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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.
At present, syllogism is used exclusively as the method used to reach a conclusion closely resembling the "syllogisms" of traditional logic texts: two premises followed by a conclusion each of which is a categorical sentence containing all together three terms, two extremes which appear in the conclusion and one middle term which appears in ...
The statistical syllogism was used by Donald Cary Williams and David Stove in their attempt to give a logical solution to the problem of induction. They put forward the argument, which has the form of a statistical syllogism: The great majority of large samples of a population approximately match the population (in proportion)
B is the common term between the two premises (the middle term) but is never distributed, so this syllogism is invalid. B would be distributed by introducing a premise which states either All B is Z, or No B is Z. Also, a related rule of logic is that anything distributed in the conclusion must be distributed in at least one premise. All Z is B
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 ...
Modus tollens is a mixed hypothetical syllogism that takes the form of "If P, then Q. Not Q. Therefore, not P." It is an application of the general truth that if a statement is true, then so is its contrapositive. The form shows that inference from P implies Q to the negation of Q implies the negation of P is a valid argument.
The name "disjunctive syllogism" derives from its being a syllogism, a three-step argument, and the use of a logical disjunction (any "or" statement.) For example, "P or Q" is a disjunction, where P and Q are called the statement's disjuncts .
Classical logic is the standard logic of mathematics. Many mathematical theorems rely on classical rules of inference such as disjunctive syllogism and the double negation elimination. The adjective "classical" in logic is not related to the use of the adjective "classical" in physics, which has another meaning.