Sunday, February 22, 2009

"they simply don’t know what an argument is"

One of the things I find about my students is that they simply don’t know what an argument is. Beginning with Spinoza would therefore give me the opportunity to discuss the nature of argument, the distinction between inductive and deductive arguments, the relationship between premises and conclusions, what it means to make inferences, and so on.

I nearly spat out my tea when I read this last week. Apparently I'd been using these terms inductive/deductive in an anachronistic way. Hopefully people can tell what I'm saying anyway - I should be able to correct it soon enough. I am eternally grateful to Dr Sinthome's deductive fidelity.