PHIL 2020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: False Premise, Binary Classification, Logical Form

• School: University of Georgia
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 2020
• Professor: Sean Meslar

Document Summary

It follows that truth tables are only of use in evaluating whether or not an argument is valid. In terms of a truth table what would a valid argument form look like: for every row in which every premise is true, the conclusion is also true. The truth table test: so, (cid:449)e (cid:272)a(cid:374) test for a(cid:374) argu(cid:373)e(cid:374)t"s (cid:448)alidit(cid:455) (cid:271)(cid:455) plotti(cid:374)g out all of its si(cid:373)ple se(cid:374)tence variables, and all of its premises, and its conclusion. The truth value of the simple sentence variables will determine the truth of the premises and the conclusion: here"s a si(cid:373)ple e(cid:454)a(cid:373)ple for the argu(cid:373)e(cid:374)t (a&b) (a v b): Is the argument valid: yes, because in every case in which the premise is true, the conclusion is also true. In order to apply the test, we only need to look at the rows in which all the premises are true.