Pre School Argumentation - Why ‘R&~R’ is false and Pilgrim is a dailykos emo creampuff blogger
I recently attempted to highlight some of the problems in the front page argumentation here at sayanything. Apparently, my presentation asked for too much attention or acumen on the part of the reader for my point to have been conveyed succinctly and clearly, despite my efforts. I recieved such responses as:
Let’s pause here for a second and meditate on this comment from Pilgrim. Anyone who frequents this site knows that a popular thing for the Republican commentators at sayanything to bash on is the dailykos and their lack of rationality and overabundance of emotional appeals and contradictory, self-serving ‘puff’. Given this is such a popular theme for these commentators to rail on, one would think that my effort to help them iron out their inconsistencies and outright contradictions would have been welcomed. After all, these commentators purport to uphold rationality in the face of emotional appeals, do they not?
Since my efforts were perhaps a bit too succinct and demanded a bit to much rationality from this rational crowd (c.f. Pilgrim’s above comment for example), I will make an effort to recast the entire argument so that I can make it clearer and get my point across. I will make a better effort at communication, for the future interests of Pilgrim, so he might save himself from looking like a dailykos commentator; an irrational, emotional, flip-flopper.
Let me try to recast my recent post in a slightly less ‘moron’ manner.
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Rational people often employ something called logic when they make arguments. A typical argument has premises and a conclusion, which, hopefully, is entailed in the premises. If the conclusion is correctly entailed by the premises, we call that a valid argument. Formal logic is the study of inference in a purely formal or symbolized manner. An example of this would be a ‘modus tollens’ argument which runs as follows:
We can flesh this out with a real life example. One might argue that:
I choose this argument because it is often made here on sayanything and, moreover, it is a valid argument form. Unfortunately, that’s not all that’s needed. In addition to a valid form, the argument must relate to the world in a certain way. The premises must be true. IF (A) the argument is valid & (B) the premises are true, THEN (C) the argument is sound. (If we formalize the sentence in bold, we get the following conditional where the antecedent is a conjunct: (A & B) → C). If its obvious that the above argument is valid, but if someone wishes to deny that it is sound, the burden is on them to pick the premise which they believe does not relate to the world in the appropriate manner, namely their burden is to choose a premise they believe to be false. What one needs is a counterexample to render the premise false. In the case of the above argument, one may choose premise 2 as being false, on real world evidence such as this. So, even though the argument form is valid, we find problems in the way in which it is related to the world. In short, we find counterexamples to premise 2, thereby rendering premise 2 false - the argument might be valid, but it is unsound.
In my recent post on Pilgrim’s lack of rationality, I exploited a modus tollens argument:
Where P = Pilgrim is correct and R = its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. So, making the appropriate replacements and boldfacing the operators, we have:
Now, we have seen above that this form of argumentation is valid, but we need to go a bit further. We need to prove that the premises are true if we want the argument to be sound.
(1)Premise one rests on competing claims that Pilgrim has made in two of his recent posts. To be charitable, we will assume that Pilgrim is correct - that gives us P (Which I am making an effort to disprove here). He has made two claims. The first one I have formalized as R. This is the claim that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. We have evidence for attributing this claim to Pilgrim here. In the post, Pilgrim refers to the suppression of the Phelps’ right to free speech the “feel good moment of the day” and also closes with ”Good for the students at UW.” Thus, we can see that the attribution of R to Pilgrim is supported. We have also attributed ~R to Pilgrim. ~R amounts to the claim that its not the case that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. We attribute that to Pilgrim on the basis of another recent post. In that post, Pilgrim is complaining that a UW student suppressed the free speech of another and claiming, moreover, that its bad. He says, “Their tolerance extends only to themselves and their politcal point of view.” He effectively condemns the suppression of a student who had placed 4,000 crosses on the green in an act of free speech. (And he spells political wrong.) On this basis, we find premise 1 to be sound.
(2) Premise two is what is referred to as an analytic truth or a tautology. We need not look for examples in the world to know that R=R. Furthermore, we need not look for examples in the world to know that ~(R&~R). A&~A, for example, would amount to the claim that ‘I am a human and I am not a human’. Because A and ~A are ‘mutually exclusive’, we know that any conjunction of them will be false. Hence the contents of premise 2: Its not the case that R and ~R. Premise 2 is a tautology - its as true as saying R=R, its effing obvious.
(Conclusion) Remember in the beginning when we said that we will assume that Pilgrim is correct to be charitable? Well, the introduction of that assumption has led is to a contradiction which allows us to negate that assumption. Thus we have ‘Its not the case that Pilgrim is correct’ or ‘~P’.
Now we have seen that the premises of my argument entail the conclusion in a valid manner and, moreover, we have seen that they are true premises. I hope that this extended effort to communicate the nuances of YOUR OWN arguments has been of aid to you Pilgrim. Hopefully, if you keep stuff like this in mind, you will be able to better deflect accusations such as, “You blog like the emo cream puffs over at dailykos.” It seems to me that someone who has ‘front page privileges’ over here would make an effort to steer clear of vulnerability to such accusations. After all, this isn’t the dailykos is it?
I guess I just don’t speak moron.
Let’s pause here for a second and meditate on this comment from Pilgrim. Anyone who frequents this site knows that a popular thing for the Republican commentators at sayanything to bash on is the dailykos and their lack of rationality and overabundance of emotional appeals and contradictory, self-serving ‘puff’. Given this is such a popular theme for these commentators to rail on, one would think that my effort to help them iron out their inconsistencies and outright contradictions would have been welcomed. After all, these commentators purport to uphold rationality in the face of emotional appeals, do they not?
Since my efforts were perhaps a bit too succinct and demanded a bit to much rationality from this rational crowd (c.f. Pilgrim’s above comment for example), I will make an effort to recast the entire argument so that I can make it clearer and get my point across. I will make a better effort at communication, for the future interests of Pilgrim, so he might save himself from looking like a dailykos commentator; an irrational, emotional, flip-flopper.
Let me try to recast my recent post in a slightly less ‘moron’ manner.
---------------------------------------------
Rational people often employ something called logic when they make arguments. A typical argument has premises and a conclusion, which, hopefully, is entailed in the premises. If the conclusion is correctly entailed by the premises, we call that a valid argument. Formal logic is the study of inference in a purely formal or symbolized manner. An example of this would be a ‘modus tollens’ argument which runs as follows:
Premise 1: P→Q.
Premise 2: ~Q
Conclusion: ~P.
We can flesh this out with a real life example. One might argue that:
Premise 1: If Islam is a religion of peace, then pious Muslims are peaceful.
Premise 2: Its not the case that pious Muslims are peaceful.
Conclusion: Its not the case that Islam is a religion of peace.
I choose this argument because it is often made here on sayanything and, moreover, it is a valid argument form. Unfortunately, that’s not all that’s needed. In addition to a valid form, the argument must relate to the world in a certain way. The premises must be true. IF (A) the argument is valid & (B) the premises are true, THEN (C) the argument is sound. (If we formalize the sentence in bold, we get the following conditional where the antecedent is a conjunct: (A & B) → C). If its obvious that the above argument is valid, but if someone wishes to deny that it is sound, the burden is on them to pick the premise which they believe does not relate to the world in the appropriate manner, namely their burden is to choose a premise they believe to be false. What one needs is a counterexample to render the premise false. In the case of the above argument, one may choose premise 2 as being false, on real world evidence such as this. So, even though the argument form is valid, we find problems in the way in which it is related to the world. In short, we find counterexamples to premise 2, thereby rendering premise 2 false - the argument might be valid, but it is unsound.
In my recent post on Pilgrim’s lack of rationality, I exploited a modus tollens argument:
Premise 1: P→(R&~R)
Premise 2: ~(R&~R)
Conclusion: ~P
Where P = Pilgrim is correct and R = its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. So, making the appropriate replacements and boldfacing the operators, we have:
Premise 1: If Pilgrim is correct then (its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech and its not the case that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech.)
Premise 2: Its not the case that (its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech and its not the case that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech.)
Conclusion: Its not the case that Pilgrim is correct.
Now, we have seen above that this form of argumentation is valid, but we need to go a bit further. We need to prove that the premises are true if we want the argument to be sound.
(1)Premise one rests on competing claims that Pilgrim has made in two of his recent posts. To be charitable, we will assume that Pilgrim is correct - that gives us P (Which I am making an effort to disprove here). He has made two claims. The first one I have formalized as R. This is the claim that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. We have evidence for attributing this claim to Pilgrim here. In the post, Pilgrim refers to the suppression of the Phelps’ right to free speech the “feel good moment of the day” and also closes with ”Good for the students at UW.” Thus, we can see that the attribution of R to Pilgrim is supported. We have also attributed ~R to Pilgrim. ~R amounts to the claim that its not the case that its good when UW students suppress others’ freedom of speech. We attribute that to Pilgrim on the basis of another recent post. In that post, Pilgrim is complaining that a UW student suppressed the free speech of another and claiming, moreover, that its bad. He says, “Their tolerance extends only to themselves and their politcal point of view.” He effectively condemns the suppression of a student who had placed 4,000 crosses on the green in an act of free speech. (And he spells political wrong.) On this basis, we find premise 1 to be sound.
(2) Premise two is what is referred to as an analytic truth or a tautology. We need not look for examples in the world to know that R=R. Furthermore, we need not look for examples in the world to know that ~(R&~R). A&~A, for example, would amount to the claim that ‘I am a human and I am not a human’. Because A and ~A are ‘mutually exclusive’, we know that any conjunction of them will be false. Hence the contents of premise 2: Its not the case that R and ~R. Premise 2 is a tautology - its as true as saying R=R, its effing obvious.
(Conclusion) Remember in the beginning when we said that we will assume that Pilgrim is correct to be charitable? Well, the introduction of that assumption has led is to a contradiction which allows us to negate that assumption. Thus we have ‘Its not the case that Pilgrim is correct’ or ‘~P’.
Now we have seen that the premises of my argument entail the conclusion in a valid manner and, moreover, we have seen that they are true premises. I hope that this extended effort to communicate the nuances of YOUR OWN arguments has been of aid to you Pilgrim. Hopefully, if you keep stuff like this in mind, you will be able to better deflect accusations such as, “You blog like the emo cream puffs over at dailykos.” It seems to me that someone who has ‘front page privileges’ over here would make an effort to steer clear of vulnerability to such accusations. After all, this isn’t the dailykos is it?
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