Logic Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Premises and conclusions==== {{Main|Premise|Logical consequence}} ''Premises'' and ''conclusions'' are the basic parts of inferences or arguments and therefore play a central role in logic. In the case of a valid inference or a correct argument, the conclusion follows from the premises, or in other words, the premises support the conclusion.{{sfnm|1a1=Audi|1loc=Philosophy of logic|1y=1999b|2a1=Honderich|2y=2005|2loc=philosophical logic}} For instance, the premises "Mars is red" and "Mars is a planet" support the conclusion "Mars is a red planet". For most types of logic, it is accepted that premises and conclusions have to be [[truth-bearer]]s.{{sfnm|1a1=Audi|1loc=Philosophy of logic|1y=1999b|2a1=Honderich|2y=2005|2loc=philosophical logic}}{{efn|However, there are some forms of logic, like [[imperative logic]], where this may not be the case.{{sfn |Haack |1974 |p=51}}}} This means that they have a [[truth value]]: they are either true or false. Contemporary philosophy generally sees them either as ''[[proposition]]s'' or as ''[[Sentence (linguistics)|sentences]]''.{{sfn |Audi |loc=Philosophy of logic |1999b}} Propositions are the [[denotation]]s of sentences and are usually seen as [[abstract object]]s.{{sfnm|1a1=Falguera|1a2=Martínez-Vidal|1a3=Rosen|1y=2021|2a1=Tondl|2y=2012|2p=111}} For example, the English sentence "the tree is green" is different from the German sentence "der Baum ist grün" but both express the same proposition.{{sfn|Olkowski|Pirovolakis|2019|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FhaGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT65 65–66]}} Propositional theories of premises and conclusions are often criticized because they rely on abstract objects. For instance, [[Naturalism (philosophy)|philosophical naturalists]] usually reject the existence of abstract objects. Other arguments concern the challenges involved in specifying the identity criteria of propositions.{{sfn |Audi |loc=Philosophy of logic |1999b}} These objections are avoided by seeing premises and conclusions not as propositions but as sentences, i.e. as concrete linguistic objects like the symbols displayed on a page of a book. But this approach comes with new problems of its own: sentences are often context-dependent and ambiguous, meaning an argument's validity would not only depend on its parts but also on its context and on how it is interpreted.{{sfnm|1a1=Audi|1loc=Philosophy of logic|1y=1999b|2a1=Pietroski|2y=2021}} Another approach is to understand premises and conclusions in psychological terms as thoughts or judgments. This position is known as [[psychologism]]. It was discussed at length around the turn of the 20th century but it is not widely accepted today.{{sfnm|1a1=Audi|1loc=Philosophy of logic|1y=1999b|2a1=Kusch|2y=2020|3a1=Rush|3y=2014|3pp=1–10, 189–190}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page