Part Four
Speaking Activities

1．Houses in Indonesia sometimes have their electrical outlets in the middle of the wall rather than at floor level．Why？A beginning of an explanation is that flooding is a danger in the Netherlands．Citing this fact does not help much，however，unless one remembers that Indonesia was formerly a Dutch colony．We can understand why the Dutch might put their electrical outlets above floor level in the Netherlands．It is safer in a country where flooding is a danger．Is flooding，then，a similar danger in Indonesia？Apparently not；so why did the Dutch continue this practice in Indonesia？The answer is that colonial settlers tend to preserve their home customs，practices，and styles．The Dutch continued to build Dutch-style houses with the electrical outlets where（for them）they are normally placed—that is，in the middle of the wall rather than at floor level．Restate this explanation in the form of an argument（that is，specify its evidence and warrant）．

2．Write a brief argument to explain each of the following．Indicate what facts and what general principles are employed in your explanations．（Do not forget those principles that may seem too obvious to mention．）

1）Why there is an infield fly rule in baseball．

2）Why there are more psychoanalysts in New York City than in any other city or，for that matter，in most countries in the world．

3）Why there are usually more college freshmen who plan to go to medical school than there are seniors who still plan to go to medical school in the US．

4）Why almost no textbooks are more than eighteen inches high．

5）Why paintings by Van Gogh cost so much．

6）Why wages go up when unemployment goes down．

3．Assuming a standard context，label each of the following arguments as deductive or inductive．Explain what it is about the words or form of argument that indicates whether or not each argument is intended or claimed to be valid．If it is not clear whether the argument is inductive or deductive，say why．

1）No woman has ever been elected president．Therefore，no woman will ever be elected president．

2）The house is a mess，so Jeff must be home from college．

3）If Harold were innocent，he would not go into hiding．Since he is hiding，he must not be innocent．

4）Nobody in Paris seems to understand me，so either my French is rotten or Parisians are unfriendly．

5）Because both of our yards are near rivers in Tennessee，and my yard has lots of mosquitoes，there must also be lots of mosquitoes in your yard．

6）Most likely，her new husband speaks English with an accent，because he comes from Germany，and most Germans speak English with an accent．

4．Although both in science and in daily life，we rely heavily on the methods of inductive reasoning，this kind of reasoning raises a number of perplexing problems．The most famous problem concerning the legitimacy of induction was formulated by the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume，in his Treatise ofHuman Nature ．A simplified version of Hume’s skeptical argument goes as follows：Our inductive generalizations seem to rest on the assumption that unobserved cases will follow the patterns that we discovered in observed cases．That is，our inductive generalizations seem to presuppose that nature operates uniformly：The way things are observed to behave here and now are accurate indicators of how things behave anywhere and at any time．But by what right can we assume that nature is uniform？Because this claim itself asserts a contingent matter of fact，it could only be established by inductive reasoning．But because all inductive reasoning presupposes the principle that nature is uniform，any inductive justification of this principle would seem to be circular．It seems，then，that we have no ultimate justification for our inductive reasoning at all．Is this a good argument or a bad one？Why？ uI0N72ehdo4/E6n5uKlxYeLwqDJ1Ckfc0yIm8iVa4Coskn3HjHdezYT7ILC7D+Ck