A song from Modest Mouse begins with these lyrics: “I was in heaven – I was in hell – Believe in neither – But fear them as well.” Subtract the claim of having been to both and just consider the claim, “I believe in neither heaven nor hell, but I fear them.” Further, suppose someone asserts this with the utmost sincerity. Is there anything strange about that assertion? Is it at all like “Moore’s Paradox”: “It’s raining but I don’t believe it.” ?…
Let us define the number i as equal to the square root of -1. So i cannot be positive or negative, but all real numbers are positive or negative—so i is imaginary. I am pretty much the farthest thing from a mathematician, but i strikes me as being something that we think we have some understanding of, but we really don’t, similar to saying “There is either a red square-circle or there is not a red square-circle.” But the funny…
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…