Concepts

Question 1

Laws of logic

Answer 1

axiomatic principles of rational thought that govern how truth-valued statements or ideas can be related in truth-preserving ways.

Prime examples of such laws would be the 3 classical principles whose earliest formulations are attributed to Aristotle.

• Law of Identity
• Law of Non-Contradiction:
• Law of Excluded Middle:

Question 2

• Law of Identity

Answer 2

Every true statement is true and every false statement is false.

Question 3

• Law of Non-Contradiction

Answer 3

No statement can be both true and false.

Question 4

• Law of Excluded Middle

Answer 4

Every statement must be either true or false.

Question 5

Reification

the fallacy of reification

Answer 5

To make something abstract more concrete/real.

Question 6

Occam’s Razor

The principle of parsimony

Answer 6

the principle (attributed to William of Occam) that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary. The principle is often invoked to defend reductionism or nominalism.
Do not multiply unnecessary contingencies.

Question 7

Pascal’s wager

Answer 7

Blaise Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

Pascal did not advance the wager as a proof of God’s existence but rather as a necessary pragmatic decision which is “impossible to avoid” for any living person. He argued that abstaining from making a wager is not an option and that “reason is incapable of divining the truth”; thus, a decision of whether to believe in the existence of God must be made by “considering the consequences of each possibility”.