Socratic Logic - Reasoning

The following are the notes I have taken from Peter Kreeft's wonderful Socratic Logic textbook. I highly recommend you buy it. This is a book which deals with classical logic (as opposed to modern symbolic logic.) It is easily the best overall book on logic I have ever read and one of the few I have that are worth making notes from. I even have a small duotang with these notes in it I can carry around and reference on a regular basis.

Arguments

How To Detect Arguments

Intuition is needed to detect arguments, no one easy method.

The following information can help you gain the skills needed to detect arguments:

• The essential part of an argument is the relationship between the premises and the conclusion.
• If an argument is present, the structure of an argument and indicator words would be there.

Essential Structure of Arguments

"The relationship between premises and conclusion"

The conclusion follows from the premises.

The premises entail the conclusion.

Argument Keywords

Premise Indicators

because, since, for, as, on the assumption that, if, let us assume that, may be inferred from, in view of the fact that, follows from, as shown by, in as much that, the reason is that, for the reason that, as indicated by, if we suppose that

Conclusion Indicators

therefore, hence, it follows that, consequently, in consequence, which show that, so, then, indicates that, which means that, thus, proves that, as a result, accordingly, for this reason, leads one to believe that, it seems to me that

Clarification of Arguments

Deductive arguments are usually syllogisms.

Syllogisms can be either simple or compound.

Compound syllogisms can in three types:

• hypothetical
• disjunctive
• conjunctive