Rules and Fallacies for Categorical Syllogisms Hurley, Section 5.

3 Rule 1: The middle term must be distributed at least once. Fallacy: Undistributed middle Example: All sharks are fish All salmon are fish All salmon are sharks

Justification: The middle term is what connects the major and the minor term. If the middle term is never distributed, then the major and minor terms might be related to different parts of the class, thus giving no common ground to relate ! and ".

Rule : If a term is distributed in the conclusion, then it must be distributed in a premise. Fallacy: Illicit major; illicit minor Examples: All horses are animals

!ome dogs are not horses And: !ome dogs are not animals

All tigers are mammals All mammals are animals All animals are tigers

Justification: #hen a term is distributed in the conclusion, let$s say that " is distributed, then that term is saying something about every member of the " class. If that same term is %&T distributed in the major premise, then the major premise is saying something about only some members of the " class. 'emember that the minor premise says nothing about the " class. Therefore, the conclusion contains information that is not contained in the premises, making the argument invalid.

Rule 3: Two negative premises are not allowed. Fallacy: Exclusive premises Example: %o fish are mammals

!ome dogs are not fish !ome dogs are not mammals Justification: If the premises are both negative, then the relationship between ! and " is denied. The conclusion cannot, therefore, say anything in a positive fashion. That information goes beyond what is contained in the premises.

Rule !: A negative premise re(uires a negative conclusion, and a negative conclusion re(uires a negative premise. )Alternate rendering: Any syllogism having e*actly one negative statement is invalid.+ Fallacy: Drawing an affirmative conclusion from a negative premise, or drawing a negative conclusion from an affirmative premise. Example: All crows are birds !ome wolves are not crows !ome wolves are birds Justification: Two directions, here. Take a positive conclusion from one negative premise. The conclusion states that the ! class is either wholly or partially contained in the " class. The only way that this can happen is if the ! class is either partially

or fully contained in the class )remember, the middle term relates the two+ and the class fully contained in the " class. %egative statements cannot establish this relationship, so a valid conclusion cannot follow. Take a negative conclusion. It asserts that the ! class is separated in whole or in part from the " class. If both premises are affirmative, no separation can be established, only connections. Thus, a negative conclusion cannot follow from positive premises. %ote: These first four rules working together indicate that any syllogism with two particular premises is invalid.

Rule 5: If both premises are universal, the conclusion cannot be particular. Fallacy: Existential fallacy Example: All mammals are animals All tigers are mammals !ome tigers are animals Justification: &n the ,oolean model, -niversal statements make no claims about e*istence while particular ones do. Thus, if the syllogism has universal premises, they necessarily say nothing about e*istence. .et if the conclusion is particular, then it does say something about e*istence. In which case, the

conclusion contains more information than the premises do, thereby making it invalid.

"#e $ristotelian Standpoint Any syllogism that violates any of the first four rules is invalid from either standpoint. If a syllogism, though, violates only rule /, it is then valid from the Aristotelian standpoint, provided that the conditional e*istence is fulfilled. Thus, in the e*ample above, since tigers e*ist, this syllogism is valid from the Aristotelian point of view. &n the other hand, consider this substitution instance: All mammals are animals All unicorns are mammals !ome unicorns are animals !ince 0unicorns0 do not e*ist, the condition is not fulfilled, and this syllogism is invalid from either perspective.

In order to determine the needed condition, you can simply consult the chart )but not on the e*am1+. ,ut there are two other ways. First, as we learned in section /.2, you can draw a 3enn diagram and find the circle with only one open area. The term that that circle represents is the re(uired e*istent thing. !econd, you can check the distributions and, in these cases, there will always be one term that is superfluously distributed. That is,

there will be one term that is distributed more than is necessary to insure the validity of the syllogism. 4*amples: All
d

are "

%o All

d d

are "d are !

All "d are All

d

All !d are !ome ! are "

are !

!ome ! are not "d

!ome ! are "