Premise and Conclusion Indicators, Tutorial Session -- Austin Community College

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Hi everyone!

Last time in our video tutorial session,
we discussed one crucial feature of an

argument within philosophy, and that is
that an argument must be comprised of

statements in which statements
necessarily have true value.

Now, I want to turn to our understanding
of premises and conclusions, and

specifically, premise and conclusion
indicators within arguments.

Let's remember the basic properties that
discourse must have in order to

count as an argument from the standpoint
of logic.

The statements that make up an argument
are divided into one or more premises

and exactly one conclusion.

The "premises" are the statements
that set forth the reasons or evidence.

And the "conclusion" is the statement
that the evidence has claimed to support

or imply.

That is, the conclusion is the statement
that is claimed to follow from the

premises.

Here's an example of an argument:

"All philosophers are celebrities.

Martha Nussbaum is a philosopher;
therefore, Martha Nussbaum is a

celebrity."

the first two statements are the
premises, and the third is the

conclusion.

The word "therefore" indicates that
the premises support the conclusion.

In this argument, the premises really
do support the conclusion. And so,

the argument is a valid argument.

But consider this argument:

Premise 1: "Some musicians are famous."

Premise 2: "Wade is a musician.
Therefore, Wade is famous."

in this argument, the premises do not
support the conclusion.

Even though they are claimed to, and so
the argument is not a good argument.

It's invalid.

The reason why this argument is invalid
is that, even if the premises are true,

this conclusion does not necessarily
follow.

If it's true that some musicians are
famous, and if it's true that Wade is

a musician, it doesn't necessarily follow
that Wade is famous.

The statement "Some musicians are
famous," if that's true, does not mean

that the statement, "All musicians are
famous" is true, and Wade can be a

member of the very large group of
musicians that are not famous.

One of the most important tasks
in the analysis of arguments is being

able to distinguish premises
from conclusions.

Many arguments you will see in your
course are not laid out in the format

I presented, with two premises clearly
indicated, followed by a conclusion.

An argument's conclusion might come
before, in between, or after a premise.

or premises.

The problem here is that, if what is
thought to be a conclusion is really

a premise and vice versa, the subsequent
analysis cannot possibly be correct.

One way to identify the premises and
conclusion in an argument is to look

for "indicator" words.

A premise indicator is a word or word
phrase that signals that a statement

functions as a premise.

A conclusion indicator is a word or
word phrase that signal that a statement

functions as a conclusion.

Here's some typical conclusion
indicators:

"Therefore."

"Wherefore."

"Thus."

"Consequently."

"We may infer..."

"Accordingly."

"We may conclude..."

"It must be that..."

"For this reason..."

"So."

"Entails that..."

"Hence."

"It follows that..."

"Implies that..."

"As a result..."

Whenever a statement follows one of these
indicators, it can usually be identified

as the conclusion.

One easy trick here is that by the process
of elimination, the other statements in

the argument are the premises.

For example,

The conclusion of the argument is that
torture is not a reliable method of

interrogation,

and the premise is, "Tortured prisoners
will say anything just to relieve the pain."

If an argument does not contain a
conclusion indicator, it may contain

a premise indicator.

Some typical premise indicators are:

"Since."

"As indicated by..."

"Because."

"For."

"In that..."

"It may be inferred from..."

"As."

"Given that..."

"Seeing that..."

"For the reason that..."

"Inasmuch as..."

"Owing to..."

Any statement following one of these
indicators can typically be identified as

a premise.

For example,

"Expectant mothers should never use
recreational drugs, since the use of

these drugs can jeopardize the
development of the fetus."

Here we can see that "since" is a
premise indicator, in which the premise

of this argument is the use of these
drugs can jeopardize the development

of the fetus,

and the conclusion is that expectant
mothers should never use recreational drugs.

Here are a few points that need to be
made about premise and conclusion

indicators.

First, sometimes a single indicator
can be used to identify more than one

premise.

Consider this argument:

"We should abolish the death penalty
because it does not deter crime and life

in prison is a sufficient punishment for
the crime of murder."

The premise indicator "because" goes
with both "it does not deter crime" and

"life in prison is a sufficient punishment
for the crime of murder."

These are the premises.

By method of elimination, "We should
abolish the death penalty"

is the conclusion.

Second, sometimes arguments contain no
indicators.

The point here is that you cannot rely
only on indicator words to determine

which statements count as premises, and
which count as the conclusion.

You should ask yourself, "What single
statement is claimed implicitly to follow

from the others?"

"What is the arguer trying to prove?"

"What is the main point of the passage?"

The answer to these questions should
point to the conclusion.

Let's look at an example for further
clarification.

In this argument there are no premise
or conclusion indicators.

The argument states,

When an argument contains no premise
or conclusion indicators, a good rule

of thumb is to identify the conclusion
first.

Once you figure out what the author is
trying to prove, the rest of the argument

often falls into place.

The conclusion of this argument is the
first statement,

"Flag burning should be outlawed."

All of the other statements are premises.

This argument illustrates the pattern
found in most arguments that lack

indicator words.

The intended conclusion is stated first,
and the remaining statements are then

offered in support of the first statement.

Third, be careful when using indicator
words.

Sometimes words like "since" and "thus"
aren't used as premise or conclusion

indicators.

For example,

I might say, "I've been a nerd ever since
fourth grade."

In this statement, "since" is used in a
temporal sense to indicate how long

something has been the case for
someone.

Generally speaking, however, premise and
conclusion indicators do signal that a

statement is a premise or a conclusion.

Finally, keep in mind that the ordering
of the premise or premises and conclusion

can take on three basic patterns or forms
illustrated in the table seen here.

Again, so long as the passage has at least
one premise and one conclusion an is

comprised only of statements, it is an
argument.

In the first passage, the conclusion, "C,"
is stated before the one premise, "P."

In the second passage, the premise,"P,"
is stated before the conclusion, "C."

In the last passage, a conclusion, "C," is
sandwiched between two premises,

or two "P"s.

That is, a premise is stated first in the
conclusion, and then another statement—

which is a premise—is given its support
of the conclusion that was stated

before it.

So hopefully at this point you
understand all the properties of

an argument and know how to look
out for premise and conclusion indicators.

In the next video, we'll explore the
best practices on how to be critical

readers with respect to philosophy or
any academic discipline.

See you next time.

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