Kamesha asked:

How can you distinguish the conclusion from the premises of an argument?

Explain why arguments with fallacies can still be persuasive.

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An argument consists of at least two propositions, one of which is the argument's conclusion. The
other proposition (or propositions) should entailthe conclusion: one must be able to deducethe
conclusionfrom the other proposition(s), called a premise(or premises). In a sound argument, ifevery
member of the set of premises is true, then conclusion must also be true.

The "arrow" of implication is not always reversible. For example:

There are five animals in that telephone booth.

There are five elephants in that telephone booth.

I can deduce the first proposition from the second, but not the second from the first.

Any proposition can be deduced from itself. ("The dog barked," for example, can be deduced from
"The dog barked," but so what?) The following is a bit more interesting:

Someone is a husband.

Someone is a wife.

Either proposition can serve as the conclusion an argument for which the other is the sole premise,
but the two are not identical. "Husband" does not mean "wife," but if someone is a husband, then
someone (else) is a wife, and vice versa.

Fallacies can persuade because (a) persuasiveness can depend on the state of mind of the
persuaded one rather than on the argument's logical status; and, (b) not all fallacies are obvious. To
spot a fallacy sometimes requires understanding that a logical operator ("Possibly . . .," "Necessarily .
. .") can be distributed in subtly different ways with dramatically different results. For instance:

God knows today that I will choose to eat an omelet for breakfast tomorrow. Therefore [i.e., it
necessarily follows that], I will choose to eat an omelet for breakfast tomorrow.

If the first of these two propositions is true (leaving aside the question of its verification), then
necessarilythe second is true. Generally, if S knows p, then necessarily p is true, because one
cannot know what is false. Unfortunately, there are philosophers on both sides of the God question
who have misinterpreted this logicalnecessity as causalnecessity and hence a denial of freedom:

Therefore, I will necessarily choose to eat an omelet tomorrow; meaning, Therefore, I am
necessitatedto choose to eat an omelet tomorrow; meaning, Therefore, I am not freeto choose to eat
a bowl of cereal with bananas for breakfast tomorrow.

But knowing cannot turn free choices into determined effects. To know is not to cause! Put that way,
of course, the fallacy has no power to persuade. But it is rarely put that way. Instead, the necessity by
which a premise determines a conclusion is distributed over the non necessary fact to which the
premise refers.

Tony Flood

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