The Scope of Logic by Wesley C. Salmon

“The Scope of Logic”, by Wesley C. Salmon

There were several points made by Salmon. The main focus was to help the reader to be able to identify an argument. In order to do this one must be able to distinguish the premises made leading to a conclusion. Salmon states that there are two types of arguments, logically correct and logically incorrect. Both “The logical correctness or incorrectness of an argument depends solely upon the relation between premises and conclusion” (Salmon 3). We also learn about the definition of “fallacious”, which is the term given to a logically incorrect argument. Both a logically correct and incorrect argument may both have false premises this is not what makes them correct or incorrect. The conclusion is the distinguishing factor. Salmon touched on the fact that not all arguments, logically correct or incorrect can be easily found and noted words that usually precede the argument to make it clear to the reader. As well as finding the argument Salmon says that sometimes there will be one or more missing premises. These premises are missing usually because they are too obvious to be stated. The two major types of arguments are deductive and inductive and there are there are both logically incorrect forms and correct forms of both. The deductive arguments follow these guidelines: “If all of the premises are true, the conclusion must be true” (Salmon 6). The inductive arguments follow these guidelines: “If all the premises are true, the conclusion is probably true but not necessarily true” (Salmon 6). In order for a deductive argument’s conclusion to be false one or more of the premises have to be false. “Deductive argument is designed to make explicit the content of the premises; the inductive argument is designed to extend the range of our knowledge” (Salmon 7). The author used facts to back up all the information he used. All the points that were addressed in the article were well articulated and used examples that portrayed the meaning in such a way as to display a clear picture for the reader.