CCC8011 Critical Thinking Term 2, 2021-2022

Assignment 1
Full name: ISOQOV OTABEK
Student ID: 4174433

Q1) Determine what problems the following reportive definitions have. Explain your
answers. Appeal to possible situations to explain your answer where helpful to do so.
a) ‘speaker’ (on one meaning) means ‘machine that can make sound’.

a. The reportive definition for the word speaker is very general and can be improved
as follows:

Firstly, it is not correct that all the machines that can make sound be a speaker.
For example, car is also a machine that can make sound. However, it is not a
speaker.

Secondly, the word speaker has some other meanings as well. For example,
speaker can be a person who speaks to others. Moreover, the speaker can be a
lecturer, teacher or orator who speaks in front of audience.

b) ‘river’ means ‘natural flow of water in a long line having a width of at least 10 metres
that travels across land to the sea’

b. The definition for the word river is too narrow in this example. According to the
definition above, the river should have the width of at least 10 metres. However,
there are some rivers, like China’s Hawaian river with the width of less than 1
metre.

Q2) Which of the following are true. Explain your answers.

a) Necessarily, either there are kangaroos in Australia or there are no Kangaroos in

either Australia or New Zealand

a. False. It is not necessary that kangaroos are in Australia or New Zeeland. Even though
kangaroos are native for Australia and some islands of New Zeland, most of them live in zoos
of different countries.

b) In the future, Dan might travel faster than the speed of light between Hong Kong and
Paris.

b. distance from Hong Kong to Paris: 9620km and speed of light: 299 792 458 m / s
Physically: False, Dan is a human. Fastest human – Husain Bolt spent 9.58 seconds to
run for 100m. Its is almost equal to 10m/s which is 29979245.8 times smaller than Bolt’s
speed.
Technologically: False, fastest rocket ever built by NASA travels at a pace of 365,000
km/h which is almost 70 times slower than the speed of light.
Genuinely: True, because we can imagine

1
 CCC8011 Critical Thinking Term 2, 2021-2022

c) The following could have been the case: the number of US citizens is 300 million, the
number of Chinese citizens is 1400 million and the number of people who are either
US citizens or Chinese citizens is 1600 million

c. True. Its genuinely possible that 1600 million people have either Chinese or USA (or both)
citizenship.

d) For any thing x, necessarily, either x is a red square or x is not red or x is not a square

d. False. Its genuinely possible that anything x, maybe other color or other shape. It is not
necessary to be either red, square or not.

Q3) Are these statements true or false? For those that are false, describe a possible situation
that explains your answer.

a) Being the greatest president is sufficient for not being the worst president
a. False. Mao Zedong, for example, often referred as the greatest chairman (president) of
china, was the worst president in terms of cruelty and torture of the people. According to
Wikipedia, total number of people died in the mid of 20 th century from Mao’s rules was
almost 55million.
Its possible that you just have one president (only person best one the worst one
compared to others)

b) Being known to be true is necessary for being true

b. False. Most of the claims and ideas about the wolrd/life were known as true unless someone
proved them to be wrong. For example, the claim that sun rotates around the earth was being
known to be true, unless Nicolaus Copernicus proved that earth, with all other planets rotates
around the sun.

Q4) Which of the following arguments are valid. For those that are not valid, describe a
possible situation where all the premises are true and the conclusion is false.

a) John is happy and Mary is happy

Bill is happy or Sue is sad
Bill is happy or Jane is sad
---------------------------------------
Bill is happy

a. It is NOT VALID, because the first premise “John is happy, and Mary is happy”
does not entail the conclusion. For an argument to be valid, each of its premises should
entail the conclusion. If we did not have the first premise, then the argument would be valid.

b) John is happy and Mary is happy

If John is happy then (Bill is happy or Sue is sad)
If Mary is happy then (Bill is happy or Sue is not sad)

2
 CCC8011 Critical Thinking Term 2, 2021-2022
----------------------------------------------------------------
Bill is happy

b. It is VALID

c) John is happy or Mary is happy

If John is happy then (Bill is happy and Sue is happy)
Mary is not happy
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sue is happy

c. It is VALID

d) Mr X has a drink
Whenever Mr X has a drink, he has another drink
If all the drink runs out, then Mr X stops drinking
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mr X has infinitely many drinks

d. It is VALID

e) If Carrie Lam is less than 6 metres tall, then she is less than 7 metres tall
If Carrie Lam is less than 7 metres tall, then she is less than 8 metres tall
If Carrie Lam is less than 8 metres tall, then she is less than 9 metres tall
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carrie Lam is less than 9 metres tall

e. It is VALID

f) Either John is happy, or Mary is happy

If John is happy then Mary is sad.
If Mary is happy then John is happy.
If Mary is sad then Mary is not happy.
--------------------------------------------
Mary is not happy

f. It is VALID

p or q or both
if p not q
if q then p
----------------
Not q

3
 CCC8011 Critical Thinking Term 2, 2021-2022

Q5) Is the following group of statements consistent? If it is consistent, describe a possible

situation where the members of the set are all true. If it is not consistent, explain why.

All Huawei phones are terrible, but some are better than others
No Huawei phone is better than any Sony phone
No Sony phone is better than any Samsung phone
No Samsung phone is better than any iPhone
No iPhone is better than any Huawei phone

The following group of statements is consistent, even though it is unlinekely to be true. As

we know, to a group of statements be true, all of it’s statements should be logically true at the
same time. Let us make a statement form for this group of statements.

HU is terrible
HU no better than SON
SON no better than SAM
SAM no better than iPHO
--------------------------------------
iPHO no better than HU

Even though we know that Huawei are not good as Sony, Sony phones are not good as
Samsung and Samsung phones are not good as iPhones, there still be some iPhones that are
not better than any Huawei.