MAT 125: DISCRETE MATHEMATICS II LECTURE NOTES

ARGUMENTS
By Dr. Runji Flora

Definition: An argument is a sequence of statements, and

an argument form is a sequence of statement forms.
All statements in an argument and all statement forms in
an argument form, except for the final one, are called
premises (or assumptions or hypotheses).
The final statement or statement form is called the
conclusion.
The symbol ∴, which is read “therefore,” is normally
placed just before the conclusion.
An example of an argument:
“If you have a current password, then you can log onto
the network.”
“You have a current password.”
Therefore, “You can log onto the network.”
The first two statements are the premises and the last is
the conclusion.
An argument makes two distinct claims:
1)A factual claim: that the premises are true
2)An inferential claim: that the premises support the
conclusion
Identifying Premises and Conclusions
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Arguments in natural language aren’t usually presented
in standard form, so we need to know how to extract the
logical structure from the language that’s given.

Consider the argument:

“Abortion is wrong because all human life is sacred.”
Question: which is the conclusion?
“Abortion is wrong”? or “All human life is sacred”?
It’s clear that “Abortion is wrong” is the conclusion, and
“All human life is sacred” is the premise.
In this argument, the word “because” is an indicator
word, a word that indicates the logical relationship of
claims that come before it or after it.
Rewriting this argument in standard form, it looks like this
...
All human life is sacred.
Therefore, abortion is wrong.
The following are key words or phrases that indicate
a PREMISES:
For, Because, since, supposing that, assuming that, given
that, seeing that, granted that, this is true because, it is a
fact that, in as much as, one cannot doubt that, owing to.

The following are key words or phrases that indicate

a CONCLUSION:
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therefore, so, hence, thus, it follows that, as a result,
consequently, which means that, from which we can
infer, which proves that,

Valid Arguments in Propositional Logic

To say that an argument form is valid means that no
matter what particular statements are substituted for the
statement variables in its premises, if the resulting
premises are all true, then the conclusion is also true.
To say that an argument is valid means that its form is
valid.
An argument which is not valid is called fallacy.
Determining Validity or Invalidity
To test the validity of an argument, we use the following
three-step process
1. Symbolize each premise and the conclusion.
2. Make a truth table that has a column for each premise
and a column for the conclusion.
3. A row of the truth table in which all the premises are
true is called a critical row.
If there is a critical row in which the conclusion is false,
then the argument is invalid.
If the conclusion in every critical row is true, then the
argument form is valid.
Its clear that when you fill in the table, you only need to
indicate the truth values for the conclusion in the rows
where all the premises are true (the critical rows)
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because the truth values of the conclusion in the other
rows are irrelevant to the validity or invalidity of the
argument.

Example: Test the validity of the following argument;

If you invest in the Gomermatic Corporation, then you get
rich.
You didn't invest in the Gomermatic Corporation.
Therefore, you didn't get rich.
Solution: Symbolize the argument.
Let p be the statement "You invest in the Gomermatic
corporation."
Let q be the statement "You get rich."
Then the argument has this symbolic form:
p→q
~p
∴ ~q
Make a truth table having a column for each premise and
for the conclusion.

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Interpret the truth table.
Notice that in the third row, the conclusion is FALSE while
both premises are TRUE.
This tells us that the argument is INVALID.

Example: Determine whether the following argument

form is valid or invalid by drawing a truth table, indicating
which columns represent the premises and which
represent the conclusion, and annotating the table with a
sentence of explanation.

Solution: The truth table shows that even though there

are several situations in which the premises and the
conclusion are all true (rows 1, 7, and 8), there is one
situation (row 4) where the premises are true and the
conclusion is false.

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Rules of Inference for Propositional Logic
We can always use a truth table to show that an
argument form is valid. We do this by showing that
whenever the premises are true, the conclusion must also
be true. However, this can be a tedious approach.
For example, when an argument form involves 10
different propositional variables, to use a truth table to
show this argument form is valid requires 210 = 1024
different rows. Fortunately, we do not have to resort to
truth tables. Instead, we can first establish the validity of
some relatively simple argument forms, called rules of
inference. These rules of inference can be used as
building blocks to construct more complicated valid
argument forms.

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We will now introduce the most important rules of
inference in propositional logic.
1. Modus Ponens:
An argument form consisting of two premises and a
conclusion is called a syllogism.
The most famous example is modus ponens , also
called the law of detachment or method of affirming.
It is a valid argument of the form:
p→q

∴q
p

Exercise: Verify its validity using a truth table.

2. Modus Tollens/Method of denying: This is a valid

argument of the form:
p→q

∴ ~p
~q

3. Disjunctive Addition or generalization rules: This is a

valid argument of the form

∴p∨q
p

4. Rule of Simplification or conjuctive simplification or

specialization rule:

p∧q
This is a valid argument of the form

∴p

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5. Rule of Conjunction This is a valid argument of the
form
p

∴ p∧q
q

6. Disjunctive syllogism or Elimination rule: This is a

p∨q
valid argument of the form

∴q
~p

7. Rule of Resolution This is a valid argument of the

p∨q
form

~p ∨ r
∴q∨r
8. Transitivity Rule or the law of syllogism or the rule of
hypothetical syllogism: This is a valid argument of

p→q
the form

∴p→r
q→ r

9. Converse error: This is an invalid argument of the

form:
p→q
q
∴p
10. Inverse error: This is an invalid argument of the
form:
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 p→q
~p
∴~q

Inference Rules Summary table

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 Using Rules of Inference to Build Arguments
When there are many premises, several rules of inference
are often needed to show that an argument is valid. This
is illustrated by Examples below, where the steps of
arguments are displayed on separate lines, with the
reason for each step explicitly stated. These examples
also show how arguments in English can be analyzed
using rules of inference.

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Example:

Solution:

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Example: Show that the following premises lead to the
given conclusion:

∴~ q
Solution:

~p ∨ q → r
Step Reason

s ∨ ~q
1. Premise
2. Premise
3. ~t Premise

~p ∧ r → ∼ s
4. p→t Premise

∼p
5. Premise

∼p∨q
6. By modus tollens on 3 and 4
7. By addition rule on 6

~p ∧ r
8. r By modus ponens on 1 and 7

∼s
9. By conjunction on 6 and 8

∴ ~q
10. By modus ponens on 5 and 9
11. By disjunctive Syllogism on 2 and
10

Example: Show that the premises lead to the conclusion:

“It is not sunny this afternoon and it is colder than
yesterday,” “We will go swimming only if it is sunny,”
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“If we do not go swimming, then we will take a canoe
trip,”

lead to ∴ “We will be home by sunset.”

“If we take a canoe trip, then we will be home by sunset”

Solution: Let p be the proposition “It is sunny this

afternoon,”
q the proposition “It is colder than
yesterday,”
r the proposition “We will go swimming,”
s the proposition “We will take a canoe
trip,” and
t the proposition “We will be home by
sunset.”
Then the premises become
~p ∧ q
r→p
~r→s
s →t
∴t

We construct an argument to show that our premises

lead to the desired conclusion as follows.

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1. ~p ∧ q
Step Reason
Premise

2. ~p Simplification using (1)

3. r → p Premise

4. ~ r Modus tollens using (2) and (3)

5. ~ r → s Premise

6. s Modus ponens using (4) and

(5)
7. s →t Premise

8. t Modus ponens using (6) and

(7)

Example:
You are about to leave for school in the morning and
discover that you don’t have your glasses. You know the
following statements are true:
a. If I was reading the newspaper in the kitchen, then my
glasses are on the kitchen table.
b. If my glasses are on the kitchen table, then I saw them
at breakfast.
c. I did not see my glasses at breakfast.
d. I was reading the newspaper in the living room or I was
reading the newspaper in the kitchen.

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e. If I was reading the newspaper in the living room then
my glasses are on the coffee table.
Where are the glasses?

Solution Let RK = I was reading the newspaper in the

kitchen.
GK = My glasses are on the kitchen table.
SB = I saw my glasses at breakfast.
RL = I was reading the newspaper in the living room.
GC = My glasses are on the coffee table.
Here is a sequence of steps you might use to reach the
answer, together with the rules of inference that allow
you to draw the conclusion of each step:

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