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A premise or premiss [a] is a proposition—a true or false declarative statement—used in an argument to prove the truth of another proposition called the conclusion. [1] Arguments consist of a set of premises and a conclusion. An argument is meaningful for its conclusion only when all of its premises are true. If one or more premises are ...
Inductive reasoning is any of various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations. [1] [2] This article is concerned with the inductive reasoning other than deductive reasoning (such as mathematical induction), where the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain given the premises are correct; in contrast, the truth of the ...
A term that describes itself. For example, the word "short" is autological because it is a short word. automaton A self-operating machine or, in computer science, a theoretical model of computation that performs tasks according to a set of rules or a program. automorphism
:= means "from now on, is defined to be another name for ." This is a statement in the metalanguage, not the object language. This is a statement in the metalanguage, not the object language. The notation a ≡ b {\displaystyle a\equiv b} may occasionally be seen in physics, meaning the same as a := b {\displaystyle a:=b} .
Premises and conclusions are the basic parts of inferences or arguments and therefore play a central role in logic. In the case of a valid inference or a correct argument, the conclusion follows from the premises, or in other words, the premises support the conclusion. [41]
Every argument's conclusion is a premise of other arguments. The word constituent may be used for either a premise or conclusion. In the context of this article and in most classical contexts, all candidates for consideration as argument constituents fall under the category of truth-bearer : propositions, statements, sentences, judgments, etc.
Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion. [3] Circular reasoning is closely related to begging the question, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing. [4]
Each of the premises has one term in common with the conclusion: in a major premise, this is the major term (i.e., the predicate of the conclusion); in a minor premise, this is the minor term (i.e., the subject of the conclusion). For example: Major premise: All humans are mortal. Minor premise: All Greeks are humans.