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A syllogism (Ancient Greek: συλλογισμός, syllogismos, 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
A mixed hypothetical syllogism has two premises: one conditional statement and one statement that either affirms or denies the antecedent or consequent of that conditional statement. For example, If P, then Q. P. ∴ Q. In this example, the first premise is a conditional statement in which "P" is the antecedent and "Q" is the consequent.
Prototypical conditional sentences in English are those of the form "If X, then Y". The clause X is referred to as the antecedent (or protasis), while the clause Y is called the consequent (or apodosis). A conditional is understood as expressing its consequent under the temporary hypothetical assumption of its antecedent.
A logical fallacy in which a conditional statement is incorrectly used to infer its converse. For example, from "If P then Q" and "Q", concluding "P". alethic modal logic A type of modal logic that deals with modalities of truth, such as necessity and possibility. ambiguity
In propositional logic, material implication [1] [2] is a valid rule of replacement that allows a conditional statement to be replaced by a disjunction in which the antecedent is negated. The rule states that P implies Q is logically equivalent to not-or and that either form can replace the other in logical proofs.
The form of a modus ponens argument is a mixed hypothetical syllogism, with two premises and a conclusion: If P, then Q. P. Therefore, Q. The first premise is a conditional ("if–then") claim, namely that P implies Q. The second premise is an assertion that P, the antecedent of the conditional claim, is the case.
The central aspect of Aristotelian logic involves classifying all possible syllogisms into valid and invalid arguments according to how the propositions are formed. [112] [115] For example, the syllogism "all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal" is valid. The syllogism "all cats are mortal; Socrates is mortal ...
The corresponding conditional of a valid argument is a logical truth and the negation of its corresponding conditional is a contradiction. The conclusion is a necessary consequence of its premises. An argument that is not valid is said to be "invalid". An example of a valid (and sound) argument is given by the following well-known syllogism: