Search This Blog

De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Logical Fallacy of the Week: Week 16, Negative Conclusion From Affirmative Premises

...

Negative conclusion from affirmative premises is a syllogistic fallacy committed when a categorical syllogism has a negative conclusion yet both premises are affirmative. The inability of affirmative premises to reach a negative conclusion is usually cited as one of the basic rules of constructing a valid categorical syllogism.

Statements in syllogisms can be identified as the following forms:

a: All A is B. (affirmative)
e: No A is B. (negative)
i: Some A is B. (affirmative)
o: Some A is not B. (negative)

The rule states that a syllogism in which both premises are of form a or i (affirmative) cannot reach a conclusion of form e or o (negative). Exactly one of the premises must be negative to construct a valid syllogism with a negative conclusion. (A syllogism with two negative premises commits the related fallacy of exclusive premises.)......

Follow the link for the rest of the explanation!.

No comments:

Post a Comment