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SUBJECT:  POSITION PAPER 4 ANALYSIS
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First, the class did much better on this position paper than on the
previous ones, perhaps due to the clarity forced on you by the
thinksheet outline (?), or perhaps due to my warnings and advice about
how to evaluate validity :-)

	The grades ranged from 27 points (out of 39) = C+
	                    to 39                    = A
	with an average of     35.8                  = A-

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Second, a few small points:

* Despite what the word sounds like and what it's about, the circle-c
  word has nothing to do with "WRITE":  It's COPYRIGHT, past tense is
  "copyrighted"--authors have a legal RIGHT to COPY their own work.

* While I'm on the topic, the possessive of "it" is:  its
  And the contraction of "it is" is:  it's
  (I just found a neat website, besides my own "How to Write" site,
   that discusses these things:
	"Common Errors in English Usage"
	http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

* Finally, several of you were misled by the common meaning of
  "literary".  In its legal sense, it just means "having to do with
  letters", i.e., written in language; its legal meaning is not
  primarily concerned with literature.  See:
http://dictionary.oed.com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/cgi/entry/50134137?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=literary&first=1&max_to_show=10

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Here's a brief analysis:
As noted in the thinksheet, there are 3 arguments:

Arg't A = 1,2,3/.'. 4
Arg't B = 5,6  /.'. 7
Arg't C = 4,7,9/.'. 10

All 3 are valid!  Here's why:

A:  If a hardwired computer program is a physical machine (2),
    & if a physical machine can be patented (3),
    then a hardwired computer program can be patented.	(4)

    (For those of you who know some set theory, this is just the
    transitivity of the subset relation.  For those of you who
    know some logic, this is just the transitivity of the implication
    relation, also known as hypothetical syllogism.)

    Note that premise 1 really plays no role in this;
    I probably could have omitted it.  But extra premises do no harm.

B:  If a printed text of a computer program is a literary work (5),
    & if literary works can be copyrighted (6),
    then such computer programs can be copyrighted. (7)	

    (Valid for reasons similar to A, above)

C:  If a hardwired computer program can be patented (4)
    & if a printed-text computer program can be copyrighted (7)
    & hardwired computer programs are the same kind of thing
      as printed-text computer programs (9),
    then computer programs can be patented and copyrighted (10)

	NOTE THAT STATEMENT 8 IS *NOT* PART OF THIS ARGUMENT!

    (This is a fundamental law of equality:  Things that are
    equal to each other have the same properties.)

So, you really only need to evaluate the argument for soundness;
i.e., are all the premises true
(or, more leniently, do you agree with all of the premises)?  

Since conclusion 10 conflicts with the law (8), which you have to
accept, even if you disagree with it, you cannot accept 10.

But the argument to 10 is valid, so at least one of 4, 7, 9 is false!

But if 4 is false, then--because the argument to 4 is valid--either
2 or 3 must be false.

Or if 7 is false, then--because the argument to 7 is valid--either 5 or
6 must be false.

Or 9 could be false.

Alternatively, if you are fimrly convinced, for good reason, that
2,3,5,6 are all true, then you must think that the law (as expressed in
3,6, and, especially, 8) must be changed.  How?

As I noted in the grading scheme, Newell 1985-1986 argues that at least
one of 2,3,5,6 is false (i.e., "the models are broken"), while Koepsell
2000 argues that the law needs to be changed.

========================================================================
Subject: Re: PP4 Statistics and Analysis
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport@buffalo.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 12:35:13 -0400 (EDT)

A student writes:
"I thought it was all one continuous argument, hence premise 8 must be
included when deciding if the final conclusion is valid."

Reply:  
Nope; that's why I organized the thinksheet outline as I did.
The outline only asked for the evaluation of the 3 "sub"arguments, none
of which included statement 8 (well, except for the very early version
with a typographical error that I sent email about and corrected online).

The logical structure of the reasoning is that there is a sequence of 3
valid arguments that conclude (validly, as it happens) that certain
computer programs can be both patented and copyrighted, which
contradicts the law as stated in 8. Something's got to give. Some
believe that the argument is sound, so the law has to change; others
believe that the argument is unsound (and then it becomes a question of
which premise has to be rejected).

For what it's worth, students who included 8 as a premise and then both
stated and explained why the argument with conclusion 10 was invalid
got full credit, only losing points if they either failed to say
whether that argument was valid or failed to adequately explain why
they thought is was valid or invalid.