Essay on Types of Arguments

Logical reasoning uses the truth of the premises and the flowing soundness that accompanies them. A sound argument uses logical reasoning that contains a smooth flow from statement to statement and actual facts/inferences. On the other hand, there are arguments that are not strong but have good structure and flow in speech. They come in two categories: valid and invalid. First, this paper discusses about validity.

Validity is “the property of an argument consisting in the fact that the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the conclusion”1 This means that the argument does not necessarily have to be a sound argument, rather an argument that if all the “supporting facts” are true, the conclusion has to be true as well. Validity is also an argument’s backbone, but it has one major requirement to make the argument sound, which is the truth of everything inside the argument. The validity of an argument is one of the most important parts of it – but sometimes the flow from the premises to the conclusion can be interrupted by a break in logic, which makes the argument invalid. Invalid arguments are arguments in which if the premises are true, the conclusion is not guaranteed to be true. Invalid arguments do not necessarily mean that in the case that the premises are true the conclusion is guaranteed to be false, rather that the conclusion is not guaranteed to be true. If an argument fails to be valid, it is an invalid argument. But even if an argument is invalid, that does not mean that the argument is unworkable with just because it is not valid. Instead, the opposite happens, like predicting outcomes based on bell curves, or weather predictions, etc.

To demonstrate how validity is applied to an argument, the following is an example of a valid argument. Note that even if an argument is “valid” by definition, it still can have completely false statements or supporting facts.

1. All humans are cups.

2. Socrates is a human.

3.Therefore, Socrates is a cup.

This argument is in fact valid – the flow in reasoning develops all the way to the conclusion, or, in other words, the premises adequately support the conclusion. Also, another reason why the argument is valid is because if the premises were true, the conclusion would be too – which is another characteristic of a valid argument. However, the opposite characteristic belongs to invalid arguments. When the flow in reasoning gets disrupted, causing the premises to not guarantee the conclusion even if the ‘supporting statements’ themselves were true. For example,

1. All dogs are animals.

2. All cats are animals.

3. Therefore, all dogs are cats.

The first two premises are true because all dogs are animals, and all cats are animals, but that does not mean that all dogs are cats. Simply put, two things that belong in the same group are not guaranteed to be the same, causing this argument to be invalid.

Sometimes invalid arguments appear valid, causing some confusion to think that the invalid argument is valid. Another type of argument that purports to be valid is a deductive argument – an argument in which the premises do not necessarily guarantee the conclusion. Deductive arguments can be valid or invalid, but even when a deductive argument is valid, it still can miss one important thing, which is the truth of the premises. Even if an argument is valid, that does not necessarily mean that the argument is sound.

In contrast, what happens if the conclusion is not guaranteed even if all the premises are true? Then, the argument would be an inductive argument. Since it is possible that even in the case where the premises are true, the conclusion could be false, indicating that all inductive arguments are invalid. But just because all inductive arguments are invalid, that does not mean that all inductive arguments are useless; some types of inductive arguments have conclusions that are likely (e.g., weather predictions), which makes them useful. Inductive arguments can also be very persuasive. For example, “97% of people who bought this brand of robot vacuums had their house clean! So, you should buy one to keep your house clean in no time!” For an inductive argument like that, 97% of people were satisfied with the product, so you have a large chance to be satisfied about the product (assumed by the argument) – ultimately causing the people to think it’s worth it to buy. This inductive argument is an example of a strong argument, an argument that the conclusion is likely to be true (the one above, see the “vacuum” example). By contrast, a weak inductive argument is like a strong argument, but with the conclusion being unlikely, or less likely than not. Like strong and weak arguments, there are two other types of inductive arguments: cogent and uncogent. Cogent arguments are arguments in which the argument is strong, but they also have true premises. Now, the argument is “super-strong”, or cogent (e.g., the “vacuum” example but with all the premises true). But what happens if an argument is uncogent? Uncogent inductive arguments are arguments that fail to be cogent. Weak arguments are uncogent, and strong arguments with at least one false premise are too. In all, inductive arguments can be strong or weak, or cogent or uncogent. If an argument is weak or uncogent, then the argument might be unpersuasive and may not attract people. A weak argument is unpersuasive because of the “broken” or “improbable” inductive logic used in the argument, thus making it unpersuasive. Uncogent arguments are unpersuasive because the argument might be weak, or with one false premise (which means something is false in the argument, making people think they are “overexaggerating” the facts).

In conclusion, arguments can be valid or invalid, meaning that the conclusion is guaranteed to be true if the premises were true, or is not guaranteed. They can also be deductive or inductive, in other words, an argument with a flow in logic, or an argument that in the case of true premises, the result in a probable conclusion. They can even be strong or weak (probable and improbable), cogent or uncogent (probable & all true premises or fails to be strong or have all true premises). All of the types of arguments are useful in one way and present remarkable characteristics, and have many applications even today.