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If a premise is incoherent, is the conclusion invalid?If a premise is incoherent, is the conclusion automatically invalid? |
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asked on Wednesday, Jul 21, 2021 06:35:05 PM by Kaiden | |||||||
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Many of our ideas about the world are based more on feelings than facts, sensibilities than science, and rage than reality. We gravitate toward ideas that make us feel comfortable in areas such as religion, politics, philosophy, social justice, love and sex, humanity, and morality. We avoid ideas that make us feel uncomfortable. This avoidance is a largely unconscious process that affects our judgment and gets in the way of our ability to reach rational and reasonable conclusions. By understanding how our mind works in this area, we can start embracing uncomfortable ideas and be better informed, be more understanding of others, and make better decisions in all areas of life.
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If the question means "If one can't understand the premises, should one believe the conclusion?", then the answer is "Maybe!" However, there would need to be some other reason to believe the conclusion since the premises wouldn't be convincing. For the argument to be valid, the conclusion must follow from the premises – otherwise, we're looking at a non sequitur making the argument invalid. If all premises are true and if the premises create an uninterrupted pathway to the conclusion, the the argument is valid and the conclusion would be true. However, if premises are not true (as with some of your examples above) or if they simply don't make sense or aren't related to the conclusion, then the logic falls down and the conclusion comes into question. Often, incoherent or confusing premises can be used to confound one's audience either in an attempt to confuse or simply be unclear (ambiguity fallacy) or in an attempt to baffle the listener with high-sounding statements rather than facts (argument by gibberish). Of course, we also need to remember that even though all premises may be false, the conclusion just might be true anyway ... even if it doesn't follow logically from the premises. For example: Premise 1: The intrinsic nature of emotions can often obfuscate natural realization of etymological manifestations. Premise 2: The sky is actually green – we've just been conditioned to call it blue. Conclusion: Therefore, Thursday follows Wednesday each week. |
answered on Thursday, Jul 22, 2021 09:26:34 AM by Arlo | |
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