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    Validity

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    Mia Jimenez
    An argument is valid if the premises logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion. It is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. An argument is sound if it is valid and all premises are true. Validity depends on the logical structure, not the truth of the premises. Soundness requires both valid structure and true premises.

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    Validity

    Uploaded by

    Mia Jimenez
    133 views2 pages
    An argument is valid if the premises logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion. It is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. An argument is sound if it is valid and all premises are true. Validity depends on the logical structure, not the truth of the premises. Soundness requires both valid structure and true premises.

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    An argument is valid if the premises logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion. It is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. An argument is sound if it is valid and all premises are true. Validity depends on the logical structure, not the truth of the premises. Soundness requires both valid structure and true premises.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    133 views2 pages

    Validity

    Uploaded by

    Mia Jimenez
    An argument is valid if the premises logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion. It is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. An argument is sound if it is valid and all premises are true. Validity depends on the logical structure, not the truth of the premises. Soundness requires both valid structure and true premises.

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    Validity and Soundness

    A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the
    premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said
    to be invalid.

    A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true.
    Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.

    According to the definition of a deductive argument (see the Deduction and Induction), the author of a
    deductive argument always intends that the premises provide the sort of justification for the conclusion
    whereby if the premises are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true as well. Loosely speaking, if the
    author's process of reasoning is a good one, if the premises actually do provide this sort of justification
    for the conclusion, then the argument is valid.

    In effect, an argument is valid if the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the
    conclusion. The following argument is valid, because it is impossible for the premises to be true and the
    conclusion nevertheless to be false:

    Elizabeth owns either a Honda or a Saturn.

    Elizabeth does not own a Honda.

    Therefore, Elizabeth owns a Saturn.

    It is important to stress that the premises of an argument do not have actually to be true in order for the
    argument to be valid. An argument is valid if the premises and conclusion are related to each other in
    the right way so that if the premises were true, then the conclusion would have to be true as well. We
    can recognize in the above case that even if one of the premises is actually false, that if they had been
    true the conclusion would have been true as well. Consider, then an argument such as the following:

    All toasters are items made of gold.

    All items made of gold are time-travel devices.

    Therefore, all toasters are time-travel devices.


    Obviously, the premises in this argument are not true. It may be hard to imagine these premises being
    true, but it is not hard to see that if they were true, their truth would logically guarantee the conclusion's
    truth.

    It is easy to see that the previous example is not an example of a completely good argument. A valid
    argument may still have a false conclusion. When we construct our arguments, we must aim to construct
    one that is not only valid, but sound. A sound argument is one that is not only valid, but begins with
    premises that are actually true. The example given about toasters is valid, but not sound. However, the
    following argument is both valid and sound:

    In some states, no felons are eligible voters, that is, eligible to vote.

    In those states, some professional athletes are felons.

    Therefore, in some states, some professional athletes are not eligible voters.

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