Grading standards for formalizations

Philosophy 4340


Overview
The point of the formalization is for you to extract the main argument from the text, so that you can fully engage with the author's ideas.
* You want to it valid, because invalid arguments aren't terribly interesting (unless they are inductive, but this is philosophy, so that's not much of an issue).
* You want that validity to be easy to see, so we don't have to waste our time wondering about it.
* You want the premises to be easy to understand, so that we can really think about whether or not they are true.
* You don't want extra stuff, because that isn't helpful, but you also don't want to leave out things that are vital to the argument, because then you can't really evaluate if it is a good argument.
* This is something for you to benefit from. Use your judgment to try to achieve all of these goals.

Requirements
You should turn in a formalization of the main argument in the paper. A formalization meets these criteria:
* It is formally valid, not merely trivially valid, and not circular. Note: a formalization that fails to meet this criterion cannot get better than a C. If the argument you give is blatantly invalid (it commits a fallacy like affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent), it will get an F.
o Trivially valid arguments are ones whose premises and conclusions are not logically related, but where either the premises are all necessarily false, or the conclusion is necessarily true (such arguments are guaranteed to satisfy the ordinary definition of validity: "If the premises were true, the conclusion would have to be true as well," but they aren't interesting).
o When I say formally valid, I mean that the argument is valid in virtue of logical form: the logical structure of the argument is what makes it valid, and not facts about the truth of the various parts of the argument.
o I should be able to see that the argument is valid without having to do very much work; specifically, I should not have to think about whether or not the premises are true, or even what they mean. I should just be able to look at the logical operators and connectives in each premise.
* The argument should include no premises such that, were they omitted, no argument or sub-argument you give would be logically affected.
* It's great if you add premises that the author does not state, but which necessary for the author's argument to work; in fact, this is necessary if you want to do well.
* Please try to capture the argument the author intended to make. Use a bit of charity and a bit of faithfulness to the text.
* Please express the premises and conclusions in your own words, although it's fine to use the author's technical terms if this is unavoidable. Where the author uses technical terms that mean the same as other technical terms we are using in the class, please use our terms, not theirs.
* Treat each premise as an assertion of the author's view - each should be something the author believes to be true. If you want to make a reductio argument, then put "assume for reductio" before the claim you will show to be false - don't just put it as a regular premise (otherwise the argument contradicts itself).
* Premises are just claims, they aren't arguments. If you find yourself tempted to put "because" or "since" or something like that it in a premise, stop yourself. These words signal that you are giving evidence for another part of the sentence: you are trying to make a little mini argument in the premise. If that's right, you really should take what you were going to put after "because" or "since" and make it a separate argument for the premise you are currently on.


Formatting:
Your arguments must be presented in the following format: each premise must be numbered sequentially. Any conclusions must be clearly marked as conclusion, either by a line above them (see example below) or by starting with a word such as "Thus" or "Therefore." You can have multiple arguments, where the conclusion to one is a premise for another. For example:

1. Premise one
2. Premise two
3. Thus, first conclusion
4. If first conclusion, then second conclusion.
5. Thus, second conclusion.


Helpful hints:
Please make the logical structure of your arguments as transparent as possible.
* One way to do this is to use symbols for your connectives and operators. This isn't necessary if you use consistent natural language terms that mean the same thing (e.g. "and" for & or ^, "not" for ~).
* I don't mind overuse of parentheses if it makes it easier to see what falls in the scope of what.
* Very important: when you use sentences (or fragments) to express a proposition, please use the same sentence to express the same proposition in every case.
o E.g. if you are writing an argument that has the modus ponens format (If A then B, A, therefore B), please use the exact same language to replace A in every place, and B in every place.
o I know this looks redundant and dumb, but it makes life easier for everyone.


More helpful hints:
Make your arguments easy to read when possible.
* Your premises should look a lot like English sentences that a normal person could read.
o In other words, if the premises says, "Fred was a jerk to Mary," just say that, not something awful like "jerk(Fred, Mary)."
* Avoid unnecessary invention of terminology.
* Avoid unnecessary acronyms.
* Try to avoid very complicated logic when you can. Most arguments can be reduced to iterations of a few simple argument types. Do that! It's so much easier for everyone to think about.
* Try to avoid quantifiers and modal operators. You might not be able to in every case, but I bet you can most of the time.