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Topic: Premise (argument)

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False premise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For this reason, an argument based on false premises can be much more difficult to refute, or even discuss, than one featuring a normal logical error, as the truth of its premises must be established to the satisfaction of all parties. This argument is logically valid, but quite demonstrably wrong, because its first premise is false - one could hose down the streets, the local river could have flooded, etc. A simple logical analysis will not reveal the error in this argument, since that analysis must accept the truth of the argument's premises. Another feature of an argument based on false premises that can bedevil critics, is that its conclusion can in fact be true. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/False_premise   (287 words)

Essays However, if there are other premises that support the conclusion in spite of the false premise, and especially if the premise has either an ambiguous, inconsequential or contingent truth-value, we ought to consider the higher significance of the argument by seeking to maintain the conclusion. For all the forms in which premises deliver substance to an argument, and for all the valid conclusions that correspond directly to premises, there are situations in which an unusual kind of validity is still applicable when conditional, quantifying and other kinds of premises turn out to be partly false. Whether the conclusion is true or false depends on the truth or falsity of its set of premises, so it follows that if all premises in a valid argument are true, then the conclusion must be true. www.adambell.20m.com /custom3.html   (287 words)

Christian CADRE--Trimming Hedges As is obvious, the syllogism breaks down because the major premise says substantially the same thing as the minor premise, in which case, we have a circular argument. Now, for the sake of argument, I will agree his first premise is correct if we are limited to the question of how “organizational complexity” could arise in a material universe. While I could comment that it is not been proven that science will ever be able to create true intelligence, for the sake of argument I will accept this premise as uncontroversial. christiancadre.org /member_contrib/bk_paley.html   (287 words)

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Socrates "Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence" is the major premise of Socrates' argument, and may be said to be the major premise, explicit or implicit, of every teleological argument formulated since his time. He was, however, interested in the question of the existence of God and formulated an argument from design which was afterwards known as the "Teleological Argument" for the existence of God. In the absence of primary sources -- Socrates, apparently, never wrote anything -- we are obliged to rely on these writers and on a few references of Aristotle for our knowledge of what Socrates taught. www.newadvent.org /cathen/14119a.htm   (287 words)

THE PREMISE In the end, the premise wins the argument because the boy chooses his father and the wife sees he has become a better parent because of his choices. A premise is an argument and it’s your job to prove it. So, the premise creates an argument which you have to prove to make the story work. jameshudnall.com /write8.htm   (1788 words)

Fallacies [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is 'contained' in the premises from which it is deduced, this containing might seem to be a case of presupposing, and thus any deductively valid argument might seem to be begging the question. One widely accepted definition defines a fallacious argument as one that either is deductively invalid or is inductively very weak or contains an unjustified premise or that ignores relevant evidence that is available and that should be known by the arguer. This argument clearly would not commit the fallacy if there were an implicit premise indicating that he is a person and persons shouldn't torture other beings. www.utm.edu /research/iep/f/fallacies.htm   (1788 words)

Critical Thinking: Chapter One Invalid argument: A deductive argument in which the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises―that is, a deductive argument in which it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Valid argument: A deductive argument in which the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises―that is, a deductive argument in which it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Weak argument: An inductive argument in which the conclusion does not follow probably from the premises―that is, an inductive argument in which it is not likely that if the premises are true the conclusion is true. www.csubak.edu /~jcarpenter/Assignments/StudyGuide01.htm   (1788 words)

First Handout AND the argument is valid because it is clearly impossible for "Snow is white" to be true as premise and false as conclusion. For example, consider an argument from the premise that an altruistic stage of moral development occurs AFTER a selfish stage to the conclusion that altruism ought to be preferred to selfishness. A bad argument (or fallacy) is one that has at least one of the following defects: (1) It is not logically correct; and/or (2) It has at least one false premise; and/or (3) It contains a "methodological" error. www.msu.edu /~marianaj/Handout1.htm   (6138 words)

pre16 The reactionary argument is not adhering to the basic premise of the view in question with regard to the definition of God. The original argument is not trying to prove that God is absolute in virtue because this is already assumed as a basic foundational premise. One cannot refuse to allow that premise and import a different premise an then begin ones argument against the view without engaging in faulty reasoning and methodology. hiramjr.com /files/pre16.html   (6138 words)

Design Arguments for the Existence of God [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Paley's argument, unlike arguments from analogy, does not depend on premise asserting a general resemblance between the objects of comparison. Paley's watchmaker argument is clearly not vulnerable to Hume’s criticism that the works of nature and human artifacts are too dissimilar to infer that they are like effects having like causes. What matters for Paley's argument is that works of nature and human artifacts have a particular property that reliably indicates design. www.iep.utm.edu /d/design.htm   (8076 words)

Modus tollens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia An argument can be valid even though it has a false premise. But notice that it does not mean the argument is invalid, since it remains the case that, if the premises are true (and in this case they are not), the conclusion would follow, even though in this particular case the premise is false. If an argument is modus tollens and both its premises are true, then it is sound. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Modus_tollens   (8076 words)

submit10 If the minor premise denies the consequent of the major premise in a hypothetical syllogism the argument is valid. If the minor premise affirms the antecedent of the major premise in a hypothetical syllogism the argument is valid. If the minor premise affirms the consequent of the major premise in a hypotheticalsyllogism the argument is valid. webpages.charter.net /Phil106/submit10.html   (177 words)

3 Formalities of A-Fortiori For, whereas the major premise guarantees that 'Q is R', if we express the minor premise merely as 'P is not R enough to be S' then that 'P is not R' remains a possibility, and the conclusion has to be a more indefinite negation of the major premise of the root primary argument (i.e. In the case of copulative argument, premises of different types and categories of modality would need to be examined; in the case of implicational argument, additionally, the different modes of implication would have to be looked into. Note well that the minor premise may concern either the major or the minor term, as the case may be. www.thelogician.net /3_judaic_logic/3_chapter_03.htm   (4894 words)

the evangelical outpost: Comment on A Lesson in Logic for Brian Leiter Premise 1 (Major Premise): All people who have made an argument that has been shown to display no knowledge of the issues at hand, as well as their inability to recognize this, are intellectually incompetent. Premise 2 (Minor Premise): Joe Carter is a person who has made an argument to display no knowledge of the issue at hand, as well as Joe's inability to recognize this. The minor premise is, then, the premise that attributes some sort of categorical relationship between the minor term (usually the instance or category of interest, e.g., Socrates in the syllogism showing that he's mortal) and X, the first term, from the major premise. www.evangelicaloutpost.com /mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=570   (2384 words)

Logical Fallacies Since the whole point of an argument is to show that the conclusion of that argument is true, the conclusion cannot be considered valid until all the premises and the logic of the argument are shown to be valid. Hence, if the conclusion is necessary to a premise (or is a premise!), that premise cannot be shown to be valid (without finding different argument for the conclusion). A strawman is a type of red herring where an opponent's position is misrepresented, and to burn a strawman means to attack and refute the misrepresentation rather than the actual argument. www.tektonics.org /logical_fallacies.html   (2384 words)

Mysteries of Existence ABSTRACT: Philosophers often argue, "Unless P, X is mysterious; therefore, P" or "The theory that P solves the problem of X; therefore, P." But their arguments are commonly vitiated by the failure to provide any substantive explanation of the alleged problem invoked in the premise. In most cases, key premises of key arguments are carefully examined and defended in analytic philosophy, with this important exception: when the premise is that there exists a certain philosophical 'mystery' or 'problem', the premise is almost never scrutinized. Excluding his earlier 'argument from relativity', which is supposed to be a separate argument. home.sprynet.com /~owl1/mystery.htm   (7891 words)

Categorical Syllogism In other words, if the predicate term of the conclusion is in the second premise, the argument is not in standard form and it must be rewritten with the premises switched to put it in standard form. A categorical syllogism is an argument which has two categorical propositions for premises and one categorical proposition as the conclusion. If one of the premises is negative, then the conclusion must be negative, and if the conclusion is negative, then one of the premises must be negative. skyway.usask.ca /~wiebeb/Syllogism.html   (7891 words)

Informal Fallacies In this argument the premise both presupposes the conclusion and is cited as evidence for the conclusion. A circular argument, in other words, begin with what it is supposed to end up- they use their own conclusion as a stated or unstated premise. Since an argument is meant to prove its conclusion by citing different and independent premises, an argument which repeats or presupposes its conclusion, as arguments which beg the question do, are also called circular. home.earthlink.net /~kaveh303/InformalFallacies.html   (7891 words)

A Philosophical Argument for the Incoherency of Libertarian Free Will - TheologyWeb Campus Well, if the fact that the premises of a valid deductive argument are together logically inconsistent with the denial of its conclusions constitutes an instance of question begging, then all valid deductive arguments are question begging. If one denies the conclusion of a valid deductive argument and maintains that all the other premises, save one, are true, then one must conclude that the remaining premise is false. But, premise 4 in my argument is not logically equivalent to the conclusion. www.theologyweb.com /forum/showthread.php?t=5896   (3205 words)

1.2d an argument that either leaves the major premise, minor premise, or conclusion unstated; or that reaches a probable conclusion. an argument with a major premise, minor premise and a conclusion, which reaches a probable conclusion an argument with a major premise, minor premise and a conclusion, which reaches an absolutely certain conclusion www.humboldt.edu /~act/HTML/tests/logic/1.2d.html   (102 words)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument: A Summary To be a sound argument, however, the KCA must have true premises, and thus the bulk of this presentation will attempt to support the premises. To be successful each of these arguments must be logically valid and have true premises. Put simply, kalam arguments try to demonstrate (1) that the existence of an actual infinite (a concept from modern set theory to be discussed shortly) is impossible and (2) that even if it were possible, the universe itself is not actually infinite and hence must have had a beginning. ourworld.compuserve.com /homepages/billramey/kalam.htm   (4016 words)

A Big Bang Cosmological Argument For God's Nonexistence It might be objected that a crucial premise of the atheistic argument, premise (1) that 'the big bang singularity is the earliest state of the universe,' is false since it is based on a reification of the singularity. My argument is that (4) is inconsistent with the hypothesis that God created the earliest state of the universe, since it is true of God that if he created the earliest state of the universe, then he would have ensured that this state is animate or evolves into animate states of the universe. My argument presupposes only that there are efficient ways and inefficient ways, where an efficient way is one whereby animate states predictably evolve in accordance with natural laws and an inefficient way one whereby animates states do not evolve in accordance with natural laws but require divine interventions. www.infidels.org /library/modern/quentin_smith/bigbang.html   (4016 words)

The Ontological Argument: God is Perfect and Thus Exists We can show that the classic ontological argument fails by keeping the erroneous second premise and replacing the first one with: "Utopia is the most perfect ('the greatest') society conceivable." The parallel conclusion that Utopia (or "the greatest car," or whatever) must exist is clearly false. An overview of the major ontological arguments for the existence of a god, that is, arguments drawn from analytic, a priori premises rather than observations of the natural world. Oppy provides a "general ground" for rejecting modal theistic arguments, arguments for the existence of God which makes use of the premise that God is a being who exists in every possible world. www.infidels.org /library/modern/theism/ontological.html   (798 words)

Logic Lesson 2 They are a type of deductive argument, that is, the conclusion (provided the argument form is valid) follows with necessity from the premises. Major Premise: All M are P. Minor Premise: All S are M. Conclusion: All S are P. Exercise 2 provides you an opportunity to analyze categorical syllogisms. What indicates that the first premise is the major premise is the presence of the predicate term of the conclusion: "mortal" in the first example; "animals" in the second. www.philosophy.uncc.edu /mleldrid/Logic/l02.html   (798 words)

Validity and Soundness [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] According to the definition of a deductive argument (see the entry on Deduction and Induction), the author of a deductive argument always intends that the premises provide the sort of justification for the conclusion whereby if the premises are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true as well. It might also be suggested, especially with the first argument, that while (even without the additional premise) there is a necessary connection between the premise and the conclusion, the sort of necessity involved is something other than "logical" necessity, and hence that this argument (in the simple form) should not be regarded as logically valid. This argument is invalid, and all invalid arguments are unsound. www.iep.utm.edu /v/val-snd.htm   (1351 words)

Rhetorical Figures in Sound: Enthymeme The idea here is that audiences who have to draw out premises or conclusions for themselves are more likely to be persuaded by the overall argument. Yet another reason to excluded a premise or conclusion is to let the audience infer it. Statements may be strategically excluded in an enthymeme because they are too obvious or because revealing them might damage the force of the argument. www.americanrhetoric.com /figures/enthymeme.htm   (416 words)

Ebon Musings: Unmoved Mover In this case, the kalam argument's premise 3 fails and therefore the entire argument fails. This type of argument is also novel in another important way: while the other four classes of argument discussed so far implicitly grant the existence of atheism as a position and then attempt to show why it should be considered false, the presuppositional argument essentially denies that atheism exists as a position at all. Briefly, this argument states that Jesus claimed to be God, and there are only three possible reasons for this: that he was telling the truth, that he was knowingly lying, or that he was deluded and insane. www.ebonmusings.org /atheism/unmovedmover.html   (416 words)

circular. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. Using a premise to prove a conclusion that in turn is used to prove the premise: a circular argument. Circuitous; roundabout: took a circular route to the office. Shaped like or nearly like a circle; round. www.bartleby.com /61/35/C0363500.html   (144 words)

Premise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A premise (also "premiss" in British usage) is a statement presumed true within the context of a discourse, especially of a logical argument. Premises are land and buildings together considered as a place of business. The accuracy of the conclusion depends on the truth of the premises. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Premise   (173 words)

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