Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Identifying Premises and Conclusions: This Tutorial Will Give You Practice in Distinguishing Premises From Conclusions
Identifying Premises and Conclusions: This Tutorial Will Give You Practice in Distinguishing Premises From Conclusions
1.
2.
3.
Look for premise indicators--words like because, since, for, and given
that--that provide clues when premises are being offered.
2.
The Jews and Arabs have been fighting for centuries and I
seriously doubt this will ever be resolved. The United
States should get out of this never-ending fight, or the
next terrorist bomb might be in Washington--and it just
might be nuclear.
(John G. Ferguson III, Letter to the Editor, USA Today, February 12, 2001)
The Jews and Arabs have been fighting for centuries and I
seriously doubt this will ever be resolved. The United States
should get out of this never-ending fight, or the next terrorist
bomb might be in Washington--and it just might be nuclear.
(John G. Ferguson III, Letter to the Editor, USA Today, February 12, 2001)
Premise 1: The Jews and Arabs have been fighting for centuries.
Premise 3: If the United States does not get out of this never-ending
fight, the next terrorist bomb might be in Washington--and it might be
nuclear.
Conclusion: The United States should get out of the never-ending fight
between the Jews and the Arabs.
In this passage, there are no indicator words to assist us, however the
form of the last sentence ("X should do Y, or else Z will happen") is a
common conclusion-premise pattern.
No one who observes people can pretend that in fact they always
seek anything like their own long-run advantage. If this were the
case only stupidity could explain how frequently and obviously
they act contrary to their own long-run advantage. People are not
that stupid!
(Charles Hartshorne and Creighton Peden, Whitehead's View of
Reality, 1981)
Premise 1: If people always seek anything like their own longrun advantage, then only stupidity could explain how
frequently and obviously they act contrary to their own longrun advantage.
Premise 2: People are not that stupid.
Conclusion: No one who observes people can pretend that in
fact they always seek anything like their own long-run
advantage.
Here again there are no standard indicator words to assist us.
However, by sticking "therefore" in front of each of the three
sentences in turn, we can see that only the first sentence
makes sense as the conclusion.
Premise 1: Vocal prayer in class dictates a consensus that does not exist in our
pluralistic society.
Premise 2: Any prayer that is so vaguely worded that it sounds agreeable to all
is, by my limits, no prayer at all.
We have good reason to believe that people will exist in the future and
that they will be similar enough to us that we can have a good idea of
what their well-being requires. Knowing this and knowing that our
present actions can influence their future well-being, it is reasonable to
conclude that future people must be given some ethical consideration by
presently living human beings. (Joseph R. DesJardins, Environmental
Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy, 3rd ed., 2001)
Premise 1: We have good reason to believe that people will exist in the future and
that they will be similar enough to us that we can have a good idea of what their
well-being requires.
Premise 2: We know that our present actions can influence future peoples' wellbeing.
Conclusion: Future people must be given some ethical consideration by presently
living human beings.
In this passage, the conclusion indicator "it is reasonable to conclude that" helps
us identify the conclusion.
Notice that the second premise has been restated in order to make it a complete
sentence.