Question

Deductive, valid OR Inductive, reasonable OR Inductive, unreasonable

1) If was an amateur theft. Matt's fingerprints were the only ones on the safe. Amateur thieves nearly always leave fingerprints. Therefore, Matt was the thief who broke into the safe.

2) Both presidential candidates have attended college. Most people who have attended college have graduated from high school. Therefore, both presidential candidates have graduated from high school.

3)Cats never play frisbee. So your cat certainly doesn't play frisbee.

Answer 1

(1) Rewrite the argument in following format of Premise and Conclusion:

Premise 1: If was an amateur theft.

Premise 2: Matt's fingerprints were the only ones on the safe.

Premise 3: Amateur thieves nearly always leave fingerprints.

Conclusion : Matt was the thief who broke into the safe.

This is Inductive argument because Premise 3 says "nearly always", and it is the hall mark of inductive argument that it is inherently uncertain. It is unreasonable argument because (i) It can't be established based on the given premises whether Matt is amateur. and (ii) Premise 3 is a proababilistic statement. Therefore, overall, it is Inductive Unreasonable argument.

(2) Rewrite the argument in following format of Premise and Conclusion:

Premise 1: Both presidential candidates have attended college.

Premise 2: Most people who have attended college have graduated from high school.

Conclusion : Both presidential candidates have graduated from high school.

This is Inductive argument because Premise 2 says "most people", and it is the hall mark of inductive argument that it is inherently uncertain. This is a reasonable argument although the given premises can't fully establish that both presidential candidates are indeed among those peopl such that if they attended college they would have also graduated from high school; our common understanding does support this fact. Therefore, it is Inductive Reasonable argument

(3) Rewrite the given argument into Premise and Conclusion format as follows :

Premise : Cats never play frisbee.

Conclusion: Your cat certainly doesn't play frisbee.

This is deductive valid argument for following reasons: (a) Here the Premise can not be true without Conclusion being True. In other words, Truthness of Premise forces the truthness of Conclusion. This makes the argument qualify as deductive sound argument. (b) Premise is infact a statement of fact which implies that the truth value of Premise is True which makes this argument a valid argument. Therefore, we conclude that this argument is Deductive Valid argument.