Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

"Soundness" Unsound

1999; University of Windsor; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.22329/il.v19i1.2318

2293-734X

Dan Goldstick,

Music Technology and Sound Studies

It's obvious that reasoning can be "sound" in the technical sense without being any good; and that it can be technically "unsound" yet rationally conclusive.To satisfy oneself on the latter score, it is only necessary to recall any nondeductive argument on considers conclusive.And, as far as the first point goes, atheists can consider, e.g., "If god exists, I'm a monkey's uncle.I'm not a monkey's uncle.Therefore, God doesn't exist."and theists can entertain the parallel argument starting with the premise "If God doesn't exist, I'm a monkey's uncle."instead.IThe "sound"/ "unsound" distinction, in the technical sense, is much used in the introductory teaching of logic, though it plays no part in logic itself.The only ground for objection, really, is to the appropriation of the words 'sound' and 'unsound', which otherwise could be used to mark good and bad reasoning in general.Who, then, originated this objectionable appropriation?It seems the original perpetrator of the objected-to usage was Irving M. Copi, on page 11 of the 1953 First Edition of his much-used Introduction to Logic. 2 I am not saying a deductive argument's soundness or unsoundness has nothing in any way to do with its merits-for indeed only a sound argument can ever deductively prove anything.But surely it must be accepted that a sound deductive argument is only any good (probatively) where the acceptance of all its premises is rationally warranted, though not solely on account of that argument.Whoever, unlike me, thinks a circular argument is never any good can delete "(probatively)" and "though not solely on account of that argument" here.(One way of not being any good, no doubt, is being superfluous.)