Chapter 5

1. Chapter 5 Premises: What to Accept and Why Important goal: to identify some general guidelines for what makes a premise acceptable 7 ways for a premise to be acceptable

2. Chapter 5 When premises are acceptable: Before you begin we need to make an important philosophical point. Govier refers to 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable premises. She doesn't want to refer to 'truth' or 'falsity' or have you say: 'Such and such is true' because whether something is 'true' or 'false' is independent of whether or not anyone KNOWS or BELIEVES it to be true or false.

3. Chapter 5 Premises are acceptable if: • They are supported by a cogent subargument. This means that if the conclusion of a cogent subargument is a premise in another argument, then there is every reason to accept it as a premises. Note that it is your obligation to establish that the subargument passes the ARG conditions.

4. 2) The premises are supported elsewhere. Elsewhere there could be another cogent argument that the author or some other author has already established as cogent. Or the author may point to external references or citations that support a point. Keep in mind, though, that you may have to assess the credibility of the cited source.

5. Chapter 5 (3) The premise is know a priori to be true. A priori statements are the kind of things a person could know independent of experience or before experiences. It is contrasted with the term a posteriori. Statements that are knowable a posteriori require experience. Consider the following claims, the first is a priori and the second a posteriori. • Bachelors are unmarried males. • Chuck D. is a bachelor. (i) is knowable with out experience, but to know Chuck D. is a bachelor requires experience in the world.

6. Chapter 5 (4) A premise is acceptable if it is a matter of common knowledge. If just about everyone knows or understands that a premise is true, then the premise is acceptable. Is the premise widely believed? Some simple examples: • The flu is contagious. • You cannot take a train from London to Los Angeles. • Cats have claws • Motorcycle riders are safer while wearing helmets. • Hitting a curve ball from a Major League pitcher is hard.

7. Chapter 5 When it comes to common knowledge we have to be careful because common knowledge can change given the times and what kind of events are occurring in the world. So, must people that live near Chicago, know that the Cubs last won a World Series in 1908. But few know when the last time the Los Angeles Dodgers won. If you were near Los Angeles, you would be more likely to find someone that knew the Dodger last World Series win was 1988.

8. Chapter 5 (5) Testimony -- under some conditions, a claim is acceptable on the basis of a person’s testimony. There are three main factors that will undermine our acceptance of testimony as reliable. • The claims made are implausible • The person making the claim or other source is unreliable • The content of the claim goes beyond the experiences or competency of the testifier A lot of things give rise to when and how we accept testimony and how to govern its acceptability.

9. General Principles in Evaluating Credibility • A list of questions to ask about claims put forward on the say-so of nonexpert sources of information: • Did the person have an opportunity to discover or learn the truth of the matter? If so, how good was the opportunity? • Does the source have the competence or background knowledge to judge or report about this matter accurately? • Does the information or claim being expressed call for specialized knowledge or training (expertise)? If so, does the source have such expertise? • Are there excepting conditions in this case which would call the person’s dependability into question (for example, pressure, bias, interest, haste)?

10. Chapter 5 (6) Appeal to a proper authority Sometimes we have to take the word of a proper authority with respect to the acceptability of a premise. If a logic professor told you that a particular argument was deductively valid, you can trust that because she is a proper authority on the validity of arguments. This same logic professor, however, may not be an authority on the exports of the state of Florida, and cannot explain if an income tax would increase tax revenue or not. Authorities must be proper to make premises acceptable.

11. Evaluating the Credibility of Expert Reports • Does the proposition supposedly warranted by expert testimony belong to an area where expertise is required or can exist? • Does the person appealed to as a credible expert need credentials? What are those credentials and does the alleged expert have them? Is that person an expert in the particular area to which the proposition in question belongs? • Has the expert actually conducted an investigation of the matter on which he or she is making a pronouncement? And if so, how thorough an investigation? • Do different more or less equally authoritative experts disagree about whether the proposition in question is true or probable? • Are there specific reasons to suspect that the expert appealed to might not be candid or might unintentionally mislead?

12. Chapter 5 (7) The last method of accepting premises is different from the rest. We say that we accept a premise provisionally or conditionally. You might find an argument to pass both the (R) and (G) conditions for cogency, but are uncertain about the acceptability of the premises. You can provisionally accept the premises and thus provisionally accept the conclusion and cogency of the argument.

13. Chapter 5 Summary of the acceptability conditions: A premise in an argument is acceptable if any one of the following conditions is satisfied: • It is supported by a cogent subargument. • It is supported elsewhere by the arguer or other person, and this fact is noted. • It is know a priori to be true. • It is a matter of common knowledge. • It is supported by appropriate testimony. • It is supported by an appropriate appeal to authority. • The premise is not know to be rationally acceptable, but can be accepted provisionally for the purpose of the argument.