PHI 2101, Critical Thinking Quiz 1 January 28, 2003 ______Answers to Quiz 1___________________________

Please write legibly because illegible answers will receive no credit.

1. Briefly define the following terms.

a. Basic Premise – a statement in an argument that supports some other, but is not itself supported by any other statements.

b. Intermediate Conclusion – a statement in an argument that serves a dual role as both a premise (a reason) and a conclusion (but not the main conclusion) at the same time. It is a statement that is both supported by at least one other and in turn supports at least one other.

c. Divergent Inference – the structure of an argument in which one reason leads to two or more separate conclusions.

d. Inferential Fallacy – a problem in reasoning caused either by a violation of the relevance requirement or the strength requirement.

2. What distinguishes deductive from inductive argumentation?

This question has several possible answers, but one obvious distinction is that a deductive argument is one in which the falsehood of the conclusion is inconsistent with the truth of the premises while an inductive argument is one in which the premises may all be true, but the conclusion can still be false. Another way to say it is that a deductive argument yields 100% reliability while an inductive argument reaches only probability.

3. What are the three “criteria” of cogent reasoning? Relevance, Strength and Truth

4. Consider the following argument structure diagram.

7 + 6

3 a. What is the function of statement 1 in the diagram? Statement 1 is an intermediate conclusion.

4

b. What type of inference is 7 + 6 à 4? Dependent Premise

1

c. What type of inference is 5à 8 and 2? Divergent

5 d. If the inference from 5à2 is weak, what is the effect on 5à8? There is no

effect because the two inferences are independent of each other.

8 2