Glossary

Argumentation
(Lecture in class & assigned reading)

1. Deductive Validity: A valid argument means that the premises follow the conclusion, and if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true.
   2. Soundness: A sound argument is both true and valid.
   3. Descriptive: The premise uses a fact in the real world to make an argument.
   4. Inductive: An inductive argument predicts the future based on the past and makes general claims based off of short instances. These arguments can be strong or weak.

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Fallacies
(Assigned reading: https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#AdHominem)

5. Ad Hominem: Making an irrelevant attack towards the arguer in attempt to weaken their argument.
6. Slippery Slope: An argument which begins with a claim as the first step and leads to a continuous chain of events that will result in a final outcome of consequence.
7. False Equivalence: The implication that two sides to an issue provide the same evidence, knowing that one is clearly weaker than the other.

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William James

8. Living Option: A hypothesis which is relevant to the person it is being proposed to.
9. Momentous Option: An opportunity that is unique and might come around only once.
10. Forced Option: The proposed alternatives provide no form of escape or way of declining.

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Plato
Plato’s hierarchical scheme of reality

11. Reality: The original forms of objects, truth, concepts and types. What God created.
12. Reality level 2: The physical world of shapes and tasks, and trying to reconstruct these original forms.
13. Reality level 3: Art as the intended recreation of original forms, falsely represents reality, and misleads audiences to believe in an untrue reality.

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Descartes
Lecture

14. Foundationalism: To establish a base of certainty that can support an entire system of knowledge.
15. Epistemology: The study of knowledge.
16. Methodological Doubt: To doubt any proposition if there is the slightest reason to do so.
17. Skepticism: To doubt to the point that there is no knowledge.
18. Rationalism: The epistemological position that knowledge comes through reason and not the senses.

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Hume
Lecture

19. Resemblance: When our present thoughts are similar to memories of the past, we associate those thoughts as belonging to the same thing.
20. Cause & Effect: Thinking about the past and the future as connected by nostalgia or regret, and believing that, that makes up the present of who you are.

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Hume – Determinism
Lecture

21. Determinism: We have no free will. Everything that we do is the result of cause and effect.
22. Hard Determinism: Free will is an illusion. For you to be free there must be other choices.
23. Soft Determinism: Also known as compatibilism, in which determinism is compatible with freedom and responsibility.
24. Scientific Determinism: Every event that occurs in nature is a result of a cause, therefore because human beings exist in nature then the acts and choices of humans are determined, and have causes.

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Frankfurt–
Freedom of Will & The Concept of a Person
Lecture

25. Freedom of the will: You can have free will even without free action. By separating will from actions, one can desire something without acting on it and it qualifies as free will. Also, when your 2nd-order volition’s match your effective 1st-order desires.
26. First Level Desires: To have the desire to do something and to either want to act on it or not act on it.
27. Effective 1st-Order Desires: Having a desire that motivates you to act on it, even if not right away, eventually.
28. Non-effective 1st-Order Desires: Desires that are not effective because even though you want to do it you actually won’t end up doing so.
29. Person: A person does not mean to be just human or people. A person is more profound than the classification of human species. Being a person means you have 2nd-order desires.
30. 2nd-order Desires/volition: To have the desire for what you desire to be effective.

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