LOGICAL AND CRITICAL THINKING

CHAPTER NO. 2

LLB SEMESTER 3rd

Chapter 2 Arguments in Logics and Reasoning
An Argument is a series of two or more propositions arranged such that one proposition is
being supported and one or more propositions are supporting the conclusion. The term comes
from the Latin, argumentum, which meant indication. In short, an argument definition is the
giving of reasons to prove or support a position.

In evaluating an argument, one can examine whether the premises are true. True premises are
part of a good argument. However, one can also examine the structure of the argument. That is,
one can examine the logic of the argument. Logic is the study of the relationship among claims
in an argument. Studying logic entails not only learning the patterns of good arguments, but also
that of bad arguments. So, what is the logical argument definition? A logical argument is one in
which the premises, if true, strongly or even definitely imply the truth of the conclusion. Further,
logical arguments avoid fallacies, which are errors in reasoning.

Identifying Arguments
People often use “argument” to refer to a dispute or quarrel between people. In critical
thinking, an argument is defined as
Argument
A set of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the others are the premises.
There are three important things to remember here:
1. Arguments contain statements.
2. They have a conclusion.
3. They have at least one premise
Arguments contain statements, or declarative sentences. Statements, unlike questions or
commands, have a truth value. Statements assert that the world is a particular way;
questions do not. For example, if someone asked you what you did after dinner yesterday
evening, you wouldn’t accuse them of lying. When the world is the way that the statement
says that it is, we say that the statement is true. If the statement is not true, it is false.
One of the statements in the argument is called the conclusion. The conclusion is the
statement that is intended to be proved. Consider the following argument:
English II will be no harder than English I. Susan did well in English I. So, Susan should do
well in English II.

Here the conclusion is that Susan should do well in English II. The other two sentences are
premises. Premises are the reasons offered for believing that the conclusion is true.
Standard Form
Now, to make the argument easier to evaluate, we will put it into what is called “standard
form.” To put an argument in standard form, write each premise on a separate, numbered
line. Draw a line underneath the last premise, the write the conclusion underneath the line.

1. English II will be no harder than English I.

2. Susan did well in English I.
3. Susan should do well in English II.

Now that we have the argument in standard form, we can talk about premise 1, premise 2,
and all clearly be referring to the same thing.
Indicator Words
Unfortunately, when people present arguments, they rarely put them in standard form. So,
we have to decide which statement is intended to be the conclusion, and which are the
premises. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the conclusion comes at the end. The
conclusion is often at the beginning of the passage, but could even be in the middle. A better
way to identify premises and conclusions is to look for indicator words. Indicator words are
words that signal that statement following the indicator is a premise or conclusion. The
example above used a common indicator word for a conclusion, ‘so.’ The other common
conclusion indicator, as you can probably guess, is ‘therefore.’ This table lists the indicator
words you might encounter.
Conclusion. Premise
Therefore. Since
So Because
Thus. For
Hence. Is implied by
Consequently For the reason that
Implies that
It follows that
Each argument will likely use only one indicator word or phrase. When the conclusion is at the
end, it will generally be preceded by a conclusion indicator. Everything else, then, is a
premise. When the conclusion comes at the beginning, the next sentence will usually be
introduced by a premise indicator. All of the following sentences will also be premises.
For example, here’s our previous argument rewritten to use a premise indicator:
Susan should do well in English II, because English II will be no harder than English I, and
Susan did well in English I.
Sometimes, an argument will contain no indicator words at all. In that case, the best thing to
do is to determine which of the premises would logically follow from the others. If there is
one, then it is the conclusion. Here is an example:
Spot is a mammal. All dogs are mammals, and Spot is a dog.
The first sentence logically follows from the others, so it is the conclusion. When using this
method, we are forced to assume that the person giving the argument is rational and logical,
which might not be true.
Non-Arguments
One thing that complicates our task of identifying arguments is that there are many passages
that, although they look like arguments, are not arguments. The most common types are:
1. Explanations
2. Mere asssertions
3. Conditional statements
4. Loosely connected statements
Explanations can be tricky, because they often use one of our indicator words. Consider this
passage:
Abraham Lincoln died because he was shot.
If this were an argument, then the conclusion would be that Abraham Lincoln died, since the
other statement is introduced by a premise indicator. If this is an argument, though, it’s a
strange one. Do you really think that someone would be trying to prove that Abraham
Lincoln died? Surely everyone knows that he is dead. On the other hand, there might be
people who don’t know how he died. This passage does not attempt to prove that something
is true, but instead attempts to explain why it is true. To determine if a passage is an
explanation or an argument, first find the statement that looks like the conclusion. Next, ask
yourself if everyone likely already believes that statement to be true. If the answer to that
question is yes, then the passage is an explanation.
Mere assertions are obviously not arguments. If a professor tells you simply that you will not
get an A in her course this semester, she has not given you an argument. This is because she
hasn’t given you any reasons to believe that the statement is true. If there are no premises,
then there is no argument.

Conditional statements are sentences that have the form “If…, then….” A conditional
statement asserts that if something is true, then something else would be true also. For
example, imagine you are told, “If you have the winning lottery ticket, then you will win ten
million dollars.” What is being claimed to be true, that you have the winning lottery ticket, or
that you will win ten million dollars? Neither. The only thing claimed is the entire
conditional. Conditionals can be premises, and they can be conclusions. They can be parts of
arguments, but that cannot, on their own, be arguments themselves.
Finally, consider this passage: Loosely connected statements
I woke up this morning, then took a shower and got dressed. After breakfast, I worked on
chapter 2 of the critical thinking text. I then took a break and drank some more coffee….
This might be a description of my day, but it’s not an argument. There’s nothing in the
passage that plays the role of a premise or a conclusion. The passage doesn’t attempt to
prove anything. Remember that arguments need a conclusion, there must be something that
is the statement to be proved. Lacking that, it simply isn’t an argument, no matter how much
it looks like one.
Evaluating Arguments
The first step in evaluating an argument is to determine what kind of argument it is. We
initially categorize arguments as either deductive or inductive, defined roughly in terms of
their goals. In deductive arguments, the truth of the premises is intended to absolutely
establish the truth of the conclusion. For inductive arguments, the truth of the premises is
only intended to establish the probable truth of the conclusion. We’ll focus on deductive
arguments first, then examine inductive arguments in later chapters.
Once we have established that an argument is deductive, we then ask if it is valid. To say
that an argument is valid is to claim that there is a very special logical relationship between
the premises and the conclusion, such that if the premises are true, then the conclusion
must also be true. Another way to state this is
Valid
An argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the
conclusion false.

Invalid
An argument is invalid if and only if it is not valid.
Note that claiming that an argument is valid is not the same as claiming that it has a true
conclusion, nor is it to claim that the argument has true premises. Claiming that an argument
is valid is claiming nothing more that the premises, if they were true, would be enough to
make the conclusion true. For example, is the following argument valid or not?

1. If cows fly, then an increase in the minimum wage will be approved next term.
2. Cow fly.

3. An increase in the minimum wage will be approved next term.

The argument is indeed valid. If the two premises were true, then the conclusion would have
to be true also. What about this argument?
1. All dogs are mammals
2. Spot is a mammal.
3. Spot is a dog.

In this case, both of the premises are true and the conclusion is true. The question to ask,
though, is whether the premises absolutely guarantee that the conclusion is true. The
answer here is no. The two premises could be true and the conclusion false if Spot were a
cat, whale, etc.
Neither of these arguments are good. The second fails because it is invalid. The two premises
 don’t prove that the conclusion is true. The first argument is valid, however. So, the
premises would prove that the conclusion is true, if those premises were themselves
true. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I guess, considering what would be dropping from the
sky) Cows don’t fly.
These examples give us two important ways that deductive arguments can fail. The can fail
because they are invalid, or because they have at least one false premise. Of course, these
are not mutually exclusive, an argument can be both invalid and have a false premise.
If the argument is valid, and has all true premises, then it is a sound argument. Sound
arguments always have true conclusions.
1. Deductive Arguments

• These types of arguments are based on general situations and are used to reach a specific
conclusion.
• In a deductive argument, if the premises are true, then the probability of the conclusion being
true is 100%.
• It is a top-down process, where the wider, non-specific theories are narrowed down to reach a
strong affirmative deduction.
• It is the type of reasoning used in police investigations.
• In this type of argument, it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are known
to be true.

Example: Lakes are usually home to ducks; therefore, a lake must have ducks in it.

2. Inductive Arguments

• This type of argument is in stark contrast with the previous type.

• Here, the reasoning of certain specific situations is used to come to a general conclusion.
• In an Inductive argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is most likely to be true
rather than being 100% true.
• It is a bottom-down process as those particular reasons build into a relatively general conclusion.

Example: A did his homework. B did his homework. Mostly, all students did their homework.
 Strong argument

1. A strong argument is supported by reasons that are real, simple and promptly recognisable.
2. Universal laws and government laws usually make good arguments.
3. It is practical in nature and states its message precisely.

Weak argument

1. It is loose-ended and ambiguous.

2. It is superfluous in nature, and the logic is too simple.
3. Certain words such as only, definitely are present in weak arguments.

Sound
A deductively valid argument with all true premises.
Inductive arguments are never valid, since the premises only establish the probable truth of
the conclusion. So, we evaluate inductive arguments according to their strength. A strong
inductive argument is one in which the truth of the premises really do make the conclusion
probably true. An argument is weak if the truth of the premises fail to establish the probable
truth of the conclusion.
There is a significant difference between valid/invalid and strong/weak. If an argument is not
valid, then it is invalid. The two categories are mutually exclusive and exhaustive. There can
be no such thing as an argument being more valid than another valid argument. Validity is all
or nothing. Inductive strength, however, is on a continuum. A strong inductive argument can
be made stronger with the addition of another premise. More evidence can raise the
probability of the conclusion. A valid argument cannot be made more valid with an
additional premise. Why not? If the argument is valid, then the premises were enough to
absolutely guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Adding another premise won’t give any
more guarantee of truth than was already there. If it could, then the guarantee wasn’t
absolute before, and the original argument wasn’t valid in the first place.
Counterexamples

One way to prove an argument to be invalid is to use a counterexample. A counterexample is

a consistent story in which the premises are true and the conclusion false. Consider the
argument above:

1. All dogs are mammals

2. Spot is a mammal.
3. Spot is a dog.

By pointing out that Spot could have been a cat, I have told a story in which the premises are
true, but the conclusion is false.
Here’s another one:

1. If it is raining, then the sidewalks are wet.

2. The sidewalks are wet.
3. It is raining.

The sprinklers might have been on. If so, then the sidewalks would be wet, even if it weren’t
raining.
Counterexamples can be very useful for demonstrating invalidity. Keep in mind, though, that
validity can never be proved with the counterexample method. If the argument is valid, then
it will be impossible to give a counterexample to it. If you can’t come up with a
counterexample, however, that does not prove the argument to be valid. It may only mean
that you’re not creative enough.
Review
1. An argument is a set of statements; one is the conclusion, the rest are premises.
2. The conclusion is the statement that the argument is trying to prove.
3. The premises are the reasons offered for believing the conclusion to be true.
4. Explanations, conditional sentences, and mere assertions are not arguments.
5. Deductive reasoning attempts to absolutely guarantee the truth of the conclusion.
6. Inductive reasoning attempts to show that the conclusion is probably true.
7. In a valid argument, it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion
false.
8. In an invalid argument, it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion
false.
9. A sound argument is valid and has all true premises.
10. An inductively strong argument is one in which the truth of the premises makes the
the truth of the conclusion probable.
11. An inductively weak argument is one in which the truth of the premises do not make
the conclusion probably true.
12. A counterexample is a consistent story in which the premises of an argument are true
and the conclusion is false. Counterexamples can be used to prove that arguments
are deductively invalid.