Daniel's Blog's

1. State your name and provide a link to your blog.

My name is Daniel Ledesma and my link is https://peacekeeping.school.blog/

• What is your TOTAL word count?

My TOTAL word count is 6045

• Did you do everything on the blog checklist, on every blog? Quotes? Original examples? Personal application?

I have quotes, original examples, and personal application in all my blogs.

• Have your revised since our midterm meeting? How many revisions did you do?

I have revised since our midterm meeting. I do not have a specific number, but I have added 4+ blogs, 20+ glossary words, 5+ comments, as well as revising and correcting your suggestions, as well as improving any new material.

• Did you give a presentation?

No.

• How was your participation in general? How was your attendance?

Before switching to online, I believe my participation was better. The online switch was difficult for me in terms of interactivity. I participated less but still participated. My attendance was good. I believe I only missed one class.

• How many blogs did you submit prior to class discussion of the topic?

I submitted 6 blogs prior to class discussion.

• How many comments did you make?

I made 13 comments.

• How many glossary words do you have? Have you indicated the lecture or reading from which they originated?

I have 30 words and I have indicated the lecture reading from which they originated.

1. Given the course requirements, what grade have you earned?

I believe I have earned an A.

1. What will you remember most about the course as a whole?

I’ll remember the experience of creating my blog. This was a unique concept I’ve never seen another teacher use. I really liked it and thought it was a fun way for us to analyze and study the readings.

David Hume makes an argument for the truth of Determinism in this article. His first main reason he gives for the truth of determinism is because of history. “Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history intorms us of nothing new or strange in this particular” (Hume). Determinism is the doctrine that all actions and events are the result of a force external to the will. Hume uses history as proof that we do not have control of our actions and their results. History has shown to be repetitive and as we have progressed have remained similar. We continue to repeat the same mistakes in regards to war, pollution, and general human relations. Hume also makes note that humans each have their own personalities and are unique but in a way that is uniform. He states “from observing the variety of conduct in different men, we are enabled to form a greater variety of maxims, which still suppose a degree of uniformity and regularity”(Hume). I believe Hume is finding the uniformity in our own personal traits. A person can be generally peppy, but then have an “off-day” and suddenly everyone notices. This is because this action is outside of the norm or the uniformity of our lives. We take notice of the changed behavior and may even be surprised, but do not believe the situation to not be happening, because we can understand the complexity of the human body and irregularities “can be no proof that the laws of nature are not observed with the greatest regularity in its internal onerations and government.”(Hume).

 Do you think one of the consequences of the argument against free will is that we are not responsible for our actions?

This is an incredibly difficult question for me to answer. Every time I come up with answer, I come up with a contradiction. I will say, with completely uncertainty, that I think one of the consequences of the argument against free will is that we are nit responsible for our actions. I think this because determinism is the school of thought where events happen external to our own will. If the event or action is not of your own volition then how can one be responsible for an action they did not take. For example, if a friend commits fraud and uses your name, you are not responsible for the action because you played no part in the crime, even though it was done under your name.

Would you feel any differently about your life in general—and your actions, thoughts, and feelings, in particular—if determinism were true?

I would not feel any different about life if determinism were true. This is a difficult subject for me to compose an exact belief on the topic, but my personal belief is that we have a small degree of free will, but we are mostly driven by our chemical properties and instincts. So if determinism were to be true then there would not be a large change in beliefs. Aside from this, my attitude towards life would not change, because I have no control over it. I can’t give my life free will and I have gotten this far without caring if I have free will or not, so why should it change now? (553 words).

David Hume believes that the idea of self is false. He states “every person is just their own collection of perceptions acquired throughout their lives and constantly in a state of flux.“ His argument is that our identity is not our collection of perceptions but rather the bond felt between the collection of perceptions. He exemplifies this by saying “The mind is a kind of theater”(pg 1). I believe that Hume is trying to say our minds are illusions, just like the movies we watch at a movie theater. The movie is not to be judged in accordance to a scene to scene manner but is rather judged as all the scenes combined, just as one assesses or judges ones own personal identity. I also believe Hume is trying to say that we do not know what is going to happen next in our lives. The next scene of a film is always unknown. You can make assumptions based on previous scenes but your prediction will never be exact just as in life as you can’t predict the next day, next hour, or even the next minute. Another quote that illustrates the argument is ”If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, thro’ the whole course of our lives; since self  self is suppose to exist after that manner.But there is no impression constant invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time”. According to Humes impressions do not last forever and we cannot depend on our impressions to assess self identity. This assertion comes from the ever-changing nature of our lives. For example, someone may meet you at a dark point in life thus creating a negative impression. These same two people meet later in life and now you are a college graduate. This creates a different impression of a person. Impressions may not change as drastically as that, but this example demonstrates the fallibility of using impressions because impressions are lost in the moment and that moment will never be the same just as no impression will ever be the same. Later in the excerpt, Hume states “I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.” Everything that is viewed is viewed from a lens of past perspective or from eyes looking forward. Our perception of self is nothing more than a perception and we can never see the true self.

I do not find the argument convincing. I can only view gravity through perception just as I can with the self. This does not mean that the identity of self does not exist. This argument is my thought process as to why the idea that the self is an illusion is not convincing. Some elements of the argument are convincing such as not assessing the self based on impressions as impressions are constantly changing. I also find it convincing that our self is the collection of perceptions we have acquired over our lives. These two premises alone were not enough to convince me that the self does not actually exist.

(531 words).

“Unpredictability and teleology therefore coexist as part of our lives; like characters in a fictional narrative we do not know what will happen next, but none the less our lives have a certain form which projects itself towards our future. Thus the narratives which we live out have both an unpredictable and a partially teleological character.” (pg 2)

This passage is saying that one specific aspect of persons as the subject of a narrative is our unpredictability and our ability to reach and try to achieve goals. Just as characters in a book must have a goal so must a person. In this sense a life is a lot like a book because it is unknown what the next page will bring just as we can never know what tomorrow will bring. A protagonist in a story must also have an object in order to create a story just as we must in order to build narrative in our lives and have personal identity.

The reason I believe this to be significant to ones identity is because in the overarching theme of my life, it has been a series of events that were not in my plan. I think the best example of this has to be the narrative I’m currently living in. There has been nothing more unexpected than this quarantine. I had a stable job before this quarantine and now my hours are no longer stable, which creates a riff in my schedule for the week. Also from week to week, we all don’t know when this will end. We have an end date but it continues to change. We have to continue to put our lives on hold. At this part of the narrative is where the teleology enters. This quarantine has an objective. The objective is to stop the spread of a virus and save as many lives as possible. My goal in this narrative is to survive to the end. The unpredictability and a stories need for a goal has never been better exemplified than our current times. I would also like to add that this adds to the global narrative. MacIntyre notes that our narratives are but part of one intertwining unified narrative. The whole world is currently experiencing the same story for the same purpose.

(380 Words)

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. In this article, Descartes tackles the meditations on the first philosophy in which the existence of god and the distinction between mind and body are demonstrated. He first begins with his process in his search for knowledge. His first starts by waiting until he is good and ready to analyze. He waits until he is at an age where he can “seriously and freely address [himself] to the general upheaval of all my former opinions” (Descartes Page 6). Next he analyzes his beliefs. He holds them up and if he can find any reason for doubt then he rejects the entire belief and leaves it behind. When choosing which beliefs he wants to analyze, he doesn’t analyze all of them, but the core beliefs in which his other beliefs stem from. He is analyzing the “foundation” of his beliefs. He doesn’t stop after the argument that the senses cannot be trusted because in his view there a truths even simpler than our senses can comprehend. We must search for these truest of truths because stopping at our senses is not enough if we are to really analyze the foundation of our beliefs. As each stage progresses, it seems to push his skepticism further. He first questions his own beliefs and what values they truly hold and in pursuit of this he manages to question his own dreams. Everything in a dream is fabricated to look like real life and can only be created as a counterpart to reality. Our arms looks like our arms so how can we trust that we are actually awake. This then leads him to question the idea of a “creator”. If it is possible for there to be a good god then it is also possible for the god to be evil and have no other purpose than to deceive us. Descartes from this point begins to question his own senses because this god could be deceiving him. This is skepticism to the extreme. He has rocked his entire core and questioned everything until there is nothing further. One question just leads to another in this form of analysis.

What does he know by the end of meditation 1?

This a difficult question to answer, as it appears as if he has learned nothing. In the beginning he has ill-formed beliefs and at the end he once again beliefs his wrong beliefs. I believe that he has learned something though. He makes note that he has “fall[en] back into my former opinions, and I dread awakening from this
slumber” (Descartes Page 8). He has learned that when we accept our false beliefs and rely on our deceitful senses that we are merely asleep living an imaginary freedom. We fear having to disavow these illusions because they are what bring us peace and to remove our beliefs, we will also remove our tranquility.

(400 Words)

According to William James there are three forms of belief. The three being live, forced. or momentous. A live belief is one that comes from a place where all the options given for the belief were within the realm of possibility to the one making the decision to believe or disbelieve. An example of this for me, since it is dependent on the thinker, is “Be democratic or independent” Both options are feasible for me to believe and is therefore a live belief. Another form of belief, according to James, is a forced belief. A forced belief is one may have when there is no outside alternative other than the options given. An example of this is “Either you are atheist or you are religious.” There is alternate opinion available. You must be either atheist or religious in the context of the statement. Finally he proposes a third form of belief, a momentous belief. This is the form of belief that is made when you are given an option to which you have no similar opportunity. An example of this would be “Would you like to meet the President?” This is momentous as there are very few similar opportunities. Now this poses a question. Can a belief be all three kinds of beliefs. I believe the answer to this is. The belief in a religion or lack of a belief of religion is all three kinds. “Do I believe in a god or no god.” Are both feasible to me. It also is forced because outside of this question there is no outside alternative. There is either a god or no god. Finally it is momentous because the worship and belief of a god is momentous. There is no similar opportunity. This is the only opportunity of belief or lack of belief. James proposes that he has found an exception from Clifford’s standard of belief. In the eyes of James, Clifford’s standard is preposterous as he compares it to “a fear of being duped”(James). James proposes that being “duped” or making errors is not something completely horrible. In his opinion, it is better to be wrong than it is to live in fear of being wrong.

Do I agree more with Clifford or with James?

Personally, I agree more with James than I do Clifford. I can understand making a deep analysis of my beliefs before believing them, but this would lead to nothing but a lack of belief for everything. There is always a question that can’t be answered, which will always lead to the denial of whatever belief I am analyzing. I would rather hold a wrong belief than not believe anything. I do believe that a deep analysis is required for your beliefs, but there is a limit to how deep you should go. I believe that facts and truths should always be the basis of your beliefs, but for some it is okay if the only defense of the believe is peace of mind or happiness.

(501 words)

Plato was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought, and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western World. In The Republic: Book X , Plato tackles “the idea of a bed” and the “beds in the world.” He makes it clear that there is a major difference between the two “things.” The difference between “beds of the world” and “the idea of the bed” is, there is only one original idea and form of the bed, created by god, and all the other beds of the world are imitations of that original idea. Plato states “no artificer makes the ideas themselves.” In this argument god has created all ideas and the first of each idea, and every other reproduction of said idea is just an imitation. The maker can only make physical shape of the idea but will never be able to make an idea.  

Art in the eyes of Plato is simply imitation of what has already been created. He calls to attention the occupation of painters and poets. Both illustrate things in the physical world; one with words and the other with color and shape. They both use the physical aspects of the world to shape things together. They have not created anything like the god has, but rather given a different shape or form to what has already existed. Plato considers art to be “deceptive,” because imitation can be used as a form of manipulation to change the minds of others. This can be seen everywhere in Art today. A lot of artists can use their work as political statements. Political comics are a good example of this because they are using the medium of art to change the ideas of those viewing the comic, with perhaps portraying the opposing side in a negative light or showing their own side of heavenly. Art is so broad that it can take any shape or form which makes adding deceptiveness easy. According to Plato, art can lead a man to think the artist to be more knowledgeable than they actually are. Art is also deceptive because of how they appeal to the senses. Our senses are misleading because they are all subjective. We all perceive our own realities thanks to our senses. Our mind interprets our senses, but our senses can be tricked to believe what the author wants us to believe. Subliminal messaging is real and can trick our senses, also it can be tricked using the optical illusions and other tricks of that nature. This is another way that art can be deceptive and in the eyes of Plato should not be trusted.

I agree with this criticism of art. In this day and age, there is no longer any objective art. All art has its own agenda and its own level of deceptiveness. When analyzing art one must take into account the intention of the artist and the bias of the artist before making any definitive beliefs about art. We can all decide for ourselves how much we want to be deceived. We must investigate any beliefs before we can fully commit to a belief.

(533 Words)

Preface:

William Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher and in this article he attempted to make an argument on what people should believe and how one should justify their own beliefs

Reconstruction of an argument in Standard Form:

1. All actions are influenced by our beliefs in some way
2. Action based on unjustified beliefs causes harm
3. Actions based on unjustified beliefs promote credulity
4. C: Therefore, it is always wrong to hold unjustified beliefs

Validity and Soudness:

In terms of validity, the argument is valid. The conclusion is true for the premises. The premises follow a logical process and lead to a conclusion that is true based on these premises. Now is the argument sound? This question is more difficult to answer. Clifford believes that, “it is not possible so to sever the belief from the action it suggests as
to condemn the one without condemning the other” and this why his argument is sound. In my opinion, I do not find the argument to be sound, because the premises can be considered untrue by some. I do not believe that all unjustified beliefs cause actions that are harmful. In my opinion donating money to a missionary for helping third world countries is an example of this. Those who participate do so in the name of “God.” I have deemed the existence of a god to be unjustified, but it is without question that helping the poor and disadvantaged is a good thing and does not cause harm. In order for an argument to be sound, all premises must be true and the conclusion must be true. In this case the conclusion is only true in the realm of the premises, but all the premises are not true, so therefore the argument is not sound.

Practical Significance:

This thesis has a great impact on the way one thinks. The argument is one that everything must be questioned to find the truths. No belief should be believed unless it has been thoroughly investigated and proven to be true. This is practical because we should investigate all of our beliefs and why we believe them because we have to make the best decisions for us based on our truest beliefs.

Fallacies:

A fallacy I can see this fall under is Circular Reasoning. I believe this to one that it falls under because in the viewpoints of this reading, there are no truths because everything can be investigated further. If we were to continue to investigate the validity of Clifford’s argument, it would loop to same reasoning of belief; that we must question things because everything is subjective. Beliefs are different to every person and no argument Clifford can make will make his argument sound or valid because truth is different to all.

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There are different fallacies and I will give my own original examples of the following twelve fallacies: 1) Begging the Question 2) Ad Hominem 3) Equivocation 4) Slippery Slope 5) Straw Man 6) Tu Quoque 7) Non-sequitur 8) False Dichotomy 9) Argument from ignorance 10) Red Herring 11) Anecdotal Evidence 12) Appeal to Authority.

Begging the Question:

1. It is okay to smoke weed but people shouldn’t be allowed to smoke weed because weed is already illegal.

Ad Hominem:

2. Bernie Sanders could never implement his policies, don’t you know he’s 78 years old? He’ll be dead before he ever could

Equivocation:

3. Nat King Cole says he used to visit all the gay places to feel the life of jazz and cocktails. But what does being Gay have to do with a place?

Slippery Slope:

4. Don’t smoke weed because weed will eventually not be enough and then you will have to switch to crack to get higher and then you will have to switch to meth and BANG! now you’re homeless! Do you really wanna smoke weed?

Straw Man:

5. Since you believe in a single-payer healthcare system, you must believe in destroying capitalism and destroying our economy.

Tu Quoque:

6. You’re telling me not to drive 100 mph on the freeway? I’ve seen you drive 75 mph on the freeway and you’re really telling me not to speed?

Non-sequitur:

7. Terrorists come from the Middle East. In the US people are allowed to come from the Middle East. We are in danger of a terrorist attack.

False Dichotomy:

8. I didn’t see you praying today, you must not be a good person.

Argument from Ignorance:

9. I have never seen gravity, so then gravity must not exist.

Red Herring:

10. Weed should not be legal because it hurts people. Don’t you know weed is a drug and drugs like heroin, meth, and crack are killing people everyday?

Anecdotal Evidence:

11. Driving drunk isn’t bad. My cousin always drives drunk and always makes it home safely. How can it be bad if my cousin can do it?

Appeal to Authority:
12. My doctor said I can smoke cigarettes daily, so it must be okay to smoke cigarettes daily.

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.

Valid Argument With a False Conclusion:

1. Cats can be Black
2. Daniel is a cat
3. Therefore Daniel is black.

A sound Argument:

1. Mammals are warm-blooded and have vertebrae.
2. Humans are warm-blooded and have vertebrae.
3. Therefore humans are mammals.

A weak inductive Argument:

1. I drive everyday and haven’t crashed.
2. I haven’t hit any people with my car
3. I won’t ever hit a car or person in my car

A strong inductive Argument:

1. California is a majority democratic state
2. Majority residents vote democratic
3. The state will vote democratic for president.

(99 words)