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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The inference 'Only a man is a donkey, therefore every donkey is a man' satisfies the substitutional criterion (ST)

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.The substitutional criterion (ST) requires uniform substitution across ALL non-logical terms, not just the subject and predicate terms.
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    • 2.In 'Only a man is a donkey', the logical form of 'only' restricts the substitution class in ways that make the inference trivially valid due to the impossibility of the premise, not genuine formal validity.
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    • 3.Buridan and Ockham distinguished between inferences valid by form and those valid by the impossibility of their premises, and conflating these undermines ST as a criterion of logical consequence.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Substitutional validity requires that no uniform substitution of non-logical terms produces a true premise and false conclusion, but this test fails to distinguish formal from material consequence.
      ?

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    • 2.If 'Only a man is a donkey' is necessarily false in all interpretations, any inference from it passes ST vacuously, which medieval logicians like John Buridan explicitly identified as a defect of purely substitutional accounts.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The substitutional criterion (ST) requires validity across all substitutional instances of the relevant terms
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    • 2.The inference 'Only a man is a donkey, therefore every donkey is a man' is valid in all substitutional instances of 'donkey' and 'man'
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