Essay On Deductive Reasoning

Understanding Deductive Reasoning I have spent quite a bit of time reading and rereading the second half of chapter three. I have actually spent time researching additional material to help me understand syllogism. It took some time but I feel I am starting to grasp the structure of deductive reasoning. I went through several examples to fully grasp the idea and different patterns of syllogism. Finally, I worked through understanding the implied premise as it applied to using the Toulmin model in deductive reasoning. I have always had a basic understanding of the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. I never dug much further into the process of deductive reasoning or how I might structure it in a way that would help assure that my beliefs are grounded in truth. Initially, I found the textbook definition of deductive reasoning …show more content…
It is true that we do not speak in premises as part of our pedestrian conversations. It is important to be able to distill a claim down to a premise that can be born out through deductive reasoning. What I appreciated about the Toulmin model of deductive reasoning is that it brought me back to the understanding that, in some things, truth is relative to the person experiencing it. In the textbook example of a student claiming that a class should not be taken because the homework load is too high, the argument is both valid and sound for the individual who received nothing from the course because they were bogged down with homework. Yet, it is not an absolute truth that can be applied arbitrarily to all students who wish to take the course, as was pointed out in the challenge to the warrant which stated that some students perform better with a larger amount of homework which reinforces course concepts for them. In cases such as these, is there an absolute truth? Is there an argument that can be absolutely sound? I am not