After determining one set of skills that we hoped our students were learning in the introductory philosophy class at Carnegie Mellon University, we designed an experiment to test whether they were actually learning these skills. In addition, there were four sections of this course in the Spring of 2004, and the students in Section 1 were taught the material using argument diagrams as a tool to ...

The slippery slope argument (SSA) is generally treated as a fallacy by both traditional and contemporary theories of argumentation, but is frequently used and widely accepted in applied reasoning domains. Experiment 1 tests the hypothesis that SSAs are not perceived as universally weak arguments. The results provide the first empirical demonstration that SSAs vary predictably in their subjectiv...

Entire matrix-valued functions of a complex argument (entire matrix pencils) are considered. Bounds for spectral variations of pencils are derived. In particular, approximations of entire pencils by polynomial pencils are investigated. Our results are new even for polynomial pencils. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a nonzero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusi...

There are claims in the literature that the cosmological constant problem could be solved in a braneworld model with two large (micron-sized) supersymmetric extra dimensions. The mechanism relies on two basic ingredients: first, the cosmological constant only curves the compact bulk geometry into a rugby shape while the 4D curvature stays flat. Second, a brane-localized flux term is introduced ...

In a recent study of astrophysical “fine-tunings” (or “coincidences”), Robert Klee critically assesses the support that such astrophysical evidence might be thought to lend to the design argument (i.e., the argument that our universe has been designed by some deity). Klee argues that a proper assessment indicates that the universe is not as “fine-tuned” as advertised by proponents of the design...

Anselm’s Ontological Argument fails, but not for any of the various reasons commonly adduced. In particular, its failure has nothing to do with violating deep Kantian principles by treating ‘exists’ as a predicate or making reference to ‘Meinongian’ entities. Its one fatal flaw, so far from being metaphysically deep, is in fact logically shallow, deriving from a subtle scope ambiguity in Anselm...

We revisit the standard argument to estimate the scale of new physics (NP) beyond the SM, based on the sensitivity of the Higgs mass to quadratic divergences. Although this argument is arguably naive, the corresponding estimate, ΛSM < ∼ 2−3 TeV, works reasonably well in most cases and should be considered a conservative bound, as it ignores other contributions to the Higgs mass which are potent...

We have implemented a translator that translates Carneades Argument Graphs as specified in the LKIF files of the Carneades editor to a database specification of the Argument Interchange Format and vice versa. In this paper the algorithms for this translation are presented.

An explicit construction of a geodesic flow-invariant distribution lying in the discrete series of weight 2k isotopic component is found, using techniques from representation theory of SL2(R). It is found that the distribution represents an AC measure on the unit tangent bundle of the hyperbolic plane minus an explicit singular set. Finally, via an averaging argument, a geodesic flow-invariant ...