Probabilities

 

The Greek notion of probabilities is intimately tied to the practice of devising two-fold arguments, which developed into the topical system.

Corax and Tisias: Corax ("crow") was a teacher of rhetoric in Syracuse ca. 467 BCE. He offered a guarantee of success in litigation after taking his course. Tisias, his student, refused to pay his fee. In court, Tisias argued that if he won his case, he was exempt because he had won, and if he lost, he was exempt because he had failed at litigation. Corax argued that, if Tisias lost he had to pay the fee, but if he won he still had to pay because he had succeeded at litigation. The case was thrown out with the epigram "a bad egg from a bad crow." (Prolegomena sylloge No. 4, H. Rabe, Leipzig, 1931, p. 25ff.).

An example of an argument from probability. This one Aristotle attributes to Corax and claims it exemplifies "making the worse argument appear the better":

For if a man is not likely to be guilty of what he is accused of, for instance if, being weak, he is accused of assault and battery, his defence will be that the crime is not probable (e.g. is it likely that a weak man would even try to beat up a stronger man). But if he is likely to be guilty, for instance, if he is strong, it may be argued again that the crime is not probable, for the very reason that it was bound to appear so (e.g. Is it likely a strong man would beat up a weaker precisely because he would be the first to be suspected). (Rhetoric 1402a.)

 

An argument from probability in an editorial from the Winston-Salem Journal, 1/24/00. http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/opinion/editorials/left24a.htm.

Shifting Some Attitudes

Now what?

The possibilities, of course, are endless. The biotechnology and communications revolutions have opened up frontiers unimaginable just a few years ago. But a word of caution is appropriate. It is unlikely that the next wave of developments and discoveries in the Information Age is going to generate the speculative profits that the first wave has.

Now comes the hard work.

The science of cloning, for example, is literally marvelous. Scientists in the field of genetics have combined with venture capitalists to grow wealthy beyond dreaming as investors look to get aboard the next Microsoft or Xerox early.

The question of what form the commercialization of this science will take is less important, it seems, than the firm belief that commercialization will follow scientific discovery. It will, to be sure, but the relationship between the science and the commercialization may not be direct or predictable.

Writing in Atlantic Monthly, management guru Peter Drucker astutely points out that the businesses and industries that emerged from the early days of the Industrial Revolution were, to a large extent, surprises. Drucker says that the first 50 years of the Information Revolution appear closely to parallel the early days of the Industrial Revolution, which, he contends, wrought changes in society every bit as quickly and dramatically as has the invention of the computer.

Drucker makes the provocative observation, however, that it is e-commerce, not how information is communicated or used to formulate strategies, that is fueling the economy today. Lots of people were predicting in the 1970s, Drucker says, that ''the printed word would be dispatched electronically to individual subscribers' computer screens. Subscribers would then either read the text on their computer screens or download it and print it out. This was the assumption that underlay the CD-rom.''

No one predicted Amazon.com, which uses the new information technology to market books, the mass production of which began 500 years ago, give or take a decade or two.

What's the smart thing to do? Drucker argues compellingly for ''a drastic change in the social mind-set.'' He worries that the money people in control and fighting to maintain power won't be able to continue to bribe essential employees with options and bonuses because emerging industries are likely to grow at a decelerated, more normal pace.

What Drucker calls ''knowledge workers'' will need to be treated differently. Money will be only part of the equation. Social status will matter as much as economic status. In other words, employees will become partners. Their values as well as their material needs will have to be recognized and appreciated. Power will have to be shared.

Drucker is nonjudgmental about whether such an attitude adjustment by the current powerbrokers would be good or bad. It's simply necessary if Americans want to remain competitive in this marketplace without boundaries.

A judgment seems easy to make, however: Recognizing the importance of social, intellectual and spiritual values in a world too taken with material things can only be a welcome development.

Some more examples of argument from probability

1) All students who attend Catholic school are religious.

2) All religious people do not steal from others.

C) All Catholic school students do not steal.

 

Rebecca says: Both premises are probabilities. How is this true?

Two men, one in a suit and tie and the other in ragged clothes, are witnessed walking from a building shortly before a bomb goes off. When the one

who was wearing ragged clothes is later identified and brought in for questioning, he claims that he had no part in the bombing of the building

because if he did he would not have worn such ragged clothes that would make him stand out.

What is the opposite argument?

"If then it is agreed that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these [teeth for cutting, etc.] cannot be the result of

coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they [teeth] must be for an end. -Aristotle, Physics (II, ch.8)

This is an analytic (not dialectical or rhetorical) argument. Is either of the premises a probability?

Probability or sign?

Only a handful of Vice-Presidents have gone on to be elected President.

Al Gore's position doesn't give him any garaunteed advantage.

Well, is it probability or sign? Further, is it a deduction at all?