
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...practice where the terms are complicated, is known as the fallacy of the undistributed middle. IV. No term must be distributed in the conclusion unless it was distributed in at least one of the premises. In other words, if you have premises which deal with part of a class only, you cannot reach a conclusion about the whole class. In the syllogism, All newspaper editors know how to write, All newspaper editors are paid, Therefore all men who know how to write are paid, the fallacy is obvious. But in the following, All bitter partisans are dangerous citizens, This man is not a bitter partisan, Therefore this man is not a dangerous citizen, one may have to scrutinize the reasoning a little to see that the fallacy lies in the fact that dangerous citizen is taken universally in the conclusion, since a proposition with a negative predicate makes an assertion about the whole of its predicate, but that it is not taken universally in the premise in which it occurs. A fallacy which thus arises from not noticing that a negative predicate distributes its term is apt to be insidious. V. No conclusion can be drawn from two negative premises. In other words, if both the major term and the minor term lie outside the middle term, the syllogism gives us no means of knowing what their relation is to each other. The following example will make the reason clear: No amateur athlete has a salary for playing, John Gorman is not an amateur athlete, Therefore John Gorman has a salary for playing. VI. If one of the premises is negative, the conclusion must be negative. If of the major and minor premise one is negative, then either the major or the minor term does not agree with the middle term, and the other does; therefore the major and minor term cannot agree with each...
Page Count:
276
Publication Date:
2012-07-01
Publisher:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN-10:
1458924688
ISBN-13:
9781458924681
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