PHIL 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Signify, Mutual Fund, Reductio Ad Absurdum
Document Summary
Premises of an argument are offered as reasons for accepting the conclusion. To decide whether the premises are true, we need to consider the world how it actually is. But we can decide whether the argument is logical without considering whether the premises are actually true. We just need to know whether the premises would, if true, support the conclusion. To decide this, we need to look at the context in which the argument is given, the meanings of the terms, and, crucially, the structure of the argument. We can examine structure in a completely general way, without reference to the factual content of the argument. For arguments of type 1 the argument is called deductively valid or just valid. They are truth preserving: if the premises were true, they would guarantee the truth of the conclusion. If john studies hard then he will get an a.
