Argument

Argument is a set of declarative assertions (in natural language), known as the premises or premisses (both spellings are allowed), that are meant to assess the degree of truth of another statement, known as the conclusion. Arguments in natural language may be expressed in a symbolic formal language, and formalised "arguments" can be produced in mathematics and computer science that are not reliant on natural language representations at all.

Logical reasoning is the study of the many types of reasoning that may be found in arguments, as well as the establishment of standards and criteria for evaluating such reasonings. It is possible for deductive arguments to be either valid or sound: in a valid argument, the premises necessitate the conclusion, even if one, more, or all of the premises are incorrect and the conclusion is incorrect; in a sound argument, the premises necessitate the conclusion, even if one, more, or all of the premises are incorrect and the conclusion is incorrect. For inductive arguments, on the other hand, the strength or cogency of the argument determines the likelihood that a conclusion is correct. The stronger or more cogent the argument is, the greater the likelihood that a conclusion is correct, and the weaker the argument is, the lower the likelihood that a conclusion is correct is. Different or additional criteria than truth may be used to evaluate non-deductive arguments, such as the persuasiveness of so-called "indispensability claims" in transcendental arguments, the quality of hypotheses in retroduction, or even the discovery of new options for thinking and doing.