Difference between revisions of "Argument"

Latest revision as of 19:04, 22 April 2016

In logic and philosophy, an argument is a series of statements typically used to persuade someone of something or to present reasons for accepting a conclusion.

Discussion

The general form of an argument in a natural language is that of premises (typically in the form of propositions, statements or sentences) in support of a claim: the conclusion.

Typical deductive argument

In a typical deductive argument, the premises are meant to provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion, while in an inductive argument, they are thought to provide reasons supporting the conclusion's probable truth.

Standards

The standards for evaluating non-deductive arguments may rest on different or additional criteria than truth, for example, the persuasiveness of so-called "indispensability claims" in transcendental arguments, the quality of hypotheses in retroduction, or even the disclosure of new possibilities for thinking and acting.

Logic

The standards and criteria used in evaluating arguments and their forms of reasoning are studied in logic.

Rhetoric

Ways of formulating arguments effectively are studied in rhetoric (see also: argumentation theory).

Formal language

The structure of some arguments can also be set out in a formal language, and formally defined "arguments" can be made independently of natural language arguments, as in mathematics, logic, and computer science.

An argument in a formal language shows the logical form of the symbolically represented or natural language arguments obtained by its interpretations.

Other uses of the term

For other uses of the term argument, see:

• Argument of a function

TO DO: disambiguation.

See also

• Logic
• Mathematical logic
• Mathematics
• Proposition
• Validity

External links

• Argument @ Wikipedia