Possibility and Nonsense
Before talking about the nature of arguments in my Intro to Logic class, I start off talking about inferential relationships between statements more generally. So I ask them to consider what else must be true , e.g., if “Todd is dead” is true and if “Bob loves Jill” is true. Two of the claims that people said followed from “Todd is dead” were: 1) There is at least one dead person. 2) There is a reason for Todd’s death. I…