Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
From the example above, humans, mortal, and Greeks: mortal is the major term, and Greeks the minor term. The premises also have one term in common with each other, which is known as the middle term; in this example, humans. Both of the premises are universal, as is the conclusion. Major premise: All mortals die. Minor premise: All men are mortals.
Premises and conclusions are normally seen as propositions. A proposition is a statement that makes a claim about what is the case. In this regard, propositions act as truth-bearers: they are either true or false. [18] [19] [3] For example, the sentence "The water is boiling." expresses a proposition since it can be true or false.
For example, "Snow is white" (in English) and "Schnee ist weiß" (in German) are different sentences, but they say the same thing, so they express the same proposition. Another definition of proposition is: Two meaningful declarative sentence-tokens express the same proposition, if and only if they mean the same thing. [citation needed]
Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises that leads to a conclusion. An example is the argument from the premises "it's Sunday" and "if it's Sunday then I don't have to work" leading to the conclusion "I don't have to work". [1] Premises and conclusions express propositions or claims that can be true or false. An important ...
The following is an example of an argument within the scope of propositional logic: Premise 1: If it's raining, then it's cloudy. Premise 2: It's raining. Conclusion: It's cloudy. The logical form of this argument is known as modus ponens, [39] which is a classically valid form. [40]
For example, the rule of inference called modus ponens takes two premises, one in the form "If p then q" and another in the form "p", and returns the conclusion "q". The rule is valid with respect to the semantics of classical logic (as well as the semantics of many other non-classical logics ), in the sense that if the premises are true (under ...
A syllogism is a three-proposition argument consisting of a major premise stating some universal truth, a minor premise stating some particular truth, and a conclusion derived from these two premises. [2] The practical syllogism is a form of practical reasoning in syllogistic form, the conclusion of which is an action.