Need Advice helping answer these philosophic questions?

Question

Hi there folks I was assign this question by our professor and I need advice anwsering then everybody got issued diffrent ones and this are the ones that I got pinned with. I need advice on how to answer them because he is going to ask everyone to answer one of their questions, so please much help is appreciated?

1. Is there a fact of the matter as to whether philosophic claims are true or false? (e.g. God does or does not exist, no actions are free, abortion is immoral, you ought not to believe in evolution)? why or why not?

2. Provide an argument and clearly identify its logical form. Is your argument valid? sound?

Answer 1

1. Take "Does God exist?" How could you find out short of meeting God? Other people who say he does might be wrong, or deliberately deceiving you. If even half of what they say about God is true -- for example he's a spiritual being -- then there's no physical body to meet. Maybe there's an experience to have. But how can I be sure my experience is the same as yours? What about the Bible, or the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita? Don't they prove God exists? Does God exist because the Bible says he does? But why believe what the Bible says? Because it's the word of God? That's a circular argument, and not valid.

You see how it goes. Once you start to question, you find out there's no firm foundation. We sort of float at a level of trust -- floors will hold us up, the sun will rise in the east, the other guy will stay on his side of the road.

2. Logic is easy. How about

Birds build nests.
Sparrows build nests.
Therefore sparrows are birds.

logical form is

b → n
s → n
--------
s → b

It looks like hypothetical syllogism, but conclusion and second premise are reversed. It's not valid. That would be obvious if you replaced "sparrows" with "squirrels." Then you'd have true premises and a false conclusion, which valid arguments never have.

Answer 2

Well phiosophic claims are necessarly true, they just give us a reasonal explation for things that might puzzle us, like the bible? well thats because no ones if god does, or dosen't exist...and abortion, clearly some might say its wrong, but some philisophers might say its "debatable"..there is basically no answer, since it varies due to different circumstances..for eg..young mother was raped, should she have the child? etc.

Answer 3

I HOPE THIS HELPS

In my life and all the classes I've taken you will ALWAYS be right if you answer their question with a Question.