# The Philosopher's Toolkit  ## Metadata - Author: [[Peter S. Fosl and Julian Baggini]] - Full Title: The Philosopher's Toolkit - Category: #books ## Highlights - To judge whether or not the conclusion really must follow from the premises, you have to be sensitive to ambiguity in the premises as well as to the danger of accepting too easily a conclusion that seems to be supported by the premises but does not in fact follow from them. ([Location 825](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=825)) - Note: Interesting implication for hacking as well as developing secure code. What may seem to be deductive is actually not with the creative mind fudging with things. Many small exceptions can change whether an argument is truly 100% deductive guaranteed. - You might say that for Marx and Engels the economic substructure functions almost like the Freudian unconscious, determining the contents of our conscious minds without our even realising it. ([Location 6732](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=6732)) - Female jouissance points to polyclimactic poetics rather than the single climax around which works of art modelled on male orgasm are centred. Women’s practices of sharing, consultation, and non‐hierarchical organisation present insights into potentially more liberated forms of social and political life. ([Location 7107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=7107)) ## New highlights added April 15, 2024 at 7:42 AM - The important property of inductive inferences is that they determine conclusions only with probability, not how they relate specific and general claims. ([Location 860](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=860)) - There is, however, a price to pay. We must accept that engaging in inductive generalisation requires that we hold an indispensable belief which itself, however, must remain in an important way unjustified. As Hume puts it: ‘All our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments … must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question’ (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 4.19). Can we accept reasoning and sciences that are ultimately groundless? ([Location 939](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=939)) ## New highlights added April 29, 2024 at 8:12 AM - A sound argument must not only be valid; it must have true premises, as well. It is, strictly speaking, only sound arguments whose conclusions we must accept. ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=1020)) - It should be clear now that, as with validity, invalidity is not determined by the truth or falsehood of the premises but by the logical relations among them. This reflects a wider, and very important, feature of philosophy. Philosophy is not just about saying things that are true or wise; it’s largely about making true claims that are grounded in solid arguments. You may have a particular viewpoint on a philosophical issue, and it may just turn out by sheer luck that you’re right. But, in many cases, unless you can demonstrate that you’re right through good arguments, your viewpoint is not going to carry any weight in philosophy. Philosophers are not just concerned with the truth, but with what makes it the truth and how we can show that it’s the truth. ([Location 1081](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0875NSBM5&location=1081))