Two Monsters in Search of a Concept

What is a monster? At least three concepts have been proposed: Aristotle thinks a monster to be a mistake of purpose in nature; Noël Carroll thinks a monster to be a scientifically impossible being that arouses disgust and fear; Cynthia Freeland thinks a monster to be an evil being. Thus a two-headed calf is an Aristotelian monster; a werewolf a monster on Carroll\u27s definition; and Norman Bates of Hitchcock\u27s Psycho a monster on Freeland\u27s concept. These have no interesting overlaps. My project is to discuss Norman Bates and Mark Lewis (of Michael Powell\u27s Peeping Tom). Bates and Lewis are monsters, but only on Aristotle\u27s concept

Argument and Conviction

Shouldn\u27t we be convinced by good (valid) arguments and not by bad ones? But there are valid arguments with true premises that are not known to be true. What we minimally expect is that people follow the logic of the argument. How will they do this? Descartes advised us to perceive clearly and distinctly the steps in the argument. Aristotle looked toward the enthymeme so that the audience would draw the conclusion on their own. These \u27thinking through\u27 strategies are an aid to conviction but cannot guarantee it. Do we need the fallacies and other dirty tricks of rhetoric after all

Dependent and Independent Reasons

How are dependent (or linked) premises to be distinguished from independent (or convergent) premises? Deductive validity, sometimes proposed as a necessary condition for depende'nce, cannot be, for the premises of both inductive and deductive but invalid arguments can be dependent. The question is really this: When do multiple premises for a certain conclusion fonn one argument for that conclusion and when do they form multiple arguments? Answer: Premises are dependent when the evidence they offer for their conclusion is more than the ordinary sum of their probabilities. Ordinary sums are defined in the paper

TRUTH AND THE AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF WORKS OF FICTION.

TRUTH AND THE AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF WORKS OF FICTION