Topic: syllogism

syllogism a mode of argument that forms the core of the body of Western logical thought. Aristotle defined syllogistic logic, and his formulations were thought to be the final word in logic; they underwent only minor revisions in the subsequent 2,200 years. Every syllogism is a sequence of three propositions such that the first two imply the third, the conclusion. There are three basic types of syllogism: hypothetical, disjunctive, and categorical. The hypothetical syllogism, modus ponens, has as its first premise a conditional hypothesis: If p then q; it continues: p, therefore ... Read more