Question

...
Kaiden

If a premise is incoherent, is the conclusion invalid?

If a premise is incoherent, is the conclusion automatically invalid?

Coherent premise : "Dogs have 4 legs", "Cats are not dogs", "Houses are over 5' tall", etc
Incoherent premise : "Blue is greater than 10", "Apples are oranges", 2+5=78, etc 




asked on Wednesday, Jul 21, 2021 06:35:05 PM by Kaiden

Top Categories Suggested by Community

Comments

...
2
TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

Conclusions are true or false, not valid or invalid (arguments are measured by validity).

If a premise is irrelevant then the conclusion is invalidly inferred (fallacy) so it does not follow (non sequitur).

posted on Wednesday, Jul 21, 2021 07:58:51 PM
...
0
Kaiden writes:

Can you make it explicit what you mean by “incoherent”?

posted on Friday, Jul 23, 2021 09:57:02 AM

Want to get notified of all questions as they are asked? Update your mail preferences and turn on "Instant Notification."

Reason: Books I & II

This book is based on the first five years of The Dr. Bo Show, where Bo takes a critical thinking-, reason-, and science-based approach to issues that matter with the goal of educating and entertaining. Every chapter in the book explores a different aspect of reason by using a real-world issue or example.

Part one is about how science works even when the public thinks it doesn't. Part two will certainly ruffle some feathers by offering a reason- and science-based perspective on issues where political correctness has gone awry. Part three provides some data-driven advice for your health and well-being. Part four looks at human behavior and how we can better navigate our social worlds. In part five we put on our skeptical goggles and critically examine a few commonly-held beliefs. In the final section, we look at a few ways how we all can make the world a better place.

Get 20% off this book and all Bo's books*. Use the promotion code: websiteusers

* This is for the author's bookstore only. Applies to autographed hardcover, audiobook, and ebook.

Get the Book

Answers

...
Arlo
1

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

Arlo Suggested These Categories

Comments