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Of the many and varied argument forms that can possibly be constructed, only very few are valid argument forms. In order to evaluate these forms, statements are put into logical form . Logical form replaces any sentences or ideas with letters to remove any bias from content and allow one to evaluate the argument without any bias due to its ...
Paul Elmer More says that, to Plato, evil resulted from the human failure to pay sufficient attention to finding and doing good: evil is an absence of good where good should be. More says Plato directed his entire educational program against the "innate indolence of the will" and the neglect of a search for ethical motives "which are the true ...
Forms of logical reasoning can be distinguished based on how the premises support the conclusion. Deductive arguments offer the strongest possible support. Non-deductive arguments are weaker but are nonetheless correct forms of reasoning. [28] [29] The term "proof" is often used for deductive arguments or very strong non-deductive arguments. [30]
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:
In the Elements of Logic, published in 1826 and issued in many subsequent editions, [19] Archbishop Richard Whately gave probably the first form of an argument map, introducing it with the suggestion that "many students probably will find it a very clear and convenient mode of exhibiting the logical analysis of the course of argument, to draw ...
Variations among argument–deduction–proof distinctions are not all terminological. Logician Alonzo Church [ 4 ] never used the word argument in the above sense and had no synonym. Church never explained that deduction is the process of producing knowledge of consequence and it never used the common noun deduction for an application of the ...
Meta-ethics is the study of the fundamental questions concerning the nature and origins of the good and the evil, including inquiry into the nature of good and evil, as well as the meaning of evaluative language. In this respect, meta-ethics is not necessarily tied to investigations into how others see the good, or of asserting what is good.
The logical argument from evil argued by J. L. Mackie, and to which the free-will defense responds, is an argument against the existence of God based on the idea that a logical contradiction exists between four theological tenets often attributes to God. Specifically, the argument from evil asserts that the following set of propositions are, by ...