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Types of Argumentation |
| Deduction | ||||||||
| Deductive arguments are those in which the conclusion
follows from the premisses because of the agreed meaning of the syncategorematic
words used to express the argument. Syncategorematic words are connector words, such as
'if', 'or', 'not', and 'all', rather than content-bearing words. For example, in an
argument of the form "All A are B and all B are C, so all A are C," the argument
is valid primarily because of the concept of class inclusion expressed in the words
"all...are..." Because deductive arguments turn upon the meaning of words, the
conclusion of a valid deductive argument follows from the premisses by definition.
The premisses, in effect, stipulate that the conclusion is true. For this reason,
deduction gives us no new information about the world; but this also makes deduction the
most powerful type of reasoning. Given the truth of the premisses, the conclusion must
also be true.
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| In deduction, the major premiss of the argument is a
RULE, or general statement, while the minor premiss is a CASE - a class or instance
subsumed under the rule. The conclusion is a RESULT - an observable fact. A deduction
moves from RULE and CASE to RESULT:
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