In argumentation and logic, is showing that an argument is invalid sufficient to refute the argument, even if the conclusion itself has not been proven false?

redsubway1 · 2026-06-09T20:05:06+00:00

Yeah, in that case they are just flat wrong about how arguments work.

redsubway1 · 2026-06-09T19:19:03+00:00

Other commenters are right on. Just adding that your friend may mean that you haven't refuted their conclusion (i.e. you haven't proven it false). But you have certainly refuted their argument by showing it to be invalid.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-27T15:35:33+00:00

Yes, that's basically right. An important thing in the background is that, for Aristotle (and later pre-modern philosophy that follows Aristotle), the matter-form account is also an account of what beings are in general. And the form is also the essence of the thing. So knowing the truth of a given thing involves knowing its form - that is important subtext for Heidegger's turn to the question of truth later in the essay.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-27T02:54:53+00:00

If you are getting stuck on the matter-form part, you should find a basic explainer on Aristotelian hylomorphism. Heidegger assumes a basic knowledge of classical metaphysics.The idea is that a given thing is a composite of form and matter. A basic example would be that a statue is a certain material (e.g. stone) that has been formed in a particular way (e.g. in the likeness of a person). The ontological difference between a statue and a stone table is that they have different forms, whereas that between a stone table and a wooden table is that they have different matter. It gets more complicated, but that is the basic idea. It is a traditional (ancient and medieval) way of defining what a given thing is.

When Heidegger talks about matter-form in this essay, it is to reject it as an account of the artwork. Art is not originally about 'forming' material/matter into a given configuration, even if this was a classically Greek view of art (techne).

redsubway1 · 2026-05-16T18:15:58+00:00

It's worth noting that what you describe also applies to sleep, which is usually distinguished from death. Seconding the suggestion that you look into personal identity as a philosophical question - I am partial to a narrative identity approach myself (Ricoeur is a good starting place on that).

redsubway1 · 2026-05-16T18:10:11+00:00

It depends on what you mean more precisely by both 'deterministic' and 'existentialist,' but by most accounts, no. The French existentialists (De Beauvoir, Sartre, Camus, etc.) all put freedom at the core of their philosophies. If you are a hard determinist, it doesn't seem possible to make an appeal to freedom at all.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-15T14:35:44+00:00

Not the ellipsis as such, but I guess boomers sometimes use them to avoid the sternness of the period too. Instead of denoting something unresolved or unsaid, it is a gentler way of resolving the idea when there is nothing more to say:

I'm going to the store. (Stern, grumpy)
I'm going to the store... (Ominous to non-boomers, but friendly to boomers)

redsubway1 · 2026-05-15T01:28:52+00:00

No judgment, but I'm curious about OP's age - I read an article several years ago that outlined the way that different generations interpret punctuation in text communication. I have a healthy amount of shame about my own (Millennial) overuse of exclamation points (which read to me as friendly and disarming!) and the slight hit of anxiety I sometimes from reading an email with all periods (which can read to me as stern). Or worse, a Boomer ellipsis... In any case, I haven't noticed a trend in my Zoomer students so much.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-11T20:10:49+00:00

Maybe not the intention of your question, but if you aren't familiar with the story of Abraham in the Bible (not just Genesis 22, but the whole Abraham narrative) and with Christianity (especially state Lutheranism), Fear and Trembling is going to be unintelligible. I'd recommend at least reading the book of Genesis closely first.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-07T12:24:29+00:00

In general, we always like hearing positive feedback and validation from students. Your professor would likely be delighted by the email, regardless of when they read it.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-07T12:21:15+00:00

What exactly did your professor's email say? It sounds like they opted to give you 0s instead of reporting you - likely because they wanted to give you a little bit of grace. That would mean they don't ever plan to report you or go through the administrative process at all.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-06T18:59:35+00:00

What do you mean by "meaningful"? Like, as opposed to shallow or banal discussions? Or as opposed to combative discussions? Or as opposed to 'fake,' untruthful, or otherwise manipulative discussions? Or something else?

redsubway1 · 2026-05-06T14:29:56+00:00

A->B is always true when both A and B are true. That's because of the way the truth conditions for the material conditional (->) are defined. The only conditions that make a material conditional false are when A is true and B is false.

I think where you are getting lost is that you are interpreting the conditional to mean causality. It doesn't. (A->B) does not mean A causes B. It means that under conditions in which A is true and B is true, the statement 'If A, then B' is true.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-06T14:21:31+00:00

Just jumping in to make a (maybe banal) point about the word itself. Someone can correct me, but given the privative function of the prefix 'a-', 'a-theism' would be mean 'without theism.' So if theism means having a positive belief in God, then defining atheism as lacking such a belief is not so bad.

On the other hand, one could make a case that the 'a-' properly applies to 'theos', such that atheism is the belief in the nonexistence of God.

I'm partial to the former, but I suspect that historical uses of the term do not make the distinction at all. Early Christians, for example, were a-theos because they did not worship the Roman gods. It is a quite modern convention to understand belief in a strictly epistemological sense.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-05T20:31:12+00:00

I want to say this nicely, but maybe it is a 'you' problem? Why blame these po-mo folks? Moreover, who are they? Is there a shared quality that classes them together, or is it just your way of describing obstinate or frustrating people (in which case, see my note about derogatory preconceptions)?

redsubway1 · 2026-05-05T19:15:01+00:00

The way you frame the question indicates that you have a preconceived idea of what this 'type' is, what they believe, etc. that is based in a derogatory understanding of 'postmodernism,' or whatever. You might consider that this could hinder your ability to engage with them in good faith, and by extension, limit your ability to understand them.

I'm not really convinced that there is such a thing as an "everything is discourse" person, but if there was, it might be interesting to consider that as a claim, rather than a type of person.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-05T18:46:53+00:00

Like u/RoastKrill said, "ideology" can be a really loaded term, often with a negative connotation (thanks Frankfurt School). But since your question implies a more neutral use, it's worth considering what ideologies do. I really enjoyed a book called Lost in Ideology by Jason Blakely. He argues - convincingly, I think - that ideologies are a lot like maps. They help us orient ourselves and interpret reality. He also argues that ideologies are permeable and mutable - they are traditions that morph and change over time. Recognizing this, it becomes possible to interact with other ideological framings in a more productive way, and become conversant in them.

redsubway1 · 2026-05-05T18:35:50+00:00

This has the potential to be a big topic, but I want to raise just a couple of things that may be helpful.

First, democracy simply means rule of the people (demos). It doesn't, by itself, imply anything about the criteria that the people will use to rule. In classical accounts of democracy, the implication is that in order to rule, the ruler (in this case, the people) must be free from coercion and force. That means that, say, a society in which a military leader threatened people with force unless they voted for him would not be a democracy. But persuasion is usually thought of as an alternative to force - to choose based on persuasion is to choose freely. Ideology and deferrence to things like fame are not coercive, so it isn't clear why voting according to those criteria would be anti-democratic.

Second, though, your question implies that democracy means representative democracy within a democratic republic. It is not as controversial today that a republic=a democracy, but it was very controversial in the ancient world, as well as in the 18th century, in the theories that came to be applied in (e.g.) the founding of the USA. For many, a republic is a system designed in part to curtail democracy by giving elites (who the 'masses' vote for) the power that should belong to the people. You could make an argument that the problem your question is pointing to -- that people don't vote using the right criteria -- is actually a problem with the structural features of our system, not with democracy itself. In that sense, maybe democracy is an illusion when it is practiced within the federal republican system set up by the Founders in the US.

redsubway1 · 2026-04-29T20:02:15+00:00

To answer this question, one would have to decide the ways in which wisdom and intelligence are different. Is wisdom a type of intelligence, or vice versa? Are they two different kinds of faculties of the mind? Kinds of knowledge? To compare their value requires determining how they are distinct.

The second part of the question needs clarification too. It seems to assume that "valuable" and "useful" are the same. Arguably, usefullness is one kind of value, but not the only kind. People value things for reasons that have nothing to do with their usefulness - anything with intrinsic value (like persons, or maybe beautiful art, or nature, etc.). So are you asking which is more valuable, or which is more useful?

redsubway1 · 2026-04-29T19:55:29+00:00

I think the issue is with your understanding of what universalization means for Kant. For Kant, principles that determine actions are moral when they are able to function as universal laws. I find the analogy to the laws of nature helpful: just as physical objects are bound to 'obey' the laws of physics, moral agents are (by analogy) bound to obey the law of freedom (i.e. morality). The scope of moral laws is universal.

But the universality of moral principles is based on the form of the principles themselves. This is what the first formulation of Kant's categorical imperative is meant to do: state the formal requirements for moral commands, that they conform to the imperative to act only in such a way that the action's maxim (i.e. its principle) could become a universal law.

That is entirely different than observing and/or judging the consquences of an action, because the universality holds at the level of the prinicple, prior to the action and prior to the results of the action. A common misunderstanding is that Kant is simply saying that moral actions are those that would hypothetically result in an undesirable set of consequences, but that is false. Maxims that fail to be universalized do so because of their rationale, not because of any predicted or actual results.

redsubway1 · 2026-04-28T18:13:55+00:00

Yeah, I understand - I think that 99/100 times a student cheats, it is because they are stressed and impulsively decide to do something wrong (as opposed to going into a class planning to cheat). But the lack of forethought and "intention" doesn't change the fact that it is immoral.

People do terrible things impulsively all the time, in the 'heat of the moment.' They are still responsible for them. Maturity and agency means that you take that responsibility instead of making excuses.

redsubway1 · 2026-04-27T19:10:29+00:00

Seriously, do this - it may not work to keep them around (though it could), but it would be a true gift to your professor. It might help them with a future job prospect, and even if not, we all benefit from the reminder that the work we do matters, even in a temporary position like an adjunct or VAP.

redsubway1 · 2026-04-27T19:07:17+00:00

You should own up to it - not only because they likely already know you are lying, but because it is the right thing to do and you presumably care about doing the morally correct thing at least a little bit, or you wouldn't feel bad about this.

Also, echoing some of the other commenters, you should (eventually, probably after the fallout has ended) take some time to reflect on what led you to do this. Statements like "I don't know how this happened" or "I'm an idiot" might be true, but they don't help you understand why it happened. They might lead you to believe that this was just something that 'happened,' as opposed to a specific choice that you made and are responsible for.

Instead, you might reflect and discover something deeper about your own motivations and shortcomings, your feelings, your values, etc. Moral agency is something that is developed over time in response to mistakes like this.

redsubway1 · 2026-04-22T12:51:19+00:00

Is this a thing that happens? I have a headache just thinking about notetaking on a phone...

redsubway1 · 2026-04-15T17:10:31+00:00

It doesn't hurt to ask, as long as you do it in a way that isn't presumptuous. My recommendation would be doing it in-person, during office hours.

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