I know that I blogged something similar to this before, but I have
an hour commute that includes a lot of NPR and these things keep popping
up. The story had something to do with a
recent effort in Germany to piece back together old shredded Stasi files from
the Soviet days. Again, I apologize that
I don’t remember the details. But they
interviewed a young woman who was involved in the project and she explained her
participation thus: “If this work were
not important, I would not be doing it.”
~Iè~D
This seems like a
perfectly reasonable thing to say, but my logic reflex kicked in and I
immediately tried to discern her implicit premise and conclusion. Is this an example of modus tollens, or the fallacy of denying the antecedent?
P: ~Iè~D
P: D
C: I
This works (with
MT, DN), but seems strange: “If this
work were not important, I would not be doing it. But I am doing it. So, it must be important?”
It seems more
natural to say it the other way: “If
this work were not important, I would not be doing it. But it is important. So, that’s why I’m doing it.”
P: ~Iè~D
P: I
C: D
But, alas, this
is a clear case of FDA! Blasted logic! Perhaps the first formulation is not so
strange after all, but it threw me for a loop.
I must say that I quite enjoyed reading this post! I am a fan of NPR myself, and the discussion you bring to light is intriguing in itself. Your analysis is certainly correct. With that, we can determine she ought not to be arguing in the case of the latter example, for logic's sake. As well, the first proof provides at least one premise that we know: "She is doing the work" (D). That also provides good reason to stick with the MT, DN proof; the more you know about the truth of the premises, the better your argument.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Colby. The second proof is not the correct interpretation of the argument.
ReplyDeleteThe first is very clear and is a MT, DN proof.
Brilliant! I love it when students start seeing logic everywhere and trying to analyze it. Unfortunately, this can be surprisingly difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteI take her comment to be a way of affirming rhetorically that she thinks the work is very important. She offers this as an explanation (rather than an argument) for why she is doing it. This needs explaining, because the task is gargantuan and tedious -- re-assembling shredded documents from thousands of sacks of fragments -- and would certainly be soul-crushing if you didn't believe in it. The argument for the work's importance comes later in the report: the secret police went to great trouble under intense time pressure to suppress these documents, which they would not have done if the documents didn't contain something significant. That I think is her argument.