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An argument is valid if and only if it would be contradictory for the conclusion to be false if all of the premises are true. [3] Validity does not require the truth of the premises, instead it merely necessitates that conclusion follows from the premises without violating the correctness of the logical form .
Being a valid argument does not necessarily mean the conclusion will be true. It is valid because if the premises are true, then the conclusion has to be true. This can be proven for any valid argument form using a truth table which shows that there is no situation in which there are all true premises and a false conclusion. [2]
An argument, more fully a premise–conclusion argument, is a two-part system composed of premises and conclusion. An argument is valid if and only if its conclusion is a consequence of its premises. Every premise set has infinitely many consequences each giving rise to a valid argument. Some consequences are obviously so, but most are not ...
An argument is sound and its conclusion logically follows (it is true) if and only if the argument is valid and its premises are true. An argument is valid if and only if it is the case that whenever the premises are all true, the conclusion must also be true. If there exists a logical interpretation where the premises are all true but the ...
An argument can be “valid” even if one or more of its premises are false. An argument is sound if it is valid and the premises are true. It is possible to have a deductive argument that is logically valid but is not sound. Fallacious arguments often take that form. The following is an example of an argument that is “valid”, but not ...
An argument is formally valid if and only if the denial of the conclusion is incompatible with accepting all the premises. In formal logic, the validity of an argument depends not on the actual truth or falsity of its premises and conclusion, but on whether the argument has a valid logical form. [citation needed] The validity of an argument is ...
In deductive reasoning, a sound argument is an argument that is valid and all of its premises are true (and as a consequence its conclusion is true as well). An argument is valid if, assuming its premises are true, the conclusion must be true. An example of a sound argument is the following well-known syllogism: (premises) All men are mortal.
However, the logical validity of an argument is a function of its internal consistency, not the truth value of its premises. For example, consider this syllogism, which involves a false premise: If the streets are wet, it has rained recently. (premise) The streets are wet. (premise) Therefore it has rained recently. (conclusion)