The place of logic in our thinking. How to build a simple argument.

Building a Better Argument 

Finding Premises and Conclusions

 Key Terms: 

• Argument: a conclusion together with the premises that support it
• Premise: a reason offered as support for another claim
• Conclusion: the claim being supported by a premise or premises
• Explanation: a statement or set of statements designed to show why something is the case rather than that it is the case

 Example:

 1. All men are mortal.

 2. Socrates was a man.

3. Therefore Socrates is mortal. 

The three lines taken together constitute an argument. Line 3 is the conclusion. Lines 1 and 2 are premises. 

Tips for picking out premises and conclusions: 

• You can look at the text for clues like these: 

Premise Indicators

• As indicated by
• The reason is that
• May be inferred from
• May be derived from May be deduced from
• Given that

 Conclusion Indicators

• Therefore
• Hence
• So
• Accordingly
• Consequently
• Proves that
• As a result
• Thus Since
• Because
• For
• As Follows from
• As shown by
• Inasmuch as
• For this reason
• For these reasons It follows that
• I conclude that Which shows that
• Which means that Which entails that
• Which implies that 

• You can also try acting like a 3-year-old: 

 1. Read a sentence and ask, “Why should I believe that?”

 2. Look at the rest of the passage and see if you can find anything that looks like an answer to the why question. 

3. If you find an answer, then the answer is a premise and the original claim (the sentence about which you asked why) is a conclusion.

 4. Repeat the process for each claim.