Philosophy assignment
Please complete all three parts of this assignment (A, B, and C). Where you are required to answer in writing, please use complete sentences.
Your summaries should provide enough detail to allow someone who has not read the passages to have a clear and accurate understanding of the arguments you are summarizing. Your explanation should be sufficiently detailed to prove or demonstrate that your identification of the argument is correct.
Part A (30%)
For the following six passages, determine whether they contain an argument, an explanation, or a description. Explain your choice with direct reference to the meaning of the term you identify. Your answer should be sufficiently detailed to prove or demonstrate that your identification of the passages is correct. Each passage is worth 5 points.
Note: A passage will contain an argument even if the author does not propose but merely reports an argument.
Here is a sample passage with a sample answer
The film Patch Adams was an illuminating portrayal of medical education because it highlighted the importance of treating patients as people and not just as the locations of disease.
Govier, Trudy. A Practical Study of Argument, 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001, p. 43.
Answer: This passage contains an argument because the author uses reasons to try to convince the reader that Patch Adams is an illuminating portrayal of medical education. They support their conclusion with the premise that the film shows how important it is to treat patients as persons, not as examples of disease.
Please note that accessing or uploading Athabasca University assignments violates the academic integrity policy and can result in a zero in the assignment or the course.
Respond to the following passages.
1. God can perform miracles, but not contradictions—not because his power is limited, but because contradictions are not genuine possibilities.
2. Dayton, Eric. Critical Thinking, Logic, and Argument. Pearson, 2010. p. 11.
1. Despite the importance of the naval mast trade, sawn lumber and square timber were the major staples of the wood industry. Lumber, the product of sawmills, was prepared mostly as planks and boards. Square timber—known in the Maritimes as “ton timber”—were baulks or “sticks” of wood hewn square with axes and shipped to England, where they were often resawn. Strict specifications governed the market—the wood was allowed to have a “wane” (bevel) and slight taper, but these specifications varied according to the stick’s dimensions and changed with time. Waste was quite considerable: 25–30 per cent of each tree was discarded.
1. Wynn, Graeme. “Timber Trade History.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 24 July 2015, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/timber-trade-history. Accessed 17 August 2021.
1. Everyone needs insulin to break down food. What and how much someone eats affects blood glucose levels. When someone has diabetes, there is either not enough insulin in the body or the body cannot use the insulin it produces. Rather than being used as energy, glucose in a diabetic person is stored in the body’s cells and collects in the bloodstream. Over time, elevated blood glucose can cause serious damage to the body. Specific symptoms include fatigue, thirst, frequent urination, damage to nerves, blurred vision and muscle cramps. Even when diabetes is controlled, the insulin supply of the body is limited.
1. Molnar, George Dempster and Patricia G. Bailey. “Diabetes.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 27 July 2015, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/diabetes-mellitus. Accessed 17 August 2021.
1. Zoos are outdated and harmful. They divert funds that could be used for protecting ecosystems so animals can live in their natural habitat. Whatever science they promote could be achieved in a natural environment. They essentially imprison wild animals for our entertainment.
1. Pemmican (Cree pimikan, meaning “manufactured grease”) is dried meat, traditionally bison (moose, caribou, venison or beef can be used as well), pounded into coarse powder and mixed with an equal amount of melted fat, and occasionally saskatoon berries, cranberries, and even (for special occasions) cherries, currants, chokeberries or blueberries.
1. Foster, John E. “Pemmican.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 04 March 2015, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pemmican. Accessed 17 August 2021.
1. Only students with proper footwear can participate in gym class. Why? Because other shoes might be slippery or make marks on the flooring. Anisha forgot her sneakers, so she cannot participate.
Part B (50%)
The following five passages contain arguments. Using the tools for identifying parts of arguments in Units 1 and 2, analyze the arguments by bracketing and labelling the premises and conclusions in the passage. You must diagram the arguments using circled numbers, direction arrows, and brackets. You must also include a brief explanation of how you determined your diagram. Your explanation should be sufficiently detailed to prove or demonstrate that your identification of the argument is correct. Each answer is worth 10 points.
Note: A passage will contain an argument even if the author does not propose, but merely reports an argument.
1. You should not use student file-sharing websites. This is because they violate the academic integrity policy and cheapen the value of your credential.
2. They are obviously a vampire. They sleep in a coffin and have no reflection in a mirror.
3. We learned that the restaurant had several past health-code violations. Not only that, we found out they are using expired food. We should eat somewhere else and call the food inspector.
4. The traffic circle should be eliminated. It slows down traffic, which makes people tailgate. Tailgating leads to road rage, which leads to altercations between drivers. No one really knows how to drive in a traffic circle. Driver’s education spends less than ten minutes explaining them. Drivers right now have enough distractions with cellphones, dashboard dining, and all kinds of multitasking while driving. Let’s make driving easier for them and get rid of the traffic circle.
5. It is unrealistic to expect all middle- or high-school school students to become proficient producers of academic language. Many graduate students still struggle to manage the authoritative stance, and the self-presentation as an expert that justifies it, in their writing. And it is important to note that not all features associated with the academic writing style are desirable.
Snow, Catherine. “Academic Language and the Challenge of Reading for Learning about Science.” Science vol. 328 no. 5977. 2010. Pp. 450–452.
Part C (20%)
Write one or two paragraphs (250–300 words) summarizing and analysing how the argument(s) in the follow passage are logically supported, drawing specifically on the methods demonstrated in Unit 2, Part 2. Specify the premises, conclusions, and how they relate to each other. Use indicator words to demonstrate relationships between the premises and the conclusion(s). Your summary should be sufficiently detailed so that someone who has not read the passage would have a clear and accurate understanding of the arguments you are summarizing.
A degree in philosophy, or humane study more generally, does not require validation in the court of do-with usefulness. It is a convenient reality that such validation is sometimes gained, but the victory is really a surrender performed on the enemy’s ground.
. . .
Let’s do a little casual philosophical analysis [of the position that education is only valuable in so far as it is useful]. What are the unspoken premises of the standard position?
Most obviously, it assumes (1) that we know what use is. Something is useful when it has instrumental value. Things of instrumental value serve needs other than their own, either some higher instrumental value or an intrinsic value. And yet, in practice ‘use’ almost always comes down to money, which is itself a perfect example of a lower instrumental value. Money is just a tool, but we talk and act as if it were an end in itself.
So the position likewise assumes (2) that we know how to value things that contribute to use. We can convert any activity or human possibility into some quantified assessment, and thus dispose of the question of whether it is worth doing. Not only does this make a mockery of human action, quickly narrowing the scope of what is considered worth doing, it simultaneously narrows the scope of argument about the nature of worth. This leads to a market monopoly on the notion of the ‘real’: anything that is not in play in a market is irrelevant or imaginary.
The position in turn presupposes (3) that education is in thrall to this ‘real world’ of market value—actually a massive collective delusion as abstract as anything in Hegel’s Phenomenology—because according to (2) all human activities are. The market’s monopoly on reality reinforces the dominant value of competition and selfishness, incidentally converting education into a credential-race that can (and rationally should) be gamed rather than enjoyed itself.
Lurking nearby are two other implicit ideas about life after graduation: (4) education must be intimately linked to work; and (5) doing work while ‘over-qualified’ is a bad thing. This link between education and work is a nifty piece of legerdemain [deception] which preys on the uncertainties all humans have about their future, even as it leaves untouched the general presumption that one must have a job to be human. Parents and children alike fall for it.
Kingwell, Mark. Unruly Voices: Essays on Democracy, Civility, and the Human Imagination. Biblioasis, 2012, 131–135.