University of Pristina
University of Pristina
Faculty of Philosophy
Departament of Philosophy
1. Introduction………………...…………………………………………………………… 3
2.1. Definitions……………………………....…...………………………………………….4
3. Valid Arguments……………………………………………………………….…………6
3.1.Propositional logic………………………………………………………………...…….6
4. Cogent arguments…………..…………………………………………………………….8
6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………10
7. References……………………………………………………………………………….11
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1. Introduction
In his Poetics, Aristotle remarks that a well‐constructed dramatic plot must reflect an action
which is “whole and complete in itself and of some magnitude.” He goes on to define a whole as
“that which has a beginning, middle, and end.” Though Greek tragedy and philosophical prose
may seem like quite disparate fields of literary endeavor, Aristotle’s advice applies to writing a
philosophical essay. Just as the core of a dramatic work is its plot, the core of a philosophical
essay is its argument. And just as a good play will have a well‐demarcated beginning, middle,
and end, so too will a good essay. The beginning of a philosophical essay introduces the
argument; the middle elaborates it; the end summarizes it. But what is an argument? Every
competent speaker of English has some idea of what an argument is. And most, upon reflection,
would realize that argument is in fact equivocal; that is, it has more than one sense. In one sense,
it is roughly synonymous with quarrel and in another sense roughly synonymous with reasoning.
In theory, philosophers engage only in the latter, although in practice they sometimes stumble
into the former. The philosophically relevant sense of argument has been made more precise by
logicians, who, in the course of 2,500 years, have discovered quite a bit about arguments.
Although this is not a logic text, a little logic is crucial for understanding the structure of a
philosophical essay.
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2. What is a Good Argument
At the simplest level, there are two kinds of arguments: good ones and bad ones. A good
argument is one that does what it is supposed to do. A bad argument is one that does not. A good
argument is one that shows a person a Logic and Argument for Writing 18 rational way to go
from true premises to a true conclusion, as well as the subject allows (some subjects more easily
or certainly show the way than others, say, mathematics more than aesthetics). As explained
here, a good argument is relative to a person. What might legitimately lead one person to a
conclusion might not lead another person to the same conclusion because so much depends upon
the person’s background beliefs. What a contemporary philosopher or physicist would recognize
as a good argument is often not what an ancient Greek, even Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, or Euclid
would recognize. Also, there may be good arguments that the ancient Greeks could recognize as
The notion of a “good argument” is an intuitive one. In this chapter I want to make this intuitive
2.1.Definitions
as the conclusion and all the others of which are premises. The premises are the propositions that
lead to the conclusion. They provide the justification for the conclusion.
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All humans are mortals.
Socrates is a human.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The first two sentences are premises. The third is the conclusion, as indicated by the word
therefore. The premises are supposed to provide the rational force for accepting the conclusion.
Definition 2: A sound argument is an argument which is valid and which contains only true
premises. As this definition makes clear, there are two aspects to a sound argument: validity
and truth. An argument is unsound in either of two cases: if it is invalid or if one or more of
its premises are false. This, to show that your argument is sound, you must show that the
argument is valid.
Definition 3: An argument is valid if and only if it is necessary that if all the premises are
true, then the conclusion is true. To put this in a slightly more colloquial form, the
conclusion of a valid argument must be true whenever all its premises are true. The truth of
of the presentation of its structure and content. We can now summarize by saying that a
good (i.e. cogent) argument involves three things: formal validity (structure), true premises
(content), and recognizability. This is what you should strive for in your writing. If any one
of these elements is missing, your argument will not be cogent. All of these elements are
this chapter we will examine the notion of cogency in more detail. For now we need to
return to a fuller treatment of the crucial notion of validity, the aspect of an argument related
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3. Valid Arguments
A valid argument cannot have true premises and Logic and Argument for Writing 22 a
false conclusion. Validity preserves truth. The situation is different when one or more of
the premises is false. In such cases, the conclusion might be true or false. In other words,
Justice is fairness.
Fairness is distributing rewards according to merit and penalties according to blame.
Justice is distributing rewards according to merit and penalties according to blame.
some uses of not, and, or, if . . . then and if and only if. These words figure crucially in some of
Modus tollens
Disjunctive syllogism:
Hypothetical syllogisms:
Constructive dilemma:
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Either determinism is true or humans have free will.
Either actions are neutral with respect to praise or blame or science is
limited in what it can explain about reality.
Destructive dilemma:
4. Cogent Arguments
presentation of its structure and content. An argument may be sound, and yet fail to be
cogent because its soundness is not recognized. An argument might be this way
necessarily, either through the complexity of form that outstrips human comprehension or
through the impossibility of gathering evidence needed to show that its premises are true.
There are also some sound arguments that are in fact not recognized as such either
because although their logical structures are not recognized, they could be if they were
explained, or because although their premises are not recognized as true, they could be if
People sometimes talk about things in general and sometimes about only some things, for
example, “Every politician lies,” “Some [or: a few] politicians lie,” “No politicians lie,”
and “Some [or: a few] politicians don’t lie.” Intuitively, people usually make the right
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inferences relative to such “quantified” sentences. But it is helpful to have a precise
description of the logical connections between words like “all” and “some.”
Following Aristotle, we will take as our examples, sentences that have these forms: All Fs
are Gs, Some Fs are Gs, No Fs are G, and Some Fs are not Gs, where ‘F’ and ‘G’ can be
The logical connections that apply to sentences of the form mentioned above are set out in
We can now state the principal logical relations between these four
types of sentences:
(e) Not both an A‐sentence and its corresponding E‐sentence can be true.
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6. Conclusion
A.P. Martinich aims that after reading and understanding the importance of logic and
argument for writing it helps those with minimal experience in philosophy to think and
write successfully. While writing it is important to know if the arguments we’re usimg
are all true and should have a logical conection. Using any of moduses, syllogisms or
dilemmas it will make the essay more interesting for the readers. These are the rules
which we should follow for a good writing and a correct use of arguments.
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7. References
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2F1.800.gay%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fstanford.library.sydney.edu.au
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