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Full-Text Articles in Logic and Foundations of Mathematics
On Defining 'Argument', Jeffrey C. Goodman
On Defining 'Argument', Jeffrey C. Goodman
Faculty Scholarship
There is no concept more central to logic and critical thinking than the concept of an argument. I here address extant definitions of ‘argument’ in the logical sense of the term and defend the claim that all are wanting: they are all extensionally inadequate, or at least problematically ambiguous. An adequate definition of ‘argument’ will entail either an absolutist understanding or a relativistic one. Current proposals, however, especially those typically found in logic and critical thinking textbooks, all seem to be objectionable no matter which sort of understanding one adopts. I thus finish with a proposal for how to define …
On 'Deduction' And The Deductive/Inductive Distinction, Jeffrey C. Goodman, Daniel Flage
On 'Deduction' And The Deductive/Inductive Distinction, Jeffrey C. Goodman, Daniel Flage
Faculty Scholarship
The definitions of ‘deduction’ found in virtually every introductory logic textbook would encourage us to believe that the inductive/deductive distinction is a distinction among kinds of arguments and that the extension of ‘deduction’ is a determinate class of arguments. In this paper, we argue that that this approach is mistaken. Specifically, we defend the claim that typical definitions of ‘deduction’ operative in attempts to get at the induction/deduction distinction are either too narrow or insufficiently precise. We conclude by presenting a deflationary understanding of the inductive/deductive distinction; in our view, its content is nothing over and above two sorts of …