Validity and Soundness
Exercise
Answers
- Invalid. Counterexample: Katie is severely mentally handicapped and so
is not smarter than a chimpanzee.
- Invalid. Counterexample: suppose Bob just became a fireman, so he has
never actually put out any fires.
- Invalid. Counterexample: Although Gerald probably knows how to teach
mathematics, suppose he has just had a traumatic brain injury and no
longer knows how to teach mathematics. And suppose the injury is
recent enough for him not to have lost his job as a mathematics professor
yet.
- Invalid. Counterexample: A similar counterexample as #3 would work
equally as well here.
- Valid.
- Invalid. Counterexample: Perhaps Craig and Linda are married, but
Monique is Linda's secret lover and Craig just finds about it and is angry
and hates Monique (but still loves Linda).
- Invalid. Counterexample: suppose that although Orel Hershizer believes
that God exists, in fact God doesn't exist. In that case, Orel can't
communicate with God, since you can't communicate with something
that doesn't exist (i.e., communication is a two-way interaction).
- Valid.
- Valid.
- Valid.