In Arguments and Non-Arguments you learned to tell an argument from a plain claim. Traditional logic starts one step further back. It asks what the mind is doing when it thinks at all, and it finds three different acts, each building on the one before.
- Simple apprehension: grasping what something is, such as "triangle" or "the oak by the river". Its product is a term.
- Judgment: joining two terms and affirming or denying one of the other, such as "The oak is tall." Its product is a proposition.
- Reasoning: moving from propositions we hold to a new one, such as "All oaks are trees, and this is an oak, so this is a tree." Its product is an argument.
Key idea
A term only names. A proposition affirms or denies, so it can be true or false. An argument draws a conclusion from premises, so it can be valid or invalid.
Why it works
Each act needs the one before it. You cannot judge that the oak is tall until you have grasped "oak" and "tall". You cannot reason to a conclusion until you have judgments to reason from. That is why this course follows the same order: terms first (this unit), then propositions (units 2 to 4), then reasoning (units 5 to 7).
Worked example
Worked example: Which act is it?
What does each one express? (a) "the girl who won the spelling bee" (b) "Mia won the spelling bee." (c) "Mia won the spelling bee, so she will go to the state contest."
- (a) has no main verb that affirms anything; it picks out a person. It is a term.
- (b) joins a subject (Mia) to a predicate (winning the spelling bee) and affirms it. It can be true or false: a proposition.
- (c) adds "so" and a second proposition that is claimed to follow from the first: an argument.
Answer: term, proposition, argument
Common mistake
Treating a long phrase as a proposition. "The tall oak beside the river" has many words, but nothing is affirmed or denied until a verb joins it to a predicate: it is still one term. Quick check: ask "Is that true?" If the question makes no sense, you have a term.