In supplying suppressed premises the critic is duty bound to give the author the benefit of the doubt, if by so doing no principle in logic is violated and the proposition conforms to good English and good sense. Often it is not easy to perceive in the abbreviated argument the meaning intended; in such instances all legitimate effort should be directed to making the argument valid. To illustrate: In supplying the major premise of argument “6” it would be easy to make it, “All justice is bought by the rich”; in consequence the critic could pronouncethe argument invalid as the middle term would be undistributed.
Before asserting that an argument is fallacious because it has four terms rather than three, the student must make sure that there are no synonyms or equivalents used. In argument “4,” for instance, there are apparently the four terms: (1) “foolish,” (2) “despise knowledge,” (3) “man,” (4) “fool”; but to regard “foolish” and “fool” as synonyms does not seem like undue liberty. The following arguments further illustrate this need of recognizing synonyms:
“Human beings are accountable for their conduct; brutes, not being human, are therefore free from responsibility.” (Not accountable for their conduct.)
“Not all educated men spell correctly; because one often finds mistakes in the writings of college graduates.” (Educated men.)
“Modern education is not popular in this state; for it increases the tax rate, and the popularity of everything, which touches the pocket of these frugal Yankees, (increases the tax rate) is very short lived.” (Not popular.) In common parlance the use of synonyms is so prevalent that ready ability to substitute equivalents in word, phrase, and clause form is needed by him who would be skillful in testing all kinds of arguments.
It has already become apparent to the student that the number of the noun or the tense of the verb is of small logical consequence. A very large proportion of the formal fallacies in argumentation concern the rulesof distribution which are summarized in the dictum “What may be said of the whole may be said of part of that whole.”
6. COMMON MISTAKES OF STUDENTS IN TESTING ARGUMENTS.
The most common mistakes made by the student when testing arguments are as follows: (1) Using the exclusive as an “A” without interchanging subject and predicate; e. g., interpreting the proposition, “Only high school graduates may enter the training school,” as meaning “All high school graduates may enter the training school.” (2) Calling individual propositions particular; e. g., interpreting “Socrates is mortal” as an “I” rather than an “A.” (3) Signifying that partitive propositions are “A’s” rather than “O’s”; e. g., “All that glitters is not gold” interpreted as meaning that “All glittering things are gold,” rather than “Some glittering things are not gold.” (A). (4) Concluding that a fallacy of four terms has been committed when two terms are synonomous. (5) Failing to interchange the subject and predicate of inverted propositions.
7. OUTLINE.
CATEGORICAL ARGUMENTS TESTED ACCORDING TO FORM.