LOGIC

Rules and Fallacies for Categorical Syllogisms

The following rules must be observed in order to form a valid categorical syllogism:
Rule-1. A valid categorical syllogism will have three and only three unambiguous categorical
terms.
The use of exactly three categorical terms is part of the definition of a categorical syllogism, and
we saw earlier that the use of an ambiguous term in more than one of its senses amounts to the
use of two distinct terms. In categorical syllogisms, using more than three terms commits the
fallacy of four terms.
Fallacy: Four terms
Example:
Power tends to corrupt
Knowledge is power
Knowledge tends to corrupt

Rule-2. In a valid categorical syllogism the middle term must be distributed in at least one of
the premises.
In order to effectively establish the presence of a genuine connection between the major and
minor terms, the premises of a syllogism must provide some information about the entire class
designated by the middle term. If the middle term were undistributed in both premises, then the
two portions of the designated class of which they speak might be completely unrelated to each
other. Syllogisms that violate this rule are said to commit the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
Fallacy: Undistributed middle
Example:
All sharks are fish
All salmon are fish
All salmon are sharks

Rule-3. In a valid categorical syllogism if a term is distributed in the conclusion, it must be

distributed in the premises.
A premise that refers only to some members of the class designated by the major or minor term
of a syllogism cannot be used to support a conclusion that claims to tell us about every member
of that class. Depending which of the terms is misused in this way, syllogisms in violation
commit either the fallacy of the illicit major or the fallacy of the illicit minor.
Fallacy: Illicit major; illicit minor

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Examples:
All horses are animals
Some dogs are not horses
Some dogs are not animals
And
All tigers are mammals
All mammals are animals
All animals are tigers

Rule-4. A valid categorical syllogism may not have two negative premises.
The purpose of the middle term in an argument is to tie the major and minor terms together in
such a way that an inference can be drawn, but negative propositions state that the terms of the
propositions are exclusive of one another. In an argument consisting of two negative propositions
the middle term is excluded from both the major term and the minor term, and thus there is no
connection between the two and no inference can be drawn. A violation of this rule is called the
fallacy of exclusive premises.
Fallacy: Exclusive premises
Example:
No fish are mammals
Some dogs are not fish
Some dogs are not mammals

Rule-5. If either premise of a valid categorical syllogism is negative, the conclusion must be
negative.
An affirmative proposition asserts that one class is included in some way in another class, but a
negative proposition that asserts exclusion cannot imply anything about inclusion. For this
reason an argument with a negative proposition cannot have an affirmative conclusion. An
argument that violates this rule is said to commit the fallacy of drawing an affirmative conclusion
from a negative premise.
Fallacy: Drawing an affirmative conclusion from a negative premise, or drawing a negative
conclusion from an affirmative premise.
Example:
All crows are birds
Some wolves are not crows
Some wolves are birds

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Rule-6. In valid categorical syllogisms particular propositions cannot be drawn properly from
universal premises.
Because we do not assume the existential import of universal propositions, they cannot be used
as premises to establish the existential import that is part of any particular proposition. The
existential fallacy violates this rule. Although it is possible to identify additional features shared
by all valid categorical syllogisms (none of them, for example, have two particular premises),
these six rules are jointly sufficient to distinguish between valid and invalid syllogisms.
Fallacy: Existential fallacy
Example:
All mammals are animals
All tigers are mammals
Some tigers are animals

|||| Summary

Rule 1: There must be exactly three unambiguous categorical terms

Rule 2: Middle term must be distributed at least once.

Rule 3: All terms distributed in the conclusion must be distributed in one of the premises.

Rule 4: Two negative premises are not allowed.

Rule 5: A negative premise requires a negative conclusion, and a negative conclusion requires a

negative premise.

Note the following sub-rule: No valid syllogism can have two particular premises. The last rule
is dependent on quantity.

Rule 6: If both premises are universal, the conclusion cannot be particular.

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DEDUCTIVE SYLLOGISM
Deductive arguments sometimes take a form called a syllogism. A syllogism is a deductive
argument that is composed of three propositions. As an argument, of course, one of those
propositions is used as the conclusion of the syllogism and the other two propositions are used as
the premises of the syllogism.

The first premise of a syllogism is called its major premise.

The second premise is called the minor premise.
The third is called the conclusion.

SYLLOGISM

A valid syllogism must have exactly three terms. If more than three terms seem to be involved in
an argument of apparently syllogistic form, it may be possible to translate the argument into a
standard-form categorical syllogism that is equivalent to it but that contains only three terms and
is perfectly valid.
Reducing the Number of Terms in Syllogism
How can that be done?

 One way is by eliminating synonyms.

A synonym of one of the terms in the syllogism is not really a fourth term, but only another way
of referring to one of the three classes involved. So we begin by eliminating synonyms, if any
appear
For example: the following syllogistic argument appears to contain six terms:

No wealthy persons are vagrants.

All lawyers are rich people.
Therefore no attorneys are tramps.
However, “wealthy” and “rich” are synonyms, as are “lawyer” and “attorney,” and also “vagrant”
and “tramp.” If the synonyms are eliminated, the argument becomes

No wealthy persons are vagrants.

All lawyers are wealthy persons.
Therefore no lawyers are vagrants.

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 A second way to reduce the number of terms to three is by eliminating class.

All mammals are warm-blooded animals.
No lizards are warm-blooded animals.
Therefore all lizards are no mammals.

On the surface, this argument appears to be invalid, because it seems to have four terms—and it
also draws an affirmative conclusion from a negative premise, which breaks one of the rules of
the syllogism.
This argument, however, is in fact perfectly valid when it is translated into standard form. We
can reduce the number of terms to three, because two of the terms in it (“mammals” and “no
mammals”) are complements of one another. So, by obverting the conclusion we get “No lizards
are mammals.” Using this valid immediate inference, we derive the following standard-form
translation of the original argument:

All mammals are warm-blooded animals.

No lizards are warm-blooded animals.
Therefore no lizards are mammals.

It is logically equivalent to the original because it has identically the same premises and a
logically equivalent conclusion. This standard-form translation conforms to all the syllogistic
rules and thus is known to be valid.
Any syllogistic argument that appears to contain four terms can be reduced to standard form (that
is, can be translated into a logically equivalent standard-form categorical syllogism) if one of its
terms is the complement of one of the other three.
Likewise, reduction from an argument with five terms is possible if two of its terms are
complements of other terms in the argument; and even arguments with as many as six terms may
be reduced to standard form if three of those terms are complements of other terms in the
argument.

The key to such reductions is to use the valid immediate inferences discussed. More than one
immediate inference may be needed to reduce the argument to standard form. Consider this
example:

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No nonresidents are citizens.

All noncitizens are nonvoters.
Therefore all voters are residents.

The argument has six terms, but it is in fact valid, and that can be shown by reducing it to
standard form, which can be done in more than one way. Perhaps the most natural reduction is to
convert and then obvert the first premise. This yields “All citizens are residents.” Then take the
contrapositive of the second premise, which yields “All voters are citizens.” The argument is
then in standard form:

All citizens are residents.

All voters are citizens.
Therefore all voters are residents.

The middle term (“citizens”) is the subject term of the major premise and the predicate term of
the minor premise, so the syllogism is in the first figure.