The deductive argument definition is where the reader is expected to derive their conclusions from the give premises in the narrative. The premise on the other hand is statement that supports the argument that the reader is trying to derive. Therefore what matters most in this argument are the premises that support the conclusions; if the premises are based on facts that are true in nature then the conclusion they support is true and logical. The deductive argument is majorly divided into three parts; that is the major premise the supports the argument, the minor premise that leads the reader into making the conclusion and the conclusion. Some of the deductive argument examples are.
- Children who go to school put on uniforms
- Ken is a child who goes to school
- Therefore, Ken puts on uniform
- All cows eat grass
- Friesian is a cow
- Therefore, the Friesian eats grass
Now from the examples of deductive arguments listed above, the argument from the second example, all cows eat grass, is the major premise. It therefore follows that cows is the middle term and grass is the major term. In order to understand the minor the premise application, Friesian is a cow is the minor premise and Friesian is the minor term. In making the conclusion, Friesian is a cow and therefore Friesian is the subject term. Therefore in making the conclusion the premises lead the reader to understand that all cows eat grass and Friesian is a cow therefore it eats grass.
Now in any deductive arguments, the reader needs to identify whether the argument is valid, invalid, sound or unsound. When it comes to a valid deductive argument, the premises are normally followed by the conclusion and it is invalid if otherwise. Now it is much easier to determine whether the argument is sound or not, once you have identified its validity. For a valid argument to be sound then the premises must be based on true facts and it’s unsound if the opposite happens
The Logic
It is important to support a particular argument with evidence. For the philosophers, this is very practical in making deductive arguments examples. You cannot afford to state a given claim without falling back to the reasoning and evidence of the claim. Now the argument in this case is a set of statements which are intended to support a given claim by adding more sense to it. An example of a deductive argument is;
- Friesian is a cow. All cows eat grass. Therefore Friesian is a cow that eats grass
- The body temperature is rising constantly, so you are getting sick
- It is against the law to steal from someone, it follows that picking mangoes without permission is wrong, because picking mangoes without permission is stealing.
The logic part in the argument is what sheds light into the truth. It does not raise any quarrels or disagreements but rather supports the reasoning behind a particular claim. Therefore making an argument is simply to make a claim and support it with truthful facts or evidence. In making an argument, you are simply exposing the reader or the audience to tell whether the argument is good or bad by the evidence you use to support it.
It therefore follows that if one wishes to make a good argument in a particular issue, he or she needs to look at logic, a study by philosophers as to just how good an argument is. This can shortly be summarized as; an argument is good if it is persuasive. The next question then is what is rationally persuasive? An argument has to meet two conditions if it is persuasive;
- Its premises are based on truth
- There is a traceable connection between the premises and the conclusion
This simply means the argument has a deductive validity. Now to explain further, a valid argument is one in which the following conditions exists;
- The premises are true and therefore the conclusion is also true
- The fact that the premises are true guarantees that the conclusion is also true
- It would therefore be impossible for the premises to be all true and the conclusion to be false at the same time.
When making an example of deductive argument, the validity of it all has nothing to do with the truth that lies in the premises that support it. Validity is not based on the level of truth of both the premises and the conclusion. It simply means that the truth of the premises that support the argument normally lead to a truthful conclusion, the impossibility of a valid argument would be to get a false conclusion from true premises. The logic has to apply for a statement to be valid. The truthfulness of the premises does not make the validity of the argument but rather the logic part of it. This means that it does not depend on the premises for the argument to be valid.