Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Updated Edition
- Preface to the Paperback Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Introduction
- I Fields of Argument and Modals
- II Probability
- III The Layout of Arguments
- IV Working Logic and Idealised Logic
- V The Origins of Epistemological Theory
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
II - Probability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Updated Edition
- Preface to the Paperback Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Introduction
- I Fields of Argument and Modals
- II Probability
- III The Layout of Arguments
- IV Working Logic and Idealised Logic
- V The Origins of Epistemological Theory
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
So terrified was he [my eldest brother] of being caught, by chance, in a false statement, that as a small boy he acquired the habit of adding ‘perhaps’ to everything he said. ‘Is that you, Harry?’ Mama might call from the drawing-room. ‘Yes, Mama—perhaps.’ ‘Are you going upstairs?’ ‘Yes, perhaps.’ ‘Will you see if I've left my bag in the bedroom?’ ‘Yes, Mama, perhaps—p'r'haps—paps!’
Eleanor Farjeon, A Nursery in the NinetiesThese first two studies are both, in different ways, preliminary ones. The aim of the first was to indicate in broad outline the structure our arguments take in practice, and the leading features of the categories we employ in the practical assessment of these arguments. By and large, I aimed throughout it to steer clear of explicitly philosophical issues and leave over to be discussed later the relevance of our conclusions for philosophy. The method of this second study will be rather different. We shall in the course of it carry our analysis of modal terms rather further; yet at the same time a secondary aim will be to indicate how the results of such an inquiry can be relevant to philosophical questions and problems; and certain broad conclusions will be suggested which will have to be established more securely and in more general terms in subsequent essays.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Uses of Argument , pp. 41 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003