Conditionals (was,Re: Grice . . .)
John Baima
jbaima at silvermnt.com
Tue Sep 22 09:44:17 EDT 1998
At 04:54 PM 9/21/1998 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 9/21/1998 3:09:40 PM, jbaima at silvermnt.com wrote:
><<BTW, one of the things that got me going on all this is the assertion that
>some conditionals "assume the protasis false for the sake of argument."
>This is a nonsensical statement since no inference can be made from a
>negative protasis. Inferences can only be made from a positive protasis or
>a false apodosis.>>
>
>John,
>
>This may or may not be true. It depends on the falsity of the apodosis.
Okay. What I was referring to (and my thesis is titled, as you know) is
validity. Validity deals with the proper logical construction of an
argument and it has nothing to do with soundness. So, to be more correct,
I'll change my sentence to "Valid inferences can only be made from a
positive protasis or
a false apodosis." The soundness of an argument is, of course, interesting,
but unrelated to validity.
John Baima
Silver Mountain Software 1029 Tanglewood Dr, Cedar Hill TX 75104-3019
jbaima at silvermnt.com http://www.silvermnt.com
Fax 972 293-6641 Voice 972 293-2920
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