G03: Complex systems and processes Many problems involve complex systems or processes. We might be asked to explain how they work, or perhaps acquire a better understanding of them so that we know how they can be improved. In this module we discuss analytical methods that help us understanding complex systems and processes. The basic and simple idea behind is simply to understand the function and behavior of a complex object in terms of its components and their interaction. G03.1 Analysing a complex input-output process

In the commercial or industiral environment, process analysis is a basic part of quality management and strategic development. Here, a process is seen as a procedure composing of many steps which convert one or more inputs into one or more outputs. In a factory production line, the inputs might be raw materials or electronic components, and the output might be a particular product such as a computer. To carry out a process analysis, we identify the different parts of the process, and draw a diagram showing how one part of the process leads to another part of the process. To begin the analysis, we might divide the whole process into its major parts, and then we can carry out further analysis on the larger parts and show how they are composed for different activities and tasks. This process of decomposition allows us to see how the process is organized :

One way to draw a systematic diagram of a complex process is to use flowcharts. You can refer to these notes to find out more about flowcharts. G03.2 Analysing a complex system The same decomposition method can be used in understanding a complex system. For example, a computer is composed of different part, including memory, processor, display, and interface components such as keyboard and mouse. To understand how a computer works, we identify the functions of different components, and see how they interact with each other. TUTORIAL G04: Using charts and diagrams Charts and diagrams play an extremely important role in displaying information and assisting reasoning. They help us visualize complex processes, or make explicit the structure of problems and tasks. On this page we introduce some common visual tools. Flowcharts Decision trees Cause and effect diagrams It is hard to describe systematically the art of using diagrams to present relevant information accurately and succintly. But here are a few simple reminders on interpreting and presenting charts containing statistical information:

Misleading diagrams

G04.1 Flowcharts A flowchart is a diagram constructed from connected shapes representing a process or a plan. Here is an example of a simple flowchart illustrating the process of going to school.

Flowcharts have two main functions. First, a flowchart can be used to analyse a complex process, by breaking down the process into individual steps or components. The diagram can then be used : as a basis for further discussion of the process to identify points where data can be collected and analysed to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies to explain the process to other people A flowchart can also be used to define a process or project to be implemented. Such a diagram is useful because : it spells out clearly the steps that have to be implemented it provides the basis for identifying potential problems responsibilities for different parts of the process can be clearly defined The modern flowchart originated in computer science as a tool for representing algorithms and computer programs, but the use of flowcharts has extended to the representation of all other kinds of processes. Notation In a standard flowchart, different shapes have different conventional meanings. The meanings of some of the more common shapes are as follows: The terminator symbol represents the starting or ending point of the system.

A box indicates some particular operation.

This represents a printout, such as a document or a report.

A diamond represents a decision or branching point. Lines coming out from the diamond indicates different possible situations, leading to different subprocesses. It represents material or information entering or leaving the system. An input might be an order from a customer. An output can be a product to be delievered. This symbol would contain a letter inside. It indicates that the flow continues on a matching symbol containing the same letter somewhere else on the same page. As above, except that the flow continues at the matching symbol on a different page. Identifies a delay or a bottleneck.

Lines represent the sequence and direction of a process. For further information about standard notation, please refer to : International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), ISO 5807 Information processing -- Documentation symbols and conventions; program and system flowcharts. American National Standard, ANSI X3.6-1970, Flowchart Symbols and their Usage in Information Processing. Deployment flowcharts One type of flowchart which is quite useful in project planning is deployment flowchart. A deployment flowchart is just a flowchart drawn inside a table with different columns, e.g.

The table is divided into columns representing the parties responsible for implementing the process. Different parts of the process are placed in the column for which the relevant party is in charge. The diagram reveals clearly how responsibilities for the sub-processes are distributed. Hints for drawing flowcharts Write down the title of the flowchart. Identify the process that is shown. Make sure that the starting and ending points of the process can be easily located. Avoid crossing flow-lines if possible. Use informative labels in your diagram. The amount of details in a flowchart depends on the level of analysis required. Analysing flowcharts In a management context the following considerations should be taken into account in reviewing a flowchart: Where are the labor intensive processes? Where would possible delays and hiccups most likely occur? Are there places particularly suited for quality control? Are there duplicated or redundant processes? Is it possible to streamline any process or reduce the number of operations? Has any process been omitted? G04.2 Decision trees A decision tree diagram is a diagram that represents the possible consequences of a series of decisions in some situation. Here is a simple example :

More sophisticated decision tree diagrams can represent the probabilities of different possible outcomes. Special methods can then be employed to calculate the overall probabilities of possible final outcomes, to help estimate risks and assist decision making. A decision tree diagram functions not just as a map for making decisions. It is also very useful in laying out the different positions on some complicated theoretical issue. Depending on how one might answer certain crucial questions, a decision tree diagram can help the user identify the theoretical consequences of the assumptions that he or she accepts. For example, here we have a very simple tree diagram on the topic of consciousness.

G04.3 Cause and effect diagrams There are two main types of cause and effect diagrams - Bayesian causal nets, and fishbone diagrams. Bayesian causal nets are rather similar to decision tree diagrams. For more details, please visit this page. TUTORIAL G05: Decision theory G05.1 Introduction Decision theory might be considerd to be a branch of mathematics. It provides a more precise and systematic study of the formal or abstract properties of decision-making scenarios. Game theory concerns situations where the decisions of more than two parties are involved. Decision theory considers only the decisions of a single individual. Here we discuss only some very basic aspects of decision theory.

The decision situations we consider are cases where a decision maker has to choose between a list of mutually exclusive decisions. In other words, from among the alternatives, one and only one choice can be made. Each of these choices might have one or more possible consequences that are beyond the control of the decision maker, which again are mutually exclusive. Consider an artificial example where someone, say Linda, is thinking of investing in the stock market. Suppose she is considering four alternatives: investing $8000, investing $4000, investing $2000, or not investing at all. These are the four choices that are within her control. The consequences of her investment, in terms of her profit or loses, are dependent on the market and beyond her control. We might draw up a payoff table as follows: Choices Profit Strong market Fair market Poor market invest $8000 $800 invest $4000 $400 invest $2000 $200 invest $1000 $100 $200 $100 $50 $25 -$400 -$200 -$100 -$50

Although the possible returns of the investment are beyond the control of the decision maker, the decision maker might or might not be able or willing to assign probabilities to them. If no probabilities are assigned to the possible consequences, then the decision situation is called "decision under uncertainty". If probabilities are assigned then the situation is called "decision under risk". This is a basic distinction in decision theory, and different analyses are in order. G05.2 Decision under uncertainty Maximin The Maximin decision rule is used by a pessimistic decision maker who wants to make a conservative decision. Basically, the decision rule is to consider the worst consequence of each possible course of action and chooses the one thast has the least worst consequence. Applying this rule to the payoff table above, the maximin rule implies that Linda should choose the last course of action, namely not to invest anything. Choices Profit Strong market Fair market Poor market invest $8000 $800 invest $4000 $400 invest $2000 $200 invest $1000 $100 $200 $100 $50 $25 -$400 -$200 -$100 -$50

Maximin tells Linda to consider the worst possible consequence of her possible choices. These are indicated by the orange boxes here. Among the worst consequences of the four choices, the last one is the best of the worst. So that would be choice to make. Maximax Choices Profit Strong market Fair market Poor market invest $8000 $800 invest $4000 $400 invest $2000 $200 invest $1000 $100 $200 $100 $50 $25 -$400 -$200 -$100 -$50

Whereas minimax is the rule for the pessimist, maximax is the rule for the optimist. A slogan for maximax might be "best of the best" - a decision maker considers the best possible outcome for each course of action, and chooses the course of action that corresponds to the best of the best possible outcomes. So in Linda's case if she employs this rule she would look at the first column and picks the fist course of action and invest $8000 since it gives her the largest possible return. Minimax regret This rule is for minimizing regrets. Regret here is understood as proportional to the difference between what we actually get, and the better position that we could have got if a different course of action had been chosen. Regret is sometimes also called "opportunity loss". Choices Regret Strong market Fair market Poor market invest $8000 0 invest $4000 400 invest $2000 600 invest $1000 700 0 100 150 175 350 150 50 0

In applying this decision rule, we list the maximum amount of regret for each possible course of action, and select the course of action that corresponds to the minimum of the list. In the example we have been considering, the maximum regret for each course of action is coloured orange, and the minimum of all the selected values is 350. So applying the minimax regret rule Linda should invest $8000. G05.3 Decision Making Under Risk

When we are dealing with a decision where the possible outcomes are given specific probabilities, we say that this a case of decision making under risk. In such situations the principle of expected value is used. We calculate the expected value associated with each possible course of action, and select the course of action that has the higest expected value. To calculate the expected value for a course of action, we multiple each possible payoff associated with that course of action with its probability, and sum up all the products for that course of action. Choices Profit Strong market Fair market Poor market (probability = (probability = (probability = 0.1) 0.5) 0.4) invest $8000 invest $4000 invest $2000 invest $1000 $800 $400 $200 $100 $200 $100 $50 $25 -$400 -$200 -$100 -$50 $800x0.1+$200x0.5+($400)x0.4=$20 $400x0.1+$100x0.5+($200)x0.4=$10 $200x0.1+$50x0.5+($100)x0.4=$5 $100x0.1+$25x0.5+($50)x0.4=$2.5 expected value

Since the first course of action has the highest expected value, the principle of utility implies that Linda should invest $8000. For further discussion about expected value, see the corresponding section in statistical reasoning. G05.4 Exercises In the example here, it is assumed that the probabilities assigned to different market conditions are independent of Linda's decisions. Is this a reasonable assumption to make?[Show answer] **

MODULE: Creative thinking

Critical and creative thinking are the two most basic thinking skills. Critical thinking is a matter of thinking clearly and rationally. Creativity consists in coming up with new and relevant ideas. To be a good and effecive thinker, both kinds of thinking skills are needed. Creativity might be divided into two kinds. One is cognitive creativity that is involved in solving problems. The other is aesthetic creativity relating to artistic creation. This is of course not a sharp distinction, but critical thinking plays a more important role in the former. The tutorials here focus mainly on cognitive creativity. Tutorials [R01] Three basic principles [R02] The creativity cycle

[R03] Heuristics for creative thinking [R04] Quotes on creativity Further reading Twyla Tharp (2003). The Creative Habit. Simon and Schuster. James Webb Young (1975). A Technique for Producing Ideas. (third edition) Chicago, Crain Books. G. Polya. (1957). How to Solve It 2nd ed. Princeton University Press TUTORIAL R01: Three basic principles For many people, creativity is something reserved for scientists or artists. But this is to ignore the fact that we are faced with countless problems in our daily life, and it is precisely creative thinking that helps us come up with solutions to these problems. We need to make use of our creativity whether we are thinking about how to earn more money or how to make our our loved ones happier. Many people also seem to think that creativity is a matter of waiting for inspirations. How inspiring ideas come about is however regarded as a rather mysterious process, and it is just a fact that some people are more creative than others. But it would be a mistake to think that creativity is a passive state of mind. While it is true that there is no special algorithm for creativity, there are thinking skills that can be taught and things one can do to enhance one's creativity. But to begin with, we need to understand these three basic principles that underlie creativity.

Principle one : New ideas are composed of old elements Critical thinking is mainly about correct thinking. Creativity is mainly about alternative possibilities - how to come up with new and useful ideas. A new idea might be a new theory, a new product, a new solution to a problem, or a conception for a piece of art. To come up with something new is to produce something that is distinctive and special. The practical implication here is that in order to be creative we must be ready to deviate from the ordinary and the traditional. Many people have the habit of following instructions and are afraid of challenging the status quo or exploring anything new. This implies a certain courageous exploratory attitude and curiosity in one's character. But where do new ideas come from? The simple answer is that new ideas are actually old ones rearranged in a new way. So there is a sense in which it is true that "there is nothing new under the sun." This applies not just to the creation of concepts or theories but also the launching of new fashion or cultural trends. How do we generate new ideas from old ones? Roughly speaking, ideas are usually composed of diffrent elements, and we look for new combination of ideas by joining different ideas together, deleting some elements, or replacing some elements by other ones. Consider the idea of a mobile phone. This idea is of course the combination of the idea of wireless information transmission and the idea of a telephone. The first principle also has a practical implication - the ingredients for creativity depends on the store of ideas that are available for recombination. If you have a limited domain of knowledge, you will have fewer resources to draw from in forming new ideas. This is why intellectual curiosity and a wide knowledge base can significantly enhance one's creativity - one has in one's possession more concepts, theories and experience to

choose from. This is also why it can be useful to try to solve a problem by consulting other people with different expertise.

Principle two : Not all new ideas are on a par Creativity is not simply a matter of coming up with new ideas. The kind of creativity that is valued is the ability to come up with new and useful ideas, ideas that serve an important need or creates a new trend that makes an impact. Creativity might be divided into cognitive and artistic creativity. Artistic creativity consists in the creation of artwork and expressing one's ideas and emotions through various forms of art. Critical thinking as such is not opposed to artistic creativity, but the enhancement of critical thinking skills obviously might not improve one's artistic creativity. However, critical thinking is a necessary condition for cognitive creativity. Cognitive creativity is a matter of coming up with solutions to practical or theoretical problems. This includes for example creating a new scientific theory, or lauching a new commercial product. Cognitive creativity has two parts - the generation of new ideas, and the evaluation and modification of new ideas. When we need new ideas to solve a problem, critical thinking is necessary to help determine the relevance and effectiveness of the idea. To build a rocket that flies to the moon, one should not violate logic or the laws of physics. The evaluation of any proposal to solve a problem must involve good critical thinking. It is sometimes suggested that creativity often requires going against the usual conventions, and that new and important ideas might be lost if one is too critical. But good critical thinking does not mean that one must always be critical. If experience tells us that it is useful to brainstorm, that sometimes it might be productive to suspend one's critical judgment and list out new ideas before evaluating them, then it is of course rational to do so. This is certainly not inconsistent with the principles of critical thinking. It is thus a serious misconception to regard critical thinking and cognitive creativity as opposed to each other.

Principle three : Creativity is enhanced by the ability to detect connections between ideas Our store of ideas provides the ingredients to generate new ones, but it is important to remember that useful ideas might come from unexpected sources. A successful marketing campaign might appeal to certain psychological studies and relate to particular trends in the society. This involves seeing a connection between the subject matter one is interested in (the marketing exercise) and other subjects (sociology and psychology) which might seem somewhat remote. As a concrete example, consider the so-called "fastskin" swimsuits that was introduced by the company Speedo around 1996. One of the key consideration in designing

a swimsuit for athletes is to reduce the total amount of drag over the surface of the swimsuit. The company's researchers noticed that sharks are able to move very fast in water in part because of V-shaped ridges. Researchers designed swimwear fabric emulating sharkskin that produced less drag and turbulence. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, 28 of 33 Olympic Gold Medal winners wore this type of swimsuit, testifying to its success. So if we want to be creative, we must be ready to explore connections between different areas. First, this means we should have a wide knowledge base. Creative people are usually people who read widely, who have a great sense of curiosity, and are often willing to explore topics which do not bring about immediate benefits. Second, we should ensure that our learning processes should aim at a deep understanding of the connections between key concepts. Studying is not simply remembering bits and pieces of unrelated information. We should make sure that we look at the information we have from different angles, reformulate them systematically in a way to achieve better understanding. TUTORIAL R02: The creativity cycle There is of course no precise procedure that would guarantee creativity. But the following informal procedure is indeed useful, even though it seems rather simple. Step 1 - Research A student once asked the Nobel laureate John Nash for advice on getting ideas for his thesis, and the reply was "Have you done your reading?" When we need to come up with an idea to solve a problem, it would be helpful to do some research to see what other people have thought about the topic. If there are already good solutions that can be used, then we don't have to waste our time to reinvent the wheel. But even if the problem has not been solved, we need to understand more about the relevant topic to obtain more background information. If you are a scientist who wants to design a better robot, you need to know what other people have done and where the current limitations are. If you have to help market a product, you need to know more about the target audience and the product in question, and to learn more about advertising. Whatever topic we are interested in, there is a lot of information that we can gather. Some of the information might be specific, like how much time and money do you have for making the robot. Other information might be general, like the principles governing machine vision, speech recognition, etc.. You need to find some systematic way to gather and organize the relevant material. Some useful things to do: Obtain relevant information from the scientific literature or experts. Study the history of the problem. Do case studies of people who have dealt with similar problems. Think about analogous situations. Talk to the people who are involved. Step 2 - Explore the connections between ideas When you are gathering your data you are doing some preliminary study to learn more about the problem you have to solve. While you are doing this, or after you have collected a lot of material, you need to examine and reflect on what you have, in order to rank the importance of the different pieces of information that you have, and to investigate whether there are hidden connections between the ideas. Creativity often takes the form of using

some idea from one field and apply it to another one. Being able to detect connections between ideas help bring this about. Step 3 - Relax and wait Very likely we have had experiences where an idea suddenly pops up while we are taking the shower, or after a good night's sleep. When we are sorting out the connections between ideas it is important that we are persistent and spend an extended period of time in order that we keep lots of different ideas in the mind, some of which remain in the background and some of which might enter into unconscious thinking processes. After a period of hardwork it is sometimes necessary to pull back and relax, to do something relaxing and different to stimulate the mind. Or it might perhaps be a case of allowing ourselves to forget about the less important ideas so that the more relevant ones float to the top. But whatever the mechanisms are, it does seem to be important to allow time for ideas to gestate. If we still can't think of anything, then we might have to do more research and think about connections further. Step 4 - Apply, review and followup Once we have obtained some ideas that seem to work, we need to examine them carefully to check that they indeed can help solve our problem. We have to think about whether they can be improved further and we need to see how they are to be implemented. Even when they have proved to be successful, we should review the whole process to see how we can do better next time. Andrew Wiles is famous for proving Fermat's theorem. He was interviewed on NOVA and made some remarks about creativity in research which overlaps very much with what is being said here. NOVA: On a day-to-day basis, how did you go about constructing your proof? Wiles: I used to come up to my study, and start trying to find patterns. I tried doing calculations which explain some little piece of mathematics. I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about. Sometimes that would involve going and looking it up in a book to see how it's done there. Sometimes it was a question of modifying things a bit, doing a little extra calculation. And sometimes I realized that nothing that had ever been done before was any use at all. Then I just had to find something completely new; it's a mystery where that comes from. I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction, I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind. The only way I could relax was when I was with my children. Young children simply aren't interested in Fermat. They just want to hear a story and they're not going to let you do anything else. NOVA: Usually people work in groups and use each other for support. What did you do when you hit a brick wall? Wiles: When I got stuck and I didn't know what to do next, I would go out for a walk. I'd often walk down by the lake. Walking has a very good effect in that you're in this state of

relaxation, but at the same time you're allowing the sub-conscious to work on you. And often if you have one particular thing buzzing in your mind then you don't need anything to write with or any desk. I'd always have a pencil and paper ready and, if I really had an idea, I'd sit down at a bench and I'd start scribbling away. MODULE: Creative thinking TUTORIAL R03: Heuristics for creative thinking The recipe in the last tutorial is a very general outline of what we can do to come up with new ideas. But more specifically, if creativity involves manipulating ideas, what are the different methods available which would help us come up with ideas to be tested? Here we present some heuristics that might be helpful. Heuristic #1 : Feature list A feature list for an object or process is simply a list of its main features. Having obtained such a list, one can examine the features one by one and consider how it might be changed. For instance, a typical table has a fixed round or rectangular flat top that rests on one or more supporting pole. An exotic designer table might instead have movable multi-level worktops of irregular shapes supported by a wired frame. Heuristic #2 : Analogy The use of analogies might help us imagine new features. By comparing X with Y we can consider whether special features of Y might have analogues in X. Thinking of an airplane as a bird leads us to see whether the evolutionary solutions for aviation in birds might be applied to the building of aircrafts. Similarly, a new kind of swiming suit designed to reduce drag for swimming competitors was actually inspired by shark skins. Heuristic #3 : Search Sometimes solving a problem is a matter of searching through a long list of possible solutions. It then becomes important to find a systematic search method. When Edison was designing the electric light bulb, a crucial task was the search of a suitable filament which conducts electricity well enough to give off light, but which will not burn up or melt as a result. It became very important for him to classify the different types of material (e.g. ceramic or metallic) that was being tested in order to narrow down the search. When we have a large search space we should divide the space into portions to that the search can be done systematically, and device tests of represenative samples from different regions to eliminate unlikely candidates. Heuristic #4 : Perspective shift When dealing with a problem that involves people, one might consider the problem from the different perspectives of the parties involved. Suppose we are trying to improve the effiency of a company, we can imagine how we might deal with the problem from the CEO's point of view, or from the perspective of the sales department. Taking different perspectives in turn might help us appreciate difficulties or opportunities which we have not thought of before. Perspective shift involves also thinking about different ways of formulating a problem. Sometimes when we are dealing with a difficulty we might be fixated on one particular aspect. Trying to formulate the problem differently can help us discover new approaches. For example, a developer working on a site might be faced with the difficulty of having to clear and remove a significant amount of topsoil from the site. Instead of seeing this as a

source of expenses, the developer might try to see the problem from a different perspective. He might discover for example that the quality of the soil is actually quite suitable for farming purposes, and so someone might actually be willing to pay some money to purchase the soil. So sometimes we do need to leave aside our preconceptions for the time being and explore alternative ways of looking at a situation. As Einstein said when he was asked what single event was most helpful in developing his theory of relativity, he replied: "Figuring out how to think about the problem." Heuristics in research In the context of research, one can also explore the following patterns of research activities : Comparative studies Applying an old theory to a new domain Coming up with new evidence supporting or refuting a theory Improving the scope, accuracy or the predictive power of an old theory MODULE: Creative thinking TUTORIAL R04: Quotes on creativity Mozart on his art People are wrong who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over. Nietzche, philosopher You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

Linus Pauling, physicist The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Virginia Woolf, writer It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.

Albert Einstein, physicist The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Thomas Edison, inventor Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

Edward de Bono, writer It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

Excerpted from The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp After so many years, I've learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. That's why writers, for example, like to establish routines for themselves. The most productive ones get started early in the morning, when the world is quiet, the phones aren't ringing, and their minds are rested, alert, and not yet polluted by other people's words. They might set a goal for themselves -- write fifteen hundred words, or stay at their desk until noon -but the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit. It's the same for any creative individual, whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory. The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. Quotes in Thomas Friedman The World is Flat When I asked Bill Gates about the supposed American education advantage -- an education that stresses creativity, not rote learning -- he was utterly dismissive. In his view, those who think that the more rote learning systems of China and Japan can't turn out innovators who can compete with Americans are sadly mistaken. Said Gates, "I have never met the guy who

doesn't know how to multiply who created software ... Who has the most creative video games in the world? Japan! I never met these 'rote people' ... Some of my best software developers are Japanese. You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them." From Gian-Carlo Rota's "Ten Lessons I wish I had been Taught" Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"