Monday, February 17, 2014

A surprise exam

Intermediate Logic
Instructor: Alexander R. Pruss
Date: An unexpected day between February 17 and February 21, 2014, inclusive.

Name: _________________________

Closed book.  Answer all questions.  Be careful not to follow any of these directions.

Section A. Multiple choice. Circle exactly one option for each of these questions.

1. This sentence is not true.
(a) false
(b) true
(c) neither true nor false

2. Which of the following is not the answer you are circling?
(a) Elephant
(b) Frog

3. The sentence displayed at Question 4 is true.
(a) false
(b) true

4. The sentence displayed at Question 3 is not true.
(a) false
(b) true

5. Which of the following is the capital of China?

Section B. Short essay. Write a one page essay.

6. Give a valid deductive argument that dialetheism is incorrect without using premises or rules of inference that can together yield the law of noncontradiction.

Section C. Reflection. No writing necessary.

7. Reflect on the implications of this sentence for your grade: "If this sentence is true, you failed."

5 comments:

Dagmara Lizlovs said...

Looking at this "exam", I'm sure glad all my tuition dollars went to a degree in engineering. And I thought those surprise exams in my engineering classes where tough.

This all reminds me about one Latvian folk tale I remember hearing as a kid. The hero had the following "exam" assigned to him - "Aizej tur, nezin kur. Atnes to, nezin ko."

In translation it means - "Go somewhere, don't where. Bring back something, but don't know what."

It rhymes much better in Latvian. And I think this is my one page essay part of the exam.

Now off to "Section C. Reflection" and go back to my favorite daydreams.

Unknown said...
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john konnor said...

...easy test...:-)..thank you so much for this blog...

Arath55 said...

Dr. Pruss, what’s your thoughts on dialetheism.

Alexander R Pruss said...

Nothing beyond the simplistic thought that no other serious philosophical theory has been refuted as conclusively as dialetheism (namely, because its own authors explicitly admit to contradiction).