[MUSIC] Okay, welcome to the lesson on Premises and Conclusions, in this lesson we'll introduce the idea of logic, before looking specifically at what an argument is, what a conclusion is, and what premises are. We'll spend some time, identifying how to recognize premises and conclusions in arguments. And then, we'll look at implicit premises and conclusions. Let's begin by examining what an argument means, in an academic context. As we saw in lesson 1.2b in academic context, an argument is not necessarily a conflict between two people. According to LeBlanc, an argument is simply any "attempt to justify or prove a conclusion". Arguments can be structured differently, and strong arguments use a form of logic, to arrive at a conclusion. You'll need to make arguments at university if you write an essay. Or ask to debate an idea. So it's important to know, how logic can make your arguments sound more convincing. Let's look at the logical structure, of a very simple argument about dogs. All pugs are dogs and all dogs are mammals. Therefore, all pugs are mammals. The conclusion of the argument is that all pugs are mammals, and it's been justified through the premises, that all dogs are mammals and all pugs are dogs. In this argument, we can see that the former logic underpinning it has two parts. Firstly, you have a statement that functions as a conclusion and secondly, you have one or more statements that function as premises. Conclusions, are the statement that the author of the argument wants you to believe. Conclusions can be signalled by words such as therefore, thus, so, and consequently. One important thing to note is that, although it's called a conclusion, the conclusion statement does not have to be at the end of the argument, and can come at the beginning. Take our example from before, all pugs are dogs, all dogs are mammals, therefore all pugs are mammals. Another way to say this is to say, all pugs are mammals because all pugs are dogs and all dogs are mammals. Our conclusion thus becomes the first part of the sentence. All pugs are mammals. The rest of the sentence, is divided into two premises. Premises, as we've seen, are statements that are used as evidence. How do we know that all pugs are mammals? Because all pugs are dogs. Why does that matter? Because all dogs are mammals. Premises as we can see, are often indicated by words like because, since and due to. Here's a more complex example of an argument. According to Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including housing'. Not having access to adequate housing, is a human rights issue. People who are experiencing homelessness in Australia, do not have access to adequate housing. Therefore, homelessness is a human rights issue in Australia. In this example the statements beginning according to article 25, not having access to, and people who are premises. The last statement is the conclusion, as shown by the use of the word therefore. As you can see, the premises are used as evidence for the conclusion, their purpose is to make us believe the conclusion. What's important to note here, is that a conclusion is only as strong as its premises. In the example, the third premise which states that ''people who are experiencing homelessness in Australia do not have access to adequate housing'' is possibly debatable. We might question, what qualifies as adequate housing? Or we might question, whether homeless people do in fact not have access to it. If we didn't agree with the conclusion and could provide evidence to support our position, then the conclusion that homelessness is a human rights issue in Australia, would be severely weakened. In fact this is one of the bases of logic, if any of the premises are problematic. Then the conclusion is also problematic. The argument is therefore, not just the conclusion, but the reasoning that you've used to get there. In formal logic, if all of the premises are valid, it should be impossible for the conclusion to be invalid. In the next lesson, we'll look closely at some of the basic structures formal logic. And how changes to these structures can invalidate arguments. We'll address potential issues with premises and evidence, later on in the course. Before we go, let's just address one more important issue, implicit premises and conclusions. This refers to arguments where a premise or even the conclusion, is left unsaid. Often, particularly in everyday discourse, we make arguments where either a premise or a conclusion is implied either by the situation, by general knowledge, or because we don't want to overstate a point. Advertisements, are a common type of argument where the conclusion is often left implicit. In fact, according to LeBlanc, all advertisements are arguments. Their conclusion, buy this product. Consider the average hair shampoo commercial. Most of the time, they end with an attractive, happy person. The premises are, this person is attractive and because of this shampoo, and that you would like to be attractive and happy. The conclusion is that therefore, you should buy this shampoo. Let's have a closer look at the second statement, you would like to be attractive and happy. What do you think is the implicit premise here? Of course, none of this is ever stated in a commercial. If someone tried to sell you a product by first telling you, that you are unattractive and unhappy you'd never buy it. Another way commercials use implicit premises, is through rhetorical questions, a rhetorical question is a question that has and obvious answer. In the hair commercial, for example, they may ask a rhetorical question such as, "are you sick of having dull hair"? Of course, we are clearly expected to answer rhetorical questions in a specific way. No one's going to respond, no, I love having dull hair, when asked if they're sick of having dull hair. This is because there is an implicit premise in the question. In argument, implicit or missing premises are are refered to as assumptions. We'll consider the role of the assumptions in arguments more, in a later lesson in this course and there's also some discussion of them in book two, problem solving skills for university success, in the next lesson, we'll focus on the basic structures of formal logic and how to identify logical fallacies. [MUSIC]
