PHIL 122: Elementary Logic

8/31/16
BASIC CONCEPTS OF DEDUCTIVE LOGIC
 Propositions/Statements/Assertion

A proposition claims or asserts something about the

world.
All propositions are truth-apt: that is, they are either
true or false.
Thus, an easy test to determine whether some
utterance is a proposition is to consider whether it
could be either true or false.
 Examples of Propositions

1) The sun rotates around the earth.

2) It is illegal in the United States to criticize public
officials.
3) 12 angels can dance on the head of a pin.
4) If the Democrats and Republicans sit together at
the State of the Union address, it will usher in a
new era of bipartisan cooperation.
5) Thom Yorke is the greatest musical artist of all
time.
6) Cholesterol is a cause of heart disease.
 Non-Propositional Utterances

Question: Does not make an assertion neither true

nor false. Asks for a proposition, but is not one.

If Trump is elected, will he really build a wall on the southern

border?

- The answer is a proposition but nothing is asserted by the

question itself.
Answering yes = Trump will build a wall if elected.
Answering no = Trump will not build a wall if elected.
 Commands: demand performance

Command: Demands action, but is neither true nor

false. Doesnt say anything about the world.
Do your logic exercises tells you to do something, but does
not say anything about the world.
Find the benevolent unicorns!
(Again, a command, even though it asks the impossible)
Exclamation: Expressive, non-propositional

Exclamation: expresses emotion, feeling, or response,

but does not make a claim.
- So, if frustrated or in pain, you might say ouch, or
something to that effect

Strictly speaking, those expressions are neither true

nor false, though they may be evidence of your state
of mind. Same for:
Go Red Sox!
 Arguments

An argument tries to establish the truth of a

proposition (the conclusion) on the basis of the truth
of other propositions (the premises).
In other words, when we have a good argument, we
can infer the conclusion from the truth of the
premises.
Premise = proposition that attempts to provide
support for a conclusion
Conclusion = proposition affirmed on the basis of
premises
 Argument?

We need to protect the Northern border from

Canadian military incursions. Coffee is essential to
the good life. Darwin is a great name for a dog.
Michigan is a state, and the name of an album.
There are two methods of education, the Montessori
method which teaches people to think
independently, and the Spartan method, which
teaches people to do battle collectively.
 Argument?

We need to protect the Northern border from Canadian

military incursions. Coffee is essential to the good life.
Darwin is a great name for a dog. Michigan is a state,
and the name of an album. There are two methods of
education, the Montessori method which teaches people
to think independently, and the Spartan method, which
teaches people to do battle collectively.

Clearly not an argument this is simply a list of

propositions. No inferential relationship is being
attempted. That is, we are not using some of the
propositions in support of another.
 Warrant

A conclusion is warranted when it can be inferred

from the premises
Otherwise said, to say that a conclusion is warranted
is to say that if the premises are true, we have good
reason to judge the conclusion to be true.

(We use the concept warrant to talk about the

correctness of inferences in both inductive and
deductive arguments.)
 Inference Unwarranted

P1: If humans share a common ancestor with apes,

then humans will be genetically similar to apes.
P2: Humans are genetically similar to apes.

C: Humans share a common ancestor with apes.

Fallacy: Affirming the consequent

 Inference Warranted

P1: If humans have opposable thumbs, then they

were formed from the mud by the deity
Prometheus.
P2: Humans have opposable thumbs.

C: Humans were formed from the mud by the deity

Prometheus.

Argument Form: Modus Ponens

 Our Tasks:

1) Determine what results various forms of argument

will generally have: i.e., whether a given form will
result in a warranted conclusion.

2) Learn to rigorously examine particular arguments,

to determine whether the conclusion is in fact
warranted by the premises.

We will be examining the laws of good (deductive)

thinking.
 Argument or Assertion?

If I ride my bicycle to school instead of driving, I can

save $10 a week in gas.
 Argument or Assertion?

If I ride my bicycle to school instead of driving, I can

save $10 a week in gas.

An assertion this is merely stating a

proposition, it is not relying on other
propositions to support it.
 Argument or Assertion

My car insurance rates will probably go up, since I got

a speeding ticket and was thrown in jail for evading
an officer.
 Argument or Assertion

My car insurance rates will probably go up, since I got

a speeding ticket and was thrown in jail for evading
an officer.
P1: I got a speeding ticket.
P2: I was thrown in jail for evading an officer.
(P3: Acts of these types tend to raise insurance rates.)
----
C: My car insurance rates will probably go up.
 Some linguistic clues:

Sometimes the language provides some indication of

the existence of an argument and its structure.
Words like thus, therefore, consequently
indicate conclusions and since, for, follows
from indicate premises.
However, you cannot rely exclusively on these clues
arguments will not always employ them.
Ultimately, you simply have to consider whether an
inferential relationship is being established.
 Argument?

Meno, my friend, is it not the case that everyone

desires what is good for themselves? Surely it is.
Consider that a bad thing for a person will harm that
person. When one is harmed, moreover, one is made
unhappy. And who desires to be unhappy? No one.
And desires must aim at either what is good or what
is bad.
 An argument indeed, we might rewrite as:

P1: Desire either aims at what is good or what is bad.

P2: If something is bad, then it is harmful.
P3: If something is harmful, then it causes
unhappiness.
P4: No one desires unhappiness.
C: Thus, desire aims at what is good.

Is it a good argument? Do the premises warrant the

conclusions?
 Arguments vs. Explanations

Arguments are trying to show that something is the

case, explanations try to show why (or, how it is) that
something is the case.
Common linguistic indicators can be misleading.
E.g., BU is a great school because it has admitted such
great students.
Compare with: Because BU has admitted such great
students, we know that it is a great school.
- Only in the latter is BU is a great school in
question, and thus only the latter is an argument.
 To determine whether a proposition is being
defended (i.e. argued for) or is being explained,
consider whether the truth of the proposition is in
question. If the other propositions are offering
support for accepting claim, it is an argument.
If, rather, the proposition is taken as given, and we
are looking for an understanding of why it is the
case, we have an explanation. Another example:
It is cold outside. This may be because of an arctic air
front moving into the region.
 Of course, we dont have to adopt the assumptions of
explanations. Consider:
A leprechaun's green skin is explained not by her
natural environment of clovers, but rather by
standard genetic mechanisms that explain skin color
in humans.
The passage assumes that leprechauns exist, and
this may be something we are unwilling to accept. In
that case, we would ask for an argument for the
existence of such creatures.
 Deduction and Induction

An argument is deductive if the premises purport

to establish the conclusion conclusively. In other
words, a deductive argument claims that if the
premises are true, then the conclusion could not be
false.
An argument is inductive if it does not make such
claim, but merely claims that the premises provide
good evidence for thinking the conclusion is true.
 Compare:

All parakeets are birds. Sam is a parakeet.

Therefore, Sam is a bird. (Deductive)
Given what we know about nutrition, if you eat at
Five Guys five days a week, you will be pleased for a
time, but you will probably not live to see your
grandchildren. (Inductive)
 Inductive Arguments

Much of scientific argumentation is inductive.

Inductive arguments can be very good and helpful,
but they are always open to revision in light of new
evidence. Consider:
Light is a wave. Every other wave we have observed
requires a medium to travel through. We have good
reason to think, then, that light requires a medium to
travel through, and therefore space (since light
travels through it) must be filled with this medium
well call it ether.
 Validity/Invalidity

Deductive arguments claim that if the premises are

true, then the conclusion must (necessarily) also be
true.
If a deductive argument lives up to this claim, then it
is valid. If not, then it is invalid.
The question of validity is only relevant to deductive
arguments. We can call inductive inferences
warranted or unwarranted to a degree, but not valid
or invalid.
We will primarily be assessing deductive arguments
for their validity in this course.
 Thus, in deductive argumentation, validity refers to
whether the premises warrant the conclusion. If
they do, then the conclusion cannot be denied if we
accept the premises.
Importantly, we can determine whether an argument
is valid or not based on its form. This is huge. It
means that we can formalize the components of
deductive reasoning to rigorously test arguments for
validity irrespective of the content of the
argument.
 Form & Instance

P1: If Socrates is human, then Socrates is mortal.

P2: Socrates is human.
C: Socrates is mortal.
The above is an instance of the following form:
If p then q.
p
Therefore, q.
p & q here stand as placeholders for propositions. It
doesnt matter which propositions we substitute for the
letters so long as we substitute the same proposition
for each occurrence of a letter the resulting argument
will be valid.
 Different Instance of Modus Ponens

If p, then q.
p
Therefore, q.
Substitution instance:
If you saw the greatest rock band of all time tonight,
then you saw Radiohead.
You saw the greatest rock band of all time tonight.
Therefore, you saw Radiohead.
Again, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be
true because of its form.
 Different Instance of Modus Ponens

If p, then q.
p
Therefore, q.
Substitution instance:
If it is snowing outside, we are in China.
It is snowing outside.
C: We are in China.
- All this may be false, but still a good argument, since
if the premises were true, they would guarantee the
truth of the conclusion.
 To Emphasize:

1) An argument (particular substitution instance) is

valid if an only if it is an instance of a valid form.
2) An argument form is valid if and only if there are
no instances of that form in which all the premises
are true and the conclusion false.
3) A form will be invalid, therefore, just in case there
is an instance of that form with all true premises
and a false conclusion.
 For example

Either travelling is educational or attending college is

educational.
Travelling is educational.
C: Attending college is educational.

Valid or invalid?
 For example

Either travelling is educational or attending college is

educational.
Travelling is educational.
C: Attending college is educational.

All these statements are true, but a bad argument,

because it has a bad argument form. The form
makes it such that the premises dont guarantee the
conclusion and we can prove this by providing a
substitution instance of the form that has true
premises and a false conclusion.
The form is:
p or q
p
Therefore, q.

Either chairs are for sitting or the earth is flat. (T)

Chairs are for sitting. (T)
C: The earth is flat. (F)

The fact that we can identify an instance of the form

with true premises and a false conclusion tells us
that all arguments of this form are invalid.
 On the other hand

Either Spartan warriors are strong or Corinthian

traders are weak.
Corinthian traders are not weak.
C: Spartan warriors are strong.
Form: p or q
Not q
Therefore, p
Try as you might, you will not come up with a counter-
instance to this form.
 Validity/Truth/Soundness

Validity is a feature of deductive arguments. An

argument if valid if the premises warrant the
conclusion.
Truth is a feature of propositions. A proposition is
true if what it claims is, in fact, the case.
Soundness is a feature of deductive arguments. A
deductive argument is sound if the premises are true
and the argument is valid. A sound argument proves
its conclusion to be true.
Sound argument:
If humans are living, then humans undergo
metabolism.
Humans are living. C: Humans undergo metabolism.

Valid, but unsound argument:

Either elk can fly, or Binghamton needs a new coffee
shop. (T)
Binghamton does not need a new coffee shop. (F)
C: Elk can fly. (F)
 Important points

The truth or falsity of the conclusion does not, by

itself, indicate validity or invalidity.
Validity does not guarantee the truth of the
conclusion it only does so if we can assume the
truth of the premises.
In other words, only sound arguments prove the
truth of their conclusions.
If the conclusion of a valid argument is false, then
one of the premises must also be false.
 Propositional/Sentential Logic

The logical system we will begin learning next week

(called sentential logic in your book) takes the
simple proposition or sentence as the basic unit of
analysis. We will learn how simple propositions can
be combined using five simple truth-functional
operators standing for and, or, not, ifthen,
and if and only if. A surprising amount of our
reasoning can be captured by this system.
 Central concerns of this lecture:

Propositions
Arguments
Distinguishing arguments from explanations
Deduction vs. Induction
Validity and Invalidity
Form and Substitution Instance
Truth and Soundness