Valid or Invalid?

The rules of this test are simple: it's your job to determine whether an argument is valid or not.

All the arguments are syllogisms. Here is a standard example:

All humans are mortal
All Greeks are humans
Therefore, all Greeks are mortal

An argument is valid if and only if the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. Thus, the argument above is valid, because if all humans are mortal, and if all Greeks are human, it follows as a matter of logical necessity that all Greeks are mortal.

It is important to stress that this kind of logical entailment has nothing to do with the truth of the premises or conclusion. It is only about working out whether the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.

This is really all the information you need to take the test. You will be asked to assess the validity of 15 syllogisms, and this is just a matter of saying whether the conclusion is entailed by the premises. You can do that, surely?

Oh, one final thing. You'll be timed. The clock starts when you hit the button below.

Really Deep Thought

Since we are in the main not sceptics, we might go on and frankly confess to each other the motives for our several faiths. I frankly confess mine - I cannot but think that at bottom they are of an aesthetic and not of a logical sort.
   --William James.


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