Study Guide for Philosophy Midterm #1 PDF

Preview

Summary

Midterm 1 study guide...

Description

CHAPTER 1 Types of Reasoning: - Deductive - Probabilistic - Decision-theoretic IQ- raw intellectual horsepower RQ- propensity of reflective thought; being able to step back and correct our thoughts System 1- back part of the brain (older in evolution) System 2- front part of the brain (only more evolved species) System 1 - Operates automatically and quickly - Little or not effort; involuntary System 2 - Conscious, deliberate effort - Effortful System 1 will handle as much as possible to save energy because it's easier for the brain energy-wise System 1- ideas that seem obvious or occur unconsciously System 2 takes more effort and involves conscious actions An event can start as system 2 but change to system 1 as it becomes a more natural instinct (example- first time driving vs driving after 5 years) System 1 is fine tuned to operation in prehistory, including vestigial characteristics System 1 is also responsible for some out of place fears, such as flying (heights) Visual illusions involve a conflict between the two systems - Need to override system 1 impressions, but they don’t go away System 1 weaknesses - For beliefs - Often uses heuristics - Subject to systematic biases - Bad at some calculations - For decision

- Doesn’t necessarily want you to be happy System 2 is lazy- “the lawyer” System 2 creates reasonable-sounding explanations for ideas System 1 could not figure out Confabulatory reason- not the actual reason It is possible to retrain System 1 to include more tasks Cognitive Pitfalls - Distracted minds (thrown off by irrelevant features) - Stubborn minds (hold onto beliefs without good reason) - Motivated minds Availability heuristic- how easily things come to mind; availability to memory skewed by irrelevant factors such as order, recency, frequency, intensity of emotion, media biases, etc Heuristic- cognitive shortcut that bypasses effortful reasoning Beliefs stay firm even after being told that the beliefs were based off false ideas Confirmation bias- we tend to notice things as evidence for pre-existing views, while neglecting or discounting contrary evidence; can occur because we are emotionally attached; can either be motivated or unmotivated; we have motivations for belief that conflict with accuracy CHAPTER 2 The more accurate our beliefs, the more closely they reflect the ways things actually are- want to believe things if they match Binary belief- treats beliefs as if there are only two options Degrees of confidence- how confident we are about something The higher the degree of confidence, the stronger the mistake is for the person who was more confident More confidence in true beliefs = better accuracy More confidence in false beliefs = worse accuracy Search stage - identify a range of possible views and potential evidence Evaluation stage- assess the strength of the evidence Updating stage- revise our degrees of confidence as needed

Restricted search- failing to seek out the full range or alternate views; failing to seek out the full range of potential evidence for each view Possibility freeze- not identifying all the possibilities for outcomes besides the most obvious ones Evidence- anything we come to know that supports a claim Optional stopping- when search for evidence can be halted on a whim We should be genuinely open to evidence that supports the alternative Biased evaluation- evaluating the strength of potential evidence in a way that’s influenced by our initial view Good reasoning requires us to evaluate potential evidence on its own merits- keeps our prior degree of confidence and the strength of potential evidence for the claim SEPARATE Decoupling- setting aside whether the claim is actually true while evaluating its strength; need to ask what we would expect to see both if it were true and if it were not true Argument- a series of claims presented as support for a conclusion Bias blindspot- people don’t think they are being biased in the moment, even if they are Even motivated bias can occur under the radar Introspection illusion- the assumption that we can diagnose our own cognitive bias through introspection Considering the opposite- imagining that the evidence had gone the other way, or that we were confronted with the same evidence but had the opposite belief Updating on the evidence- revising our old beliefs in response to learning new facts Decouple- evaluate evidence on its own merits Beliefs as possessions- the beliefs are very attached to us; to overcome: don’t flinch from painful thoughts or views changing the mind; use degrees of confidence Clarity- most of the time we are unsure why we hold certain beliefs or make certain decisions Inference- arriving at a belief due to reasoning from another belief

Elements of a good argument - How well-connected the premises are to the conclusion - How well-supported the premises are themselves Suppositional strength- how much evidence the premises would provide if they were true (CONDITIONAL) Arguments with obviously false conclusions can be suppositionally weak Deductive arguments intend to have maximum suppositional strength - They guarantee the truth of the conclusion when the premises are true - If the premises were true, the conclusion would also be true Inductive arguments- intend to provide support for conclusions - Dont provide 100% support - Possible that the premises are true but conclusion is false Self evident beliefs- built through the words that are used- there is no wiggle room Premise indicators- since, as, given, etc Conclusion indicators- therefore, so, thus Typical application of charity - If there is something unspoken that either can reasonably be taken for granted or would make the argument better, then treat it implicitly Unless the argument is deductively valid or the speaker clearly intends for the argument to be deductive, treat it as inductive Clear language- unambiguous and precise Lexical ambiguity- homonyms (changes the word’s meaning. ex- bat vs bat) Syntactical ambiguity- sentence can be interpreted in more than one way without changing w word’s meaning Bare plurals- the determiner is unclear Borderline cases- cases where it’s unclear whether the category applies to x and not because we need more facts about x Vagueness neglect- assuming that real and useful categories can’t have borderline cases

Equivocation- type of lexical ambiguity where an ambiguous word is used in multiple ways to make a false claim appear true Deductively valid arguments entail their conclusions (hence maximum suppositional strength) Absolute guarantee- if the premises are true, there is no way the conclusion could be false Flip the argument- suppose the conclusion is false, then ask if the premises could all be true. If this works, then the argument is invalid

NOTES FROM TOPHAT Chapter 1: Reasoning System 1- fast, automatic processes System 2- slow, deliberate processes System 1 is primitive and reacts more quickly in new situations System 1 processes operate automatically and can not be turned on or off (we can’t decide whether or not to understand language in our native tongue System 1 can not be directly controlled System 2 is fairly transparent- we can see into it and observe it as it is happening System 1 processes are not very transparent- processes are very complex and happen unconsciously System 2 tasks take real effort to accomplish We are cognitive misers- adverse to the energy expenditure required from using System 2 too long Although System 1 is restricted to performing specific tasks, it performs these tasks quickly and efficiently Many cognitive tasks involve a complex combinations of both System 1 and 2

ANSWERS FROM TOPHAT QUESTIONS 1) Learning all about how to reason well… is not enough to become a good reasoner; the right skills and mindset are also necessary 2) Focusing on general reasoning skills and not just specific reasoning skills… is a more effective way to improve general reasoning skills 3) In this section, the example of prosopagnosia was primarily used to illustrate… how different it would feel if we had to use System 2 to recognize faces 4) System 1 has the name it does because… it is older and responds more quickly in a given situation 5) The “transparency” of System 2 refers to the fact that… its reasoning process itself is open to our awareness 6) Visual illusions are like cognitive illusions in that… it is hard to shake the incorrect impression even after we are aware it is incorrect 7) The bat-and-ball example and the bags-of-fruit example both illustrate… that in certain cases we should be wary of our immediate intuitions 8) The murder case was used to illustrate… that our beliefs are often affected by which pieces of evidence we get first 9) When we interpret evidence in a biased way due to motivated reasoning, we tend to… think we are actually being unbiased and fair 10) If System 1 is not naturally skilled at a certain kind of reasoning task, … it may still be possible, under the right conditions, to train it to improve. 11) In the sense used in this text, curiosity is primarily about… having the right goal; namely that our beliefs reflect the way the world really is 12) The initial map and territory analogy has to be adapted for degrees of confidence because… marks on a map don’t represent things as being probably or possibly a certain way 13) Failing to think of sufficiently many possibilities… leads to having too much confidence in the possibilities we do think of 14) Asking what we would expect to observe if our first or favored view were true… should not be our focus in search because it’s our natural tendency 15) Our standard for how much effort we put into a search… should be based on the importance of the issues under investigation 16) a) Introspection illusion- assuming we are being more honest than those who disagree with us b) Possibility freeze- too much confidence in the first or favored view c) Pretending to take the other side- reduction in biased evaluation d) Being reminded to be unbiased in our evaluation- no change

e) Keeping in mind that our beliefs don’t need to be on/off- finding it easier to revise our beliefs 17) Biased evaluation is… when our first or favored beliefs influence our assessment of the strength of potential evidence 18) The text discusses studies in which people could flip a coin to make a decision in order to illustrate… the lengths we go to continue to believe we are being fair even when we’re not 19) Subjects assessing studies that provided evidence about capital punishment… successfully decoupled after asking what they would have thought of a study if its results had gone the other way 20) Pretending to take the other side of an issue… helps balance out the confirmation bias we already have in favor of our side 21) If I believe something based on the support of other beliefs… then I have made an inference 22) If the truth of the premises in an argument does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion, … the argument should not be presented as deductive but may still be a valid argument 23) For an argument to be suppositionally strong means… that its premises would give us good reason to accept the conclusion if they were true 24) If we have support for a claim that we can present as either an inductive or deductive argument… the inductive version is likely to have better supported premises 25) Which of the following is not true? It is reasonable to treat any claim as self-evident as long as we are clear in our argument that we are doing so 26) When someone presents an argument that seems unconvincing, we should proceed as though… the argument was not explicitly presented in its most convincing form 27) Which of the following statements is not true? If we choose to use a descriptive word, we should always be able to say exactly where to draw the line between things the word applies to and things it doesn’t apply to 28) It is good to minimize vagueness in our language… when we might be dealing with borderline cases

CHAPTER 4 REVIEW Highest degree of suppositional strength occurs when we know that the premises entail the conclusion An argument in which the premises are presented as entailing the conclusion is a deductive argument

Deductively valid argument- an argument in which the premises actually do entail the conclusion, rather than just being presented as if they do Flipping the argument- starting with the conclusion instead of the premises- suppose the conclusion is false and then see if the premises could all possibly be true. If they can, then they don’t really entail the conclusion If all the premises were true, the conclusion would have to be true If the conclusion were false, the premises could not all be true Form is the general recipe for constructing an argument A sentential connective combines two sentences to form a larger sentence; the larger sentence that is formed is called a conditional In a conditional, the sentence that immediately follows “if” is called the antecedent, and the sentence that immediately follow “then” is called the consequent Logical form- the schema of an argument Modus ponens- If P then Q, P, so Q Hypothetical syllogism- If P then Q, If Q then R, If P then R Modus tollens- If P then Q, Not Q, so Not P Disjunctive syllogism- Either P or Q, not P, so Q Affirming the consequent- If P then Q, Q, so P Denying the antecedent- If P then Q, not P, so Not Q Deductively valid form- a logical form that guarantees deductive validity Negation of a sentence is true when the original sentence is false, and false when the original sentence is true Disjunction- sentence that is true as long as either P or Q is true, and false only when P and Q are false Counterexample- something that goes against the claims that were seen as universally true...