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Exercise One:

In this exercise, consider the following arguments, represented in various ways, and comment on the quality of their form.  Focus on what is explicitly said---do not introduce implicit reasons, even if it seems like the right thing to do.  When you are finished, compare your assessments with those in the key.  If you have any questions or complaints, please let me know.

1.  After correcting his account of the competition with Breca, Beowulf rebukes Unferth by saying, "You killed your own kith and kin, so for all your cleverness  and quick tongue, you will suffer damnation in the depths of hell.  The fact is, Unferth, if you were truly as keen or courageous as you claim to be Grendel would never have got away with such unchecked atrocity, attacks on your kind, havoc in Heoret and horrors everywhere." Beowulf, p. 41.

2.  If Idaho votes for Kerry, then Kerry will win the election.  Kerry will win the election, so I guess Idaho will be a blue state! 

3.  Look, think about an acorn---it grows up to be an oak tree, sure, but when it begins it's a nut, not a tree.  Same with people.  A fetus grows up to be a human being, but when it begins it's just a clump of cells and not a person.

4.  In Volume II, Chapter IX, the creature supplies several arguments for the conclusion that Victor Frankenstein must make him a mate.  One of these arguments goes something like this: "You created me and so are obliged to me as your creature. This obligation is in part to be just to me, and do what you can as father to improve my lot. My lot would be most improved by companionship. Therefore, you must create a companion for me."

5.  Upon waking to screams, Hrothgar runs to Heorot to find it bathed in blood, the door destroyed.  Inside, dismembered thanes lie dead on the floor, with others merely injured and moaning.  The inside of the hall is shattered, but the shatterer is nowhere in sight.  Still, based on what he sees, Hrothgar knows that Grendel has once again paid his great hall a midnight visit.

6.  If the Vikings ever win a Super Bowl, then I'll just drop over dead.  But it's obvious that the Vikings will never win a Super Bowl, so I guess I'll live forever!

7.  I must have met five or six UBC students at the philosophy conference over break, and they were all really smart.  That must be an amazingly smart student body up there at UBC!

8.  All pigs eat cheese; Snaggle is a pig; therefore, Snaggle eats cheese.

9.  I noticed that all the raspberries low to the ground were gone, while the ones higher on the canes were fine.  I figured it was the quail---we have a lot of quail in our yard.  So I got up early the other day, and sure enough, there were the quail, eating the berries near the ground.  So that's what happened!

10.   In Volume III, Chapter III of Frankenstein, the good doctor rebuffs the creature and rejects the demand that he create a mate.  In arguing for this, Frankenstein says that he has a duty to mankind, and since creating a mate could result in horrible consequences for mankind, including the creation of a race of human-hating "devils", it is his duty to reject the creatures demand.