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Philosophy vocabulary · Logic and Argument

Argument

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/ˈɑːɡjʊmənt/nounCore term

In philosophy, argument means: A set of statements in which some of them, the premises, are offered as reasons for accepting another one, the conclusion.

In Turkish: argüman, akıl yürütme, kanıtlama

How it is used

The basic unit of philosophical work. You present, reconstruct, defend, attack or reject an argument, and you call it valid, sound, strong or weak. Philosophy essays are judged mostly on the quality of their arguments.

Example sentences

  1. Let's reconstruct the argument in standard form before we decide whether it works.

  2. Hume's argument against believing in miracles is still widely discussed.

Common collocations

  • present an argument
  • reconstruct an argument
  • valid argument
  • counter an argument
  • the argument from design
  • premiseA statement that is given as a reason in an argument and from which the conclusion is supposed to follow.
  • conclusionThe statement that an argument tries to establish, supported by the premises that lead up to it.
  • validDescribes an argument whose form guarantees that if all the premises are true, the conclusion must be true as well.
  • soundDescribes a deductive argument that is valid and has only true premises, so that its conclusion is guaranteed to be true.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Logic and Argument

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