Week 6 Quiz Phil347 Study Guide Questions and
Correct Answers
1). What are the three fundamental reasoning strategies listed in the text?
Ans: 1. Comparative Reasoning
2. Ideological Reasoning
3. Empirical Reasoning
2). What is comparative reasoning?
on what skill is it based?
Ans: Comparative reasoning (this-is-like-that thinking)
enables us to make interpretations, draw inferences, or offer explanations by relying on
something that is more familiar to understand something that is less familiar.
3). *we learned four tests for evaluating arguments:
1. truthfulness of the premises
2. logical strength
3. relevance
4. non-circularity.
*how well do these tests work with respect to evaluating comparative reasoning?
*consider each of the four tests.
Ans: ·1. Are the premises all True?
True and false are not optimal for evaluating a sentence that asserts a comparison- DOES
NOT WORK
2. Are there counter examples and how difficult is it to imagine them ?
This question helps gauge the logical strength of the analogy. It helps to categorize
comparisons as more or less plausible. DOES NOT WORK comparative reasoning
because there are too many cases of similarities and dissimilarities.
3. Are the premises relevant to the truth of the conclusion?
The argument maker relies on observations to make comparisons vs facts to understand
something that is not familiar, so the test of relevance DOES NOT WORK in comparative
reasoning, since it requires that the truth of the conclusion depends of the truth of the
reason.
4. Does the truth of any premise depend on the truth of the conclusion?
Comparative interference should flow from what we know to what we project to be true.
Lastly this DOES NOT WORK because in comparative reasoning there is unfamiliarity. If
something is unfamiliar it is hard to connect premise and conclusion.
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Correct Answers
1). What are the three fundamental reasoning strategies listed in the text?
Ans: 1. Comparative Reasoning
2. Ideological Reasoning
3. Empirical Reasoning
2). What is comparative reasoning?
on what skill is it based?
Ans: Comparative reasoning (this-is-like-that thinking)
enables us to make interpretations, draw inferences, or offer explanations by relying on
something that is more familiar to understand something that is less familiar.
3). *we learned four tests for evaluating arguments:
1. truthfulness of the premises
2. logical strength
3. relevance
4. non-circularity.
*how well do these tests work with respect to evaluating comparative reasoning?
*consider each of the four tests.
Ans: ·1. Are the premises all True?
True and false are not optimal for evaluating a sentence that asserts a comparison- DOES
NOT WORK
2. Are there counter examples and how difficult is it to imagine them ?
This question helps gauge the logical strength of the analogy. It helps to categorize
comparisons as more or less plausible. DOES NOT WORK comparative reasoning
because there are too many cases of similarities and dissimilarities.
3. Are the premises relevant to the truth of the conclusion?
The argument maker relies on observations to make comparisons vs facts to understand
something that is not familiar, so the test of relevance DOES NOT WORK in comparative
reasoning, since it requires that the truth of the conclusion depends of the truth of the
reason.
4. Does the truth of any premise depend on the truth of the conclusion?
Comparative interference should flow from what we know to what we project to be true.
Lastly this DOES NOT WORK because in comparative reasoning there is unfamiliarity. If
something is unfamiliar it is hard to connect premise and conclusion.
PaperStoc.com Page 1 of 4
