The Existential Assumption and The Square of Opposition

The Existential Assumption and The Square of Opposition

Description/Paper Instructions

The Existential Assumption and The Square of Opposition

In the classical and medieval version of the Square of Opposition, the truth of an A-proposition entails the truth of the corresponding I-proposition.  So, if “All horses are mammals” are true, then “At least one horse is a mammal” is true.  Why is this called “the existential assumption”?  And is it a good assumption to make? Up to 20 points for your comment, and 10 for your reply to someone else.

Reply To:

The reason why it is called the existential assumption is because it implies that some class is not empty, which means that there is at least one member of the class. I would agree that it is a good assumption because of the fact that horses are real subjects that exist in the world and are categorized as mammals. In addition, we could swap the subject with the predicate in the I-claim and see if the meaning is preserved or not. According to the material within the Module Two, when we mean “at least one”, we could use “some'” to indicate that there could also be more than one. Based on this rule, the claim “At least a horse is a mammal” can be rewritten as “Some horses are mammals”. Next, we could swap the subject and the object and come up with a claim as “Some mammals are horses“, which seems to be valid and is also applicable to reality. Edited by An Hsuan Kung on Sep 18 at 2:51pm

The Boundary Between Culture And Personality 2002 Discussion

SUMMARY

? Summarize the reading by describing its overall arc as well as its most

central details.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

? Identify the primary thesis, argument, issue, or research questions

presented in the reading.

? Identify and briefly summarize a primary theoretical orientation that the

author/s use.

? Explicate how the author/s apply theory to their topic to support their

thesis and critical analysis.

? Explicate at least two key examples (ethnographic, statistical, media,

current event, etc.) that the author/s use to support their primary

argument and critical analysis.

? Explicate any counterarguments to the primary arguments that the

author/s address (not all readings will do this).

? Critically analyze how effective their work is – provide a few specific

examples of its strong and weak points.

CONCLUSION

? Describe and critically analyze an element of the reading that

particularly impacted you.

2

? Explain how the work in your chosen reading contributes to

psychological anthropology.