Argument

In logic, an argument is a set of one or more meaningful declarative

sentences (or "propositions") known as the premises along with another meaningful
declarative sentence (or "proposition") known as the conclusion. A deductive
argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequenceof the premises;
an inductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is supported by the
premises. Deductive arguments are valid or invalid, and sound or not sound. An argument
is valid if and only if the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises
and (consequently) its corresponding conditional is a necessary truth. A sound argument
is a valid argument with true premises.

Each premise and the conclusion are only either true or false, i.e. are truth bearers. The
sentences composing an argument are referred to as being either true or false, not as
being valid or invalid; deductive arguments are referred to as being valid or invalid, not
as being true or false. Some authors refer to the premises and conclusion using the
terms declarative sentence, statement, proposition,sentence, or even indicative utterance.
The reason for the variety is concern about the ontological significance of the
terms, proposition in particular. Whichever term is used, each premise and the conclusion
must be capable of being true or false and nothing else: they are truthbearers.
Formal and informal arguments
Further information: informal logic and formal logic
Informal arguments are studied in informal logic, are presented in ordinary language and
are intended for everyday discourse. Conversely, formal arguments are studied in formal
logic (historically calledsymbolic logic, more commonly referred to as mathematical
logic today) and are expressed in aformal language. Informal logic may be said to
emphasize the study of argumentation, whereas formal logic
emphasizes implication and inference. Informal arguments are sometimes implicit. That
is, the logical structure –the relationship of claims, premises, warrants, relations of
implication, and conclusion –is not always spelled out and immediately visible and must
sometimes be made explicit by analysis.
Deductive arguments

A deductive argument is one which, if valid, has a conclusion that is entailed by its
premises. In other words, the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the
premises—if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. It would be self-
contradictory to assert the premises and deny the conclusion, because the negation of the
conclusion is contradictory to the truth of the premises.
Validity
Arguments may be either valid or invalid. If an argument is valid, and its premises are
true, the conclusion must be true: a valid argument cannot have true premises and a false
conclusion.

The validity of an argument depends, however, not on the actual truth or falsity of its
premises and conclusions, but solely on whether or not the argument has a valid logical
form. The validity of an argument is not a guarantee of the truth of its conclusion. A valid
argument may have false premises and a false conclusion.

Logic seeks to discover the valid forms, the forms that make arguments valid arguments.
An argument form is valid if and only if all arguments of that form are valid. Since the
validity of an argument depends on its form, an argument can be shown to be invalid by
showing that its form is invalid, and this can be done by giving another argument of the
same form that has true premises but a false conclusion. In informal logic this is called a
counter argument.

The form of argument can be shown by the use of symbols. For each argument form,
there is a corresponding statement form, called a corresponding conditional, and an
argument form is valid if and only its corresponding conditional is a logical truth. A
statement form which is logically true is also said to be a valid statement form. A
statement form is a logical truth if it is true under allinterpretations. A statement form can
be shown to be a logical truth by either (a) showing that it is atautology or (b) by means
of a proof procedure.

The corresponding conditional, of a valid argument is a necessary truth (true in all

possible worlds) and so we might say that the conclusion necessarily follows from the
premises, or follows of logical necessity. The conclusion of a valid argument is not
necessarily true, it depends on whether the premises are true. The conclusion of a valid
argument need not be a necessary truth: if it were so, it would be so independently of the
premises.