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Philosophy

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  • If we allowed arguments for which we cannot decide the premises as true or false, to be sound, then we could have arguments where all premises turn out to be eventually false, but for which we had already granted the conclusion as true. That doesn't seem prudent.
    – Frank
    Commented Mar 26, 2023 at 21:47
  • Are you implying that claiming an argument to be sound requires that its claim can be known as valid and its premises known as true?
    – Dennis Francis Blewett
    Commented Mar 26, 2023 at 21:51
  • Yes. If you can't establish the truth of falsity of the premises, the argument is worthless.
    – Frank
    Commented Mar 26, 2023 at 22:04
  • 1
    This is intro-philosophy stuff. > A valid argument need not have true premises or a true conclusion. On the other hand, a sound argument DOES need to have true premises and a true conclusion: Soundness: An argument is sound if it meets these two criteria: (1) It is valid. (2) Its premises are true.
    – Boba Fit
    Commented Mar 26, 2023 at 22:31
  • 1
    For formal arguments it is easy to tell whether they are valid, they just have to follow a set of deduction rules that even a computer can check. There are no rules to tell if the premises are true. If they are the argument will be sound even if that is unknown, but to claim that they are one would need evidence in support of that claim acceptable to the opposition, i.e. more arguments until uncontested premises are reached.
    – Conifold
    Commented Mar 27, 2023 at 6:31