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A Concise Introduction to Logic

Patrick J. Hurley

Chapter 2

Language: Meaning and Definition - all with Video Answers

Educators

Section 1

Varieties of Meaning

00:56

Problem 1

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
Why don't animal lovers do something about these dog sled races? Have you ever witnessed a race on television? Talk about torture. It's sickening to watch the dogs, panting and their tongues hanging out, pull a heavily laden sled with a driver through snow and ice in bitter cold (Joe Shapiro)

Adithya Ramanujam
Adithya Ramanujam
Numerade Educator
02:29

Problem 2

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
How anyone who has seen even one photo of the fly-covered, starving children in Somalia can still believe in a loving, everpresent, omnipotent God is beyond intelligent reasoning (William Blanchard)

Adithya Ramanujam
Adithya Ramanujam
Numerade Educator
03:16

Problem 3

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
The creationists have no right to impose their mistaken, ignorant, superstitious beliefs on others. They claim the constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. How about the rights of the majority of people who want their children taught the scientific truth about evolution $-$ not fallacious myths and superstitions from primitive societies. (Andrew M. Underhill Jr.))

Joanna Quigley
Joanna Quigley
Numerade Educator
02:53

Problem 4

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
God, guts, and guns made this great country of ours free, and you can bet your buns it will take more of the same to keep it that way. One of the very last things in this world we need is handgun control.
(R. Kinzie)

Kari Hasz
Kari Hasz
Numerade Educator
01:34

Problem 5

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
The insanity plea should be done away with; criminals should lose this easy way out. Killers can theoretically spend as little as six months in a mental hospital, then be released. It's time to take a stand for safety and put psychotic killers in prison. (Keith Aikens)

Ian Shi
Ian Shi
Numerade Educator
01:34

Problem 6

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
Until now, the protest against the holocaust in our own nation has been vocal but far too small. The massacre of an unwanted generation through abortion and infanticide has sounded an alarm that should wake up every Christian. Helpless and guiltless little infants are mercilessly butchered daily in hospitals and clinics across our land. For the love of God, let us all urge the passage of the Human Life Bill, now before Congress. ( Jim Key)

Ian Shi
Ian Shi
Numerade Educator
02:56

Problem 7

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
It's time to challenge all this nonsense about the "celebration of diversity" in our society. The more the schizophrenics preach the glories of diversity, the more we pull apart. This is not to deny appreciation of the ethnic roots, rituals, and foods, which add color to life. But to lay undue emphasis upon diversification results in destruction of the "social glue" that binds us together. Our forefathers framed one nation, indivisible. In the misguided effort to "celebrate" the uniqueness of every disparate culture and subculture, we betray our heritage and dilute our identities as Americans. (Ruth M. Armstrong)

Bryan Meares
Bryan Meares
Numerade Educator
01:34

Problem 8

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
A kind and loving God surely favors the pro-choice attitude. He wants his world inhabited by happy, well-fed children with parents who love and care for them.
Our burgeoning population in Third World nations with constant famine and disease, and many other human miseries, could be relieved if the Catholic Church were to adjust more of its ancient policies to our current civilization. (Art Bates)

Ian Shi
Ian Shi
Numerade Educator
04:37

Problem 9

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
Thousands of years of organized religion have done nothing to solve any problems and have almost always exacerbated them by promoting fear, superstition, and irrational mythologies. Kneeling in prayer to some supernatural entity seeking "divine guidance" or, even more implausibly, "divine intervention," is not only a waste of time, it is counterproductive because it lulls the supplicant into inactivity.
We must stand up, open our eyes, and face life's challenges head-on in a problem-solving approach that is reality-based, empirical, and above all, rational. (lames W. Baugh)

Maxime Rossetti
Maxime Rossetti
Numerade Educator
04:26

Problem 10

The following selections were taken from the letters-to-the-editor section of newspaper. Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Then disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models. Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.
Liberalism has turned our welfare system from a social safety net into a hammock. We hand out money with few questions asked. When welfare recipients are asked for some contribution to our society in return, liberals scream that it's unconstitutional.

Liberalism has transformed our criminal justice system into one that cares more about the criminal's past childhood problems than for the victim. Liberalism in its never-ending quest for "social justice" has sacrificed the rights of the majority while continuing to push the rights of a few to new limits.

Liberalism has turned our school system from one of excellence to one where condoms and metal detectors are more important than prayer. (Marc Sexton)

Joanna Quigley
Joanna Quigley
Numerade Educator