Department of Philosophy
Professor Bradley Dowden
The following are changes to be made in your textbook.
They are divided into two groups. If
you have printing 2, then the changes in Group 1 have
already been made in your book. If you have printing 1, then
you should make both groups of changes. You can tell
which printing you own by looking at page iv. If the 11th line
from the bottom begins with a 1, then you have printing 1. If
the line begins with a 2, then you have printing 2.
GROUP 1:
1. P. 230 of chapter 10. The first line after Concept Check 6
says "Valid reasoning will never lead you to a false
conclusion..." This should be revised to say "Starting from
true premises, deductively valid reasoning will never lead you to a
false conclusion..."
2. Page A-27, line 23. The phrase "form of faulty reasoning"
should be "form of valid reasoning"
3. Page 325, line 26.
Change "The leaflet mentions an" to "Rico implicitly draws
an"
4. Page 319, exercise 23. Answer d. Change the line from
"Past experience tell us" to "My older sister told us"
5. Page 204. In the paragraph after concept check 7,
replace "something about presuppositions, doesn't it?" with
"something about how jokes turn on self-contradiction."
6. Page A-42, first paragraph. Change "its method of Venn
diagrams can be used on" to "its method of Euler or Venn
diagrams can be used successfully on many of"
7. Page A-51, line 8. Change "method of Venn diagrams:" to
"method of Venn or Euler diagrams:"
8. Page A-45 section heading. Change "Using Venn
Diagrams" to "Using Venn or Euler Diagrams"
9. Page xiii. Change "Using Venn Diagrams" to "Using
Venn-Euler Diagrams"
10. Page 259 add a blank line between the two arguments
in standard form. That is, add a line between lines 5 and 6.
11. Typo on page 267. In the answer to concept check 8,
delete the phrase "Consensus (c)."
12. Page 206, line 4. Change answer (a) from "contradicted"
to "contradicted, or said something contrary to,"
13. Page 230. In the third line from the bottom of the page,
the phrase following form should be following-from.
14. Page 346, line 19. Change "an experimental group" to
"the group"
15. Page 136 lines 1-3. Delete the first two sentences.
Replace with the following:
Although explanations are a kind of description, a description
might instead evaluate or state a fact. We can describe
Dwayne with the value judgment: "Dwayne is a better cook than
Malcolm." We describe the kitchen situation when we state this fact:
"Dwayne used his greasy hands to unscrew the sticky
peanut butter jar."
16. Page 136, line 9. Remove ", and usually are,".
17. Page 136, line 20. Delete "On the other hand, a
description of the same event would" and replace it with "Although this
explanation would be a description, a description of the same
event could".
18. Page 136, lines 25-28. Delete the rest of the paragraph
after "well."
19. Page 136. Delete the last two lines, and replace them
with this:
Although descriptions need not be explanations, and
although arguments are different from both, in real life they get
jumbled together. This is fine; we don't often".
20. Page 137, line 9. Replace "possible to describe" with
"possible to state facts".
21. Page 137, line 12. Delete "describing it or".
22. Page 137. Delete the sentence before Concept Check 1,
and replace it with this: "They are describing, but not explaining."
23. Page 162. Revise the glossary entry for "description" to
say the following: A statement or sequence of statements that
characterize what is described. Descriptions state the facts,
report on states of mind, make value judgments or explain
the situation. A pure description does not argue.
24. P. 373 concept check 2. In the last word of choice (b)
about Albert Einstein, change "irrational" to "rational".
25. pp. 402-3. Change the word "fossils" to "bones" in all
places, namely p. 402 lines 6b and 7b, and p. 403 line 14.
26. p. 27, line 5b. Delete "and politicians"
27. Page A-51, line 6. Replace "an argument with the same
form but with" with "a possible situation or an interpretation of the
argument showing how it could have"
28. Page A-55, line 6b
Here is a new definition of counterexample to an argument:
A state of affairs, real or imagined, in which the premises of
the argument turn out to be true and the conclusion turns out
to be false.
29. Chapter 5, p. 85. Delete the definition of knowledge,
lines 5-6 from the bottom, and also the preceding sentence "You
know...you know." Replace that material with the following:
The important point is that you don't know it if you aren't
justified in believing it. If you actually claim to know, if you
say to other people that they should change their beliefs to
agree with yours, then you accept a responsibility:
If you claim to know it, then you should be prepared to
prove it.
30. Chapter 5, p. 96. Change glossary by replacing the
definition of knowledge with the following:
knowledge Truths you are justified in believing.
31. p. 253, lines 10-11. Change "The argument is
deductively valid; however, it is unsound because the implicit
premise is false." to "The argument is deductively valid."
32. Chapter 4, page 74, line 13, the word in boldface type is
spelled incorrectly. It should be pseudoprecision.
36. P. 234, the glossary definition of "inductively strong."
Change "The strength of" to "The strengths of"
37. P. 294 concept check 5, choice b. Change "exactly six
points." to "exactly five points."
40. P. 24, line 12. Change "It is the first page of a booklet
advertising" to "It is the cover of an envelope advertising"
41. P. 27, line 5b. Change "The moral: advertisers and
politicians love" to "The moral: advertisers love"
49. P. 69, line 6. Change "The river could be precisely old"
to "The river could be precisely that old"
53. P. 105, Third line of exercise 22. Change "issue here is"
to "main issue here is"
57. P. 38, exercise 1. Remove the black bullet.
58. P. 39, exercise 3. Remove the black bullet.
61. P. 74, in the definition of "statistical generalization."
Change "Here is a true generalization" to "Here is a true
statistical generalization"
62. P. 58 concept check 3. Change the two occurrences of
"loved" to "liked."
75. P. 140. Concept check 6 should end with a right
parenthesis.
80. P. 184 line 8b. Change "Marnder" to "Mander."
81. P. 204. In the paragraph after concept check 7, replace
"something about presuppositions, doesn't it?" at the end of
the paragraph with "something about how jokes turn on self-contradiction."
86. P. 238. Third line of exercise 23 should end with a right
parenthesis.
90. (deleted)
91. P. 230. In the third and fourth lines after concept check
6, replace the sentence "You are already committed to
believing the fact that a dog is not a cat." with "You already
know a dog is not a cat."
93. P. 270, third line of exercise 10. Change "long" to
"longer"
94. P. 271, line 7b. Change "be an any argument" to "be in
any argument"
99. P. 326, Change the fifth line of exercise 16 from "viewed
the show" to "viewed the shows"
102. P. 285, line 5. Change "next will" to "next two will"
111. P. A-18. Lines 1-4b. Delete these four lines, and
replace them with the following:
e. The definition of busybody: a curious person.
114. P. A-83 The entry for Biased sample.
Replace "408" with "A-3"
115. P. A-87. The entry for Refutation. Replace "125" with
"126"
All the above corrections were made in the second printing.
GROUP 2:
33. Chapter 7, page 162, line 2b. Change from "A statement
designed" to "A statement or sequence of statements
designed"
34. Chapter 7, page 162, line 4b. Change from "states of
mind, and so forth." to "states of mind, express values, and
so forth."
35. P. 75. Revise the Answer to Concept Check 10 on this
page to read as follows:
Answer (c). It is the least precise.
39. P. 20 last line. Change "cause you to buy" to "persuade
you to buy"
42. P. 31 line 5 of text. Change "This guy is going to give
you $1,000." to "This guy is going to give your group $1,000."
43. P. 34. Next to last paragraph. Change its beginning
from "Political campaigns do not" to "Political campaigns
often do not". Then change its third line from "Most
campaign material is aimed" to "Campaign material is aimed"
44. P. 65. The second line of the section "Being Too
General." Change "refer to a class of objects." to "A general
term refers to a class."
45. P. 74. Glossary entry for generalization. Delete "A
general statement that attributes some property to a class."
and replace it with "A statement containing a general term,
usually as its subject."
46. P. 67. line 3. Change "A cookie says" to "A fortune
says"
47. P. 68 concept check 10 choice b. Change "Many of
Tuesday's" to "Most of Tuesday's"
48. P. 68, line 3b. Change "than makes sense." to "than
circumstances warrant."
50. P. 73 glossary entry for equivocation. Replace the
sentence with the following:
Illegitimately switching from one meaning of a term to
another on different occasions of its use within an
argument.
51. P. 81, exercise 29, lines 18 and 19. Change "(b)
suggests he needs to be approved by both houses but (c)
suggests he needs to be approved by only one house." to
"(b) states that the nominee needs to be approved by both
houses but (c) implies that the nominee does not need to
be."
52. p. 81, exercise 29, choice c. Change "the Senate nor the
Assembly." to "the Senate and the Assembly."
54. P. 169. Item `T.' Change "Are college sports" to "Are
any college sports"
55. P. A-44, the box. Change "Any argument of the logical
form" to "The logical form"
56. P. 8, concept check 3, choice b. Change "David's uncle
died of" to "We know David's uncle died of"
59. p. 40, line 2b. Replace the line with this rewrite:
Is this ad exaggerating? Discuss. "Voil… perfume. Its
main ingredient was
60. p. 66. Revise the 2nd line of concept check 9 to be:
air," she is generalizing about the times she threw
your baby. Her generalization is
63. Page 244, exercise 10. Change "it follows with certainty
that snake" to "it follows that snake"
64. Exercise 43 on page 83. Replace the first sentence
"From a ... what?" with "Which is the only true statement
about the following paragraph?"
Change choice (b) to be the following: "The term Asian
cannot be operationalized adequately for the purposes of
making the claim."
Change choice (e) to be the following: "There are no
problems of imprecision in the paragraph."
65. Page 82 exercise 35. Change "to be born" to "to have
been born"
66. P. 56, line 15b. Delete the phrase "Revolutionary War
Admiral".
67. Page 101, exercise 12. Revise choice (b) to read:
Whether brutal murders will increase or decrease,
given current trends.
68. P. 85, line 11b. Change "A proof of a statement is a
convincing argument for that statement;" to "A proof of a
statement is an argument for the statement that ought to be
convincing;"
69. P. 96, glossary entry for proof. Delete "A convincing
argument for a statement" and replace it with "An argument
that ought to be convincing."
70. P. A-65. Answer to exercise 1 in Chapter 5. Delete
"Informally, a proof is what it takes to be convincing." and
replace with