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Philosophy vocabulary · Logic and Argument

Syllogism

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/ˈsɪlədʒɪzəm/nounCommon term

In philosophy, syllogism means: An argument with two premises and a conclusion, each linking two categories, such as 'All humans are mortal; Socrates is human; so Socrates is mortal'.

In Turkish: kıyas, tasım, silojizm

How it is used

Developed by Aristotle and central to logic until the nineteenth century. Its parts are the major premise, the minor premise and the conclusion, linked by a middle term. Students learn to test syllogisms for validity with Venn diagrams.

Example sentences

  1. Write the argument as a syllogism and identify the middle term.

  2. This syllogism is invalid because the middle term is not distributed in either premise.

Common collocations

  • categorical syllogism
  • valid syllogism
  • major premise
  • minor premise
  • middle term
  • premiseA statement that is given as a reason in an argument and from which the conclusion is supposed to follow.
  • deductionReasoning in which the conclusion is meant to follow necessarily from the premises, so that true premises guarantee a true conclusion.
  • validDescribes an argument whose form guarantees that if all the premises are true, the conclusion must be true as well.
  • logicThe study of correct reasoning, especially of which conclusions follow from which premises and why.

More terms: Logic and Argument

Practise with graded reading

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