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Philosophy 103: Introduction to Logic
Logic Assessment Pretest Question 3

3. Evaluate the following disagreement.  John: Senator Jones maintained a stern and sullen silence during the meeting.  Mary: Not at all. Senator Jones was refreshingly outspoken during the meeting.  a. John and Mary agree in belief and attitude.  b. John and Mary agree in belief but disagree in attitude.  c. John and Mary agree in attitude but disagree in belief.  d. John and Mary disagree in both belief and attitude.  e. Either John is right or Mary is right, but both persons can't be right. Purpose for the Question:  One objective of logic is to learn effective methods for the resolution of a variety of disagreements.  This question is designed to find out if a student is aware of the difference between the literal or factual meaning (the belief) and the emotive meaning (the attitude). Question 3 cam be answered correctly by translating what is said into neutral language.		Phil 103 02 Archie
		Engl 373 04 Dumont-Poston
		Engl 101 22 Westcott

Since John uses negatively slanted language and Mary's is positively slanted, they disagree in attitude toward the Senator.

Since John and Mary disagree on  whether the Senator spoke or not, i.e., on what occurred, they disagree in belief as to what transpired.

Answer d is then correct--John and Mary agree in attitude, but disagree in belief.

Evaluation: These data do not seem comparable between classes.  There is surprising consistency both English classes, namely the occurrence of answer d is almost exactly twice as likely as answer e. One would expect that result  in an upper level English class, but not a freshman English class.  It is not clear why so many logic students select the throw-away answer e. This type of question will require additional hypotheses.

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