Wednesday 3/4

Wednesday 3/4

Examination II

As per the syllabus, please note that today's examination is worth twice the first exam (100 vs 50 points). So it is important that you carefully review all of the notes, handouts, texts, and, crucially, the synopses for each of the lecture days. Make sure you are well-versed on the fallacies we've discussed, review the distinction we've drawn between puzzles and paradoxes and their nature, and be sure you understand all of the arguments we have taken up. A lot of this exam will depend on your capacity to think on your feet, as it were. Faced with the choice of getting sleep versus cramming for the exam, it is by far the wiser choice to sleep. Bear in mind that you can have a single, handwritten, 4"x6" notecard for reminders, explanations, or whatever you think might help.

Exam II is organized as follows:

  1. Truth-phobic language, argumentative contexts, and fallacies of natural language
  2. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
  3. The Teleological Argument for the existence of God
  4. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God
  5. The Traditional Problem of Evil

Lastly, I will select essay questions from the following list. As before, it would probably be a good idea to prepare by at least outlining the key points you would make in writing a response. Essays questions on the exam range from 1/2 to 2 pages in length, so it is important you compose answers which are concise yet explanatory. That is, you should always assume in writing an essay that your audience is not our grader or me, but some other student who, crucially, is not in the class; thus, special terminology is always explained and examples to illustrate explanations are plentiful and well-chosen. Your rule-of-thumb is that if you have a page to compose an answer, you should aim to use the page to answer the question. An essay question is not a short-answer question: A sentence or two simply won't suffice.

  1. Explain why the prosecution in a court case bears the burden of proof, and explain what that burden means for i) the defense attorneys and ii) the defendant.
  2. Using examples, explain why an Appeal to Authority sometimes is fallacious (inappropriate) and sometimes is not fallacious (appropriate).
  3. What mistake is someone making when they commit the Fallacy of False Cause? Be sure to use concrete examples to explain your answer.
  4. What is the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and why is it important?
  5. In examining the Cosmological Argument, we ended up appealing to the Principle of Sufficient Reason twice: Once because we had to to rescue the Cosmological Argument, and then a second time once we had fully analyzed the argument. Explain those two appeals as best you can, and explain in particular what we learned from them.
  6. Consider the following story:

    7. The Case of the Invisible Gardener

    Stanley and Livingston had been observing the picturesque clearing for over two weeks from the safety of their makeshift hideout.

    “We've seen no one at all,” said Stanley, “and the clearing has not deteriorated in any way. Now will you finally admit that you were wrong: no gardener tends this site.”

    “My dear Stanley,” replied Livingston, “remember I did allow that it might be an invisible gardener.”

    “But this gardener has made not even the quietest of noises nor disturbed so much as a single leaf. Thus, I maintain, it is no gardener at all.”

    “My invisible gardener,” continued Livingston, “is also silent and intangible.”

    Stanley was exasperated . “Damn it! What the hell is the difference between a silent, invisible, intangible gardener and no gardener at all?”

    “Easy,” replied the serene Livingston. “One looks after gardens. The other does not.”

    “Dr. Livingston, I presume,” said Stanley, with a sigh, “will therefore have no objection if I swiftly dispatch him to a soundless, odourless, invisible and intangible heaven.” From the murderous look in Stanley's eye, he was not entirely joking.

    --from Baggini, J. “The Pig that Wants to be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher”, (New York: Plume Books) 2005, p. 133

    Is belief in God analogous to Livingston's belief in a silent, invisible, and intangible gardener? Why or why not? Compare and contrast Livingston's belief in a silent, invisible, and intangible gardener with the presumed designer in Paley's Watch argument (aka the Teleological Argument, aka the Argument from Design), having explained the Teleological Argument as clearly as you can. Does the invisible gardener show the inductive inference to the existence of God in the Teleological Argument illicit (mistaken)? Why or why not?

  7. State (set out) and explain the Problem of Evil Argument. Translate it into the Propositional Calculus and use the method of Analytic Tableaux to show that it is valid. Which premise of the argument do you think is most open to criticism, and what criticisms can you conceive?
  8. Consider the following story:

    9. The Impudent Philosopher

    And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, “I am the Lord thy God, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing.”

    “Surely not,” replied the philosopher, “I look at this world and I see horrible disease, hunger, starvation, mental illness. Yet you don't stop it. Is it that you can't? In which case, you are not all-powerful. Is it because you don't know about it? In which case you are not all-knowing. Or perhaps you don't want to? In which case you are not all-loving.”

    “Such impudence!” replied the Lord. “It is better for you if I don't stop all this evil. You need to grow morally and spiritually. For that you need the freedom to do evil as well as good, and to confront the chance occurrence of suffering. How could I possibly have made the world better without taking away your freedom to grow?”

    “Easy,” replied the philosopher. “First, you could have designed us so we felt less pain. Second, you could have made sure we had more empathy, to prevent us from doing evil to others. Third, you could have made us better learners, so we didn't have to suffer so much to grow. Fourth, you could have made nature less cruel. Do you want me to go on?”

    --from Baggini, J. “The Pig that Wants to be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher”, (New York: Plume Books) 2005, p. 283

    Does the existence of evil contradict God's very existence, or does it contradict what we ordinarily presume to be God's nature—viz., omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent? Either way, are the philosopher's impudent replies to God, listing the ways God could have achieved the same ends without all of the evil God admits exists, correct? Why or why not?