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Posted by Ben C on 12/08/07 09:41
On 2007-12-08, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
[...]
> There is only one particular arrangement of truth and falsity in
> a valid argument that is ruled out, namely the combination of
> true premises with false conclusion. Any argument that is known
> to have true premises with a false conclusion is thereby known to
> to be invalid. It is a bad argument by being invalid. The
> conclusion does not follow from the premises.
>
> The condition of an argument being valid is simply this: if the
> premises are true, the conclusion must be. This says nothing
> about the truth of either the premises or the conclusion. How to
> know the truth of the premises is entirely out of the scope of
> any one argument being assessed.
> A reductio is a rather special sort of argument, it is a sort of
> meta argument in which people are invited to look at how more
> normal arguments within play themselves out.
I think the point of a reductio ad absurdum is usually to show the
premises are false. They might not look false on their own, so you show
that they imply something which is obviously absurdly false. If the
argument is valid that means the premises must be false since true
premises cannot imply a false conclusion.
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