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I'm doing an introductory undergraduate course on philosophy. I was reading an introduction to what argument is and what kinds of arguments there are when I came across this.

'Soundness: An argument is sound if it is (i) valid and (ii) has true premises. So the soundness of an argument depends on both its form (i) and its content (ii). Not all valid arguments are sound. Not all arguments with true premises and a true conclusion are sound.'

I don't understand how an argument could be unsound if it has a true premise and a true conclusion. What would an example of such an argument be?

2 Answers 2

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The sky is blue

Therefore, grass is green.

The premise and the conclusion are both true. But the argument is not sound, because it's not valid. And it's not valid because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

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  • So when we're saying 'true conclusion' we're not taking into account how we arrived at the conclusion, we're looking at it on it's own? And soundness is whether or not the conclusion follows from the preceding body of the argument?
    – user140161
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 6:36
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    @user140161 To your first question, yes. To your second, that's validity. Soundness is validity in addition to the premises being true.
    – E...
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 6:48
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im doing my studies though failing to understand this activity

A communist state is necessary a failure (A) Wherever the work force is institutionalised there can be no hope either entrepremeurial development or of personal financial gain or advancement (B) The possibility of imdividual expression is removed (C) All the people are viewed as identical workers of the state (D) People hence become stuck as machines serving the greatir machimery if the state. (E) Human greed so despised by communists in capitalism leads to sictators rising. (F) So i ask you have you e er met a happy person from a formerky communist. (G) It seems fairly obvious that no communist parrty should be supported (H)

1 Unsouns value argument 2 Valid empirical argument 3 souns value argumemt 4 Deductive empirical argument

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    I am struggling to find a way to understand how this addresses in any way the question that the OP asked. Besides the spelling mistakes, if you're attempting to articulate an argument it seems to have been lost. You originally labeled your sentences with letters and then at the end switch to numbers, what is it that you are trying to communicate by this?
    – Not_Here
    Commented Jul 31, 2017 at 14:05

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