Tell me what is wrong with this reasoning – it makes logic sense to me but intuitively I feel there is something wrong with it –
-Fred thinks that because the sky is blue ALL of the time Socrates is a god.
-Sue thinks that because the sky is blue SOME of the time Socrates is a god.
Same results, different initial premises – yet they really may have reached different conclusions.
He MIGHT think that if the sky were blue ALL of the time Plato, not Socrates, is a god. She MIGHT think that if the sky were blue SOME of the time there are no gods. Or he/she could reach any amount of other conclusions. SO, the fact that you reached the same result with a different major premise DOESN’T mean you reached the same conclusion. It has to be this way since you’re using different first assumptions. So when you see a different first assumption it is safe to say that the result that follows will be a different conclusion.
The first contains factual error: sky is NOT blue all of the time, not even in a desert!
Statement 2 I think it would be a variation of Begging hte Question. There must be a connection between A(sky) and B(Socrates) that is not presented in the argument.
Thanks — but I’m not asking if the facts that the initial premises are based on are correct or even if the conclusions naturally follow. I know they don’t. What I’m asking is whether it is safe to assume that once you have a different premise you can always say that the conclusion will be different.
I’m not exactly sure about what I’m about to say, philosophy classes are a few years back now, but I would think that if both propositions are taken together and one is in contradiction with the other then they can’t have the same conclusion:
But I’m not sure how your example can be a logical statement because its Fred thinks and Sue thinks; anyone can think anything and can reach any conclusion; what one thinks is in no way related with what another one thinks:
If we continue with your example, I can modify your statement in the following way:
Fred thinks because the sky is blue is ALL the time Socrates is a God
Sue thinks that because the sky is blue all the time Socrates is not a God
At first glance it looks like contradicting propositions but they are not because two different persons can think different things and arrive at the same or different (in this case opposite) conclusions.
Wouldn’t it be better to just take away what Fred and Sue thinks and put it as a fact - in order to test the logic; not the factual answer…(I’m not sure how to formulate logical statements in English so I might make an error of wording but here we go anyhow)
Because the sky is blue ALL the time, Socrates is a God
Because the sky is blue SOME of the time Socrates is a God
Unfortunately I’m not sure if SOME includes ALL or not. My opinion would be that SOME excludes ALL, (SOME and ALL can’t be true at the same time) in which case one of the propositions would have to be false.
Now, this is all from the top of my head, it makes sense to me at least…
Here’s an easy analogy: Two people live in different cities, one in Cleveland, and the other in Baltimore. Both want to go visit Detroit. Can they? Sure! Why would they want to? Hell if I know!
However, they have to take different routes to get there. So I guess it’s safe to say that two people with different starting premises with the same line of reasoning, they’ll likely have different conclusions… such as if the two aforementioned people with different starting points were both to travel straight South, they’d also have different end points.
However, one thing that’s absolute is that there are never any absolutes. They may just have two different starting points that might work, even with the same line of reasoning, that might have the same conclusion. Example:
It is orange -> I can wear it -> It is a shirt
It smells funny -> I can wear it -> It is a shirt
This phenomenon also carries over to math. I’m sure everyone’s heard of the game that starts out with “Pick any number, then add 5, then multiply by half of the sum of the two digits, etc.” and the end result is always the same…