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Validity of a Syllogism

 
 
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 12:58 am
I am currently working through an obscure text on classical rhetoric, and I have just finished the first couple of chapters dealing with the syllogism and enthymeme. The text lists six criteria for checking the validity of a syllogism and has, as an exercise, twenty mostly invalid syllogisms for the student to check. I have finished the exercise with little trouble; however, one syllogism that I am confident is invalid does not fail to pass the six criteria as far as I can tell.

Although I took an intro to logic course years ago, I have never seen these criteria and find them, frankly, intriguing, so I'm interested to see where I went wrong. I'm hardly an expert, so I'm sure I am missing something obvious. I would greatly appreciate any help.

First the six criteria listed by the text:

1. There must be three terms and only three terms (major, minor and middle).
2. The middle term must be distributed at least once.
3. No term may be distributed in the conclusion if it was not distributed in the premise.
4. No conclusion may be drawn from two particular premises (as opposed to universal).
5. No conclusion may be drawn from two negative premises.
6. If one of the premises is negative, then the conclusion must be negative.

Before I give you the argument, I just want to reiterate that I am interested in validity, not truth. Many of the exercises are obviously untrue but structured validly.

The argument as it appears in the text is as follows: ""because most Americans are industrious and all of them love freedom, most industrious people love freedom."

I have rewritten the argument thus:
1. Most Americans are industrious (people).
2. All Americans (are people who) love freedom. (rewritten so as to have a copulative verb)
Therefore, most industrious people (are people who) love freedom.
(I know I have rewritten a lot of it, but I think the sense is the same.)

Here are my findings according to the criteria:

Major term: people who love freedom.
Minor term: industrious people.
Middle term: Americans.

1.There are only 3 terms in the argument.
2.The middle term is distributed in the second premise.
3. No term in the conclusion is distributed. ("Most" is particular, as are all predicates of affirmative statements.)
4. The second premise is universal since it applies to all Americans; thus, it is not the case that both premises are particular.
5. No premise is negative.
6. No premise is negative.

Although my analysis according to the criteria suggests the syllogism is valid, I can, just by eyeballing it, tell it is invalid. Just because "most Americans" are industrious, it does not follow that "most industrious people" are Americans. Just because "all Americans" love freedom, it does not follow that a majority of "industrious people" do too.

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 1,004 • Replies: 9

 
Lordyaswas
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 01:00 am
@stuntpickle,
Ah, I love the smell of copulative verbs in the morning.
stuntpickle
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 01:04 am
@Lordyaswas,
That makes one of us.
0 Replies
 
hingehead
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 02:05 am
@stuntpickle,
Forgive my neophyteness but

4. No conclusion may be drawn from two particular premises (as opposed to universal).

Doesn't every syllogism draw a conclusion from two premises?
George
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 10:00 am
@hingehead,
Yes, but premises may be either universal or particular.
0 Replies
 
Kolyo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 11:04 am
@stuntpickle,
stuntpickle wrote:

The argument as it appears in the text is as follows: ""because most Americans are industrious and all of them love freedom, most industrious people love freedom."


The argument in the text looks invalid to me. Have you been told otherwise?

Quote:
I have rewritten the argument thus:
1. Most Americans are industrious (people).
2. All Americans (are people who) love freedom. (rewritten so as to have a copulative verb)
Therefore, most industrious people (are people who) love freedom.
(I know I have rewritten a lot of it, but I think the sense is the same.)


I don't know which of your rules it violates, but that is also invalid.

Change Premise #1 to "most industrious people are American" and the argument will be valid, though untrue.
0 Replies
 
fresco
 
  2  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 12:55 pm
@stuntpickle,
The argument is invalid. It looks like a violation of rule 4.
The problem lies with the non-universal word most because unlike some which logically translates as "at least one", most is always relative to the cardinality of a particular set, and cardinality has no place in binary logic.
Kolyo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 01:04 pm
@fresco,
fresco wrote:

The problem lies with the non-universal word most because unlike some which logically translates as "at least one", most is always relative to the cardinality of a particular set, and cardinality has no place in binary logic.


I haven't really studied this stuff but I agree with this.

Replace "most" with "some" and his argument works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_proposition#Conversion
fresco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 01:13 pm
@Kolyo,
Yes that replacement will do it, but you have lost the original meaning.
0 Replies
 
George
 
  3  
Reply Fri 12 Dec, 2014 02:25 pm
Yes the problem is that a particular premise is of the form "some X is Y",
which is a "particular affirmative" or "no X is Y" which is a "particular negative".
The OP claims that "Most" is particular, which is not true.

Rule #3 is violated.
0 Replies
 
 

 
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