Saturday, April 30, 2011

A concept from chapter 15

A concept from Epstein Chapter 15 that I found useful was the concept of cause and effect. According to Epstein the general cause and effect: for it to be to be true, lots of particular cause and effect must be true. There is also a criterion for cause and effect. The criteria for cause and effect are:

-The cause happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The effect happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The cause precedes the effect.  

-It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal conditions

-The Cause makes a difference – if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true)

-There is no common cause

An example of a cause and effect claim is: Clarence studied all night for his test, therefore Clarence received a good grade

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