The Watch and the Watchmaker ATTACHED
Post to Week 4 – Discussion 1 a critique of an argument found in The Watch and the Watchmaker and A Critique of the Teleological Argument. Your critique should claim that the argument youre criticizing either (i) has a false premise or (ii) is invalid. If it has a false premise, construct a deductively valid argument in which the conclusion entails the falsity of the premise youre arguing against. If it is invalid, construct a counter-case.
A counter-case is an argument with the same form as the argument youre criticizing but in which the premises are obviously true and the conclusion is obviously false. The argument on the right is a counter-case of the argument on the leftit shows that the form of argument used on the left is not such that the truth of the conclusion follows with necessity from the truth of the premises.
Argument A
All senators are citizens
Some citizens are from Ohio
Therefore: some senators are from Ohio
Argument B
All cats are mammals
Some mammals are dogs
Therefore: some dogs are cats
These arguments have the same form in that the logic of each argument turns on the relations indicated between the terms all, some, and are. Notice that you can replace all other terms in each argument, and they will look the same:
Argument form
All S are C
Some C are O
Therefore: some S are O
