Week 8 — Midterm Review & Exam

Why this matters

A nursing student sorting what a chart shows from what it suggests and a juror keeping a tidy argument apart from a true one both use this week's habit: keep two easily blurred ideas apart.

In plain language

This chapter helps you review the first seven weeks before the midterm. Instead of rereading everything, you ask each topic for the one distinction it asks you to keep (a line between two ideas that are easy to mix up, such as a valid argument and a true one). You rerun each distinction on cases you have already met, so the review adds no new arguments to them. Then you meet one new idea: Pascal's wager (an argument that believing in God is the wise bet, offered as advice about what to believe rather than as proof). Your goal is to state each view fairly and to keep each pair of ideas apart, not to pick a winner.

• Already covered: Weeks 1 to 7, from Socrates and validity to mind, self, and free will.
• This week: seven distinctions reviewed, then Pascal's wager.
• How they connect: each distinction is a tool you have used; the wager is one more argument to test.
• Where we're going next: Week 9, Philosophy of Religion, a new unit on God.

Focus

What one distinction does each topic ask you to keep, and is it rational to bet on belief?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] tell valid from sound and deductive from inductive
• [ ] tell determinism from fatalism
• [ ] place "I think, therefore I am" in its source
• [ ] explain why Pascal's wager is not a proof

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 8 (~35–45 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Do the practice exercises (15–25 minutes).
3. Join the discussion (about 45 minutes).
4. Take the midterm, without AI help.

This week's checkpoint: name the two sides of each of the seven distinctions in one sentence each.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor early if stuck.

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