I’m studying for my Philosophy class and don’t understand how to answer this. Can you help me study?

PHIL 2 Puzzles and Paradoxes Fall 2020

Week 6 Quiz

In a concise—1-page—yet nevertheless coherent and well-structured essay, respond to the following prompt:

Present the distinction between a necessary and a sufficient condition for something. Illustrate the distinction with some of your own examples. Why is it thought to be insightful to be able to present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for something?

Discussion

N.B. Submit 2! responses to other students

Some philosophers distinguish artifacts from natural objects in a way that renders only natural objects, not artifacts, as genuine substances. In this week’s reading assignment, Baker refutes five arguments for this claim (all from David Wiggins). The first argument says that Fs are genuine substances only if Fs have an internal principle of activity, and since artifacts lack an internal principle of activity, artifacts aren’t genuine substances.

For this week, discuss Wiggins’s argument and Baker’s response. Then, using your own examples, explain either why you think that Wiggins is correct or why you think that Baker is correct. And as you respond to your peers, focus on their reason for thinking that one of these views is correct.