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polysyllogism

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Also known as sorites, multi-premise syllogism, climax, gradatio, prosyllogism

A polysyllogism is a complex argument (also known as chain arguments of which there are four kinds: polysyllogisms, sorites, epicheirema, and dilemmas) that strings together any number of propositions forming together a sequence of syllogisms such that the conclusion of each syllogism, together with the next proposition, is a premise for the next, and so on. Each constituent syllogism is called a prosyllogism except the last, because the conclusion of the last syllogism is not a premise for another syllogism.

Wikidata facts

Subclass of
syllogism
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • Example
  • Sorites
  • See also
  • Notes
  • Bibliography

A polysyllogism is a complex argument (also known as chain arguments of which there are four kinds: polysyllogisms, sorites, epicheirema, and dilemmas) that strings together any number of propositions forming together a sequence of syllogisms such that the conclusion of each syllogism, together with the next proposition, is a premise for the next, and so on. Each constituent syllogism is called a prosyllogism except the last, because the conclusion of the last syllogism is not a premise for another syllogism.

== Example == An example of a categorical polysyllogism is: All good students will readily understand polysyllogisms All students of logic are good students Therefore, all students of logic will readily understand polysyllogisms But all people who read this web page are students of logic Therefore, all people who read this web page will readily understand polysyllogisms

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “polysyllogism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.