1. 1. QUESTION

   Language and Argumentation 

   Which of the various functions of language are exemplified by each of the following passages?

    

   Topic 3 Reading Exercises from:

   Copi, Irving M. Introduction to Logic, 14th Edition. Routledge.

    

   3.1 INSTRUCTIONS

   Which of the various functions of language are exemplified by each of the following passages?

    

   PROBLEMS

   1. Check the box on line 6a unless your parent (or someone else) can claim you as a dependent on his or her tax return.

   —U.S. Internal Revenue Service, “Instructions,” Form 1040, 2006

    

   2. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
      All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

   —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871

    

   3. What traveler among the ruins of Carthage, of Palmyra, Persepolis, or Rome, has not been stimulated to reflections on the transiency of kingdoms and men, and to sadness at the thought of a vigorous and rich life now departed …?

   —G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 1823

    

   4. Moving due south from the center of Detroit, the first foreign country one encounters is not Cuba, nor is it Honduras or Nicaragua or any other Latin American nation; it is Canada.

    

   5. I was a child and she was a child,
      In this kingdom by the sea,
      But we loved with a love that was more than love—
      I and my Annabel Lee—

   —Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee,” 1849

    

   INSTRUCTIONS

   What language functions are most probably intended to be served by each of the following passages?

    

   PROBLEMS

   1. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.

   —Justice John Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 1896

    

   2. Judges do not know how to rehabilitate criminals—because no one knows.

   —Andrew Von Hirsch, Doing Justice—The Choice of Punishment (New York: Hill & Wang, 1976)

    

   3. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.

   —Daniel Webster, “On Agriculture,” 1840

    

   4. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

   —Edmund Burke, letter to William Smith, 1795

    

   5. They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

   —Sir Thomas More, Utopia, 1516

    

   3.3 INSTRUCTIONS & PROBLEM

    

   Identify three disagreements in current political or social controversy that are of the three types described in this section: one that is genuine, one that is merely verbal, and one that is apparently verbal but really genuine. Explain the disagreements in each case.

    

   3.5 INSTRUCTIONS

   Arrange each of the following groups of terms in order of increasing intension:

    

   PROBLEMS

   1. Animal, feline, lynx, mammal, vertebrate, wildcat.

    

   2. Alcoholic beverage, beverage, champagne, fine white wine, white wine, wine.

    

   3. Athlete, ball player, baseball player, fielder, infielder, shortstop.

    

   4. Cheese, dairy product, Limburger, milk derivative, soft cheese, strong soft cheese.

    

   5. Integer, number, positive integer, prime number, rational number, real number.

    

   3.6 INSTRUCTIONS

   Criticize the following in terms of the rules for definition by genus and difference. After identifying the difficulty (or difficulties), state the rule (or rules) that are being violated. If the definition is either too narrow or too broad, explain why.

    

   PROBLEMS

   1. A genius is one who, with an innate capacity, affects for good or evil the lives of others.

   —Jacqueline Du Pre, in Jacqueline Du Pre: Her Life, Her Music, Her Legend (Arcade Publishing, 1999)

    

   2. Knowledge is true opinion.

   —Plato, Theaetetus

    

   3. Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

   —Samuel Butler, Notebooks

    

   4. “Base” means that which serves as a base.

   —Ch’eng Wei-Shih Lun, quoted in Fung Yu-Lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 1959

    

   5. Alteration is combination of contradictorily opposed determinations in the existence of one and the same thing.

   —Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1787

    

   6. Honesty is the habitual absence of the intent to deceive.

    

   7. Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.

   —François La Rochefoucauld, Reflections, 1665

    

   8. The wordbody, in the most general acceptation, signifieth that which filleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and dependeth not on the imagination, but is a real part of that we call the universe.

   —Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

    

   9. Torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.”

   —United Nations Convention Against Torture, 1984

    

   10. “Cause” means something that produces an effect.

    

   INSTRUCTIONS

   Discuss the following definitions:

    

   PROBLEMS

   1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

   —Heb. 11:1

    

   2. Faith is when you believe something that you know ain’t true.

   —Definition attributed to a schoolboy by William James in “The Will to Believe,” 1897

    

   3. Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

   —H. L. Mencken, Prejudice, 1922

    

   4. Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things.

   —Matthew Arnold, 1865

    

   5. Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

   —Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Defence of Poetry, 1821

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