Speakpigeon
Contributor
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2009
- Messages
- 6,317
- Location
- Paris, France, EU
- Basic Beliefs
- Rationality (i.e. facts + logic), Scepticism (not just about God but also everything beyond my subjective experience)
I’m only stating whether the conclusion followed generally. At the time of your post I had given some thought to validity but wasn’t sure. However, what struck me more was the fact the conclusion didn’t follow and I wasn’t thinking of that in a validity context, that is in part why I said the conclusion doesn’t follow as opposed to the conclusion cannot be true if the premises are true. But as I said, that’s on me.
And I still have doubts about validity...just need more time to work through it mentally.
But I’m more confident the conclusion doesn’t follow, and I say that in a manner not intended to speak upon validity.
Well, most of the time, validity is understood as the fact that the conclusion follows from the premises!
This is also expressed by saying that if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. Or, the conclusion is necessarily true if the premises are assumed true.
Most people wouldn't know how to articulate their notion of validity. So, there is another way to say it. The word "validity" originally means healthy, able etc. So, broadly, a valid argument is one which is somehow seen as healthy and able. Since an argument's job is to justify a conclusion on the basis of premises, it will be seen as healthy and able if it does that job.
However, there are arguments that seem to put people off track. In particular, ones with a religious content and more generally arguments with a conclusion that people really dislike.
This one argument is also a bit weird because the premises are themselves arguments (valid arguments, too). It is definitely tricky to negotiate your way around that.
I guess that, basically, people may get it wrong each time there is an interference and this may be extraneous information that put people off, like a religious message or whatever.
But do come back when you've sorted out what you think. That's always interesting because the surprising thing here is that there are still things to discover about the logic of arguments, 2,500 years after Aristotle, in particular when we eschew the dogmatism of mathematical logic.
EB