A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and InductiveMill, John Stuart
PhilosophyPhilosophy
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
Mill, John Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Science -- Methodology
A third case is where, the antecedent having affirmed a predicate of a
given subject, the consequent affirms of the same subject something
already connoted by the former predicate: as, Socrates is a man, therefore
Socrates is a living creature; where all that is connoted by living
creature was affirmed of Socrates when he was asserted to be a man. If the
propositions are negative, we must invert their order, thus: Socrates is
not a living creature, therefore he is not a man; for if we deny the less,
the greater, which includes it, is already denied by implication. These,
therefore, are not really cases of inference; and yet the trivial examples
by which, in manuals of Logic, the rules of the syllogism are illustrated,
are often of this ill-chosen kind; formal demonstrations of conclusions to
which whoever understands the terms used in the statement of the data, has
already, and consciously, assented.(47)
The most complex case of this sort of apparent inference is what is called
the Conversion of propositions; which consists in turning the predicate
into a subject, and the subject into a predicate, and framing out of the
same terms thus reversed, another proposition, which must be true if the
former is true. Thus, from the particular affirmative proposition, Some A
is B, we may infer that Some B is A. From the universal negative, No A is
B, we may conclude that No B is A. From the universal affirmative
proposition, All A is B, it can not be inferred that all B is A; though
all water is liquid, it is not implied that all liquid is water; but it is
implied that some liquid is so; and hence the proposition, All A is B, is
legitimately convertible into Some B is A. This process, which converts a
universal proposition into a particular, is termed conversion _per
accidens_. From the proposition, Some A is not B, we can not even infer
that some B is not A; though some men are not Englishmen, it does not
follow that some Englishmen are not men. The only mode usually recognized
of converting a particular negative proposition, is in the form, Some A is
not B, therefore something which is not B is A; and this is termed
conversion by contraposition. In this case, however, the predicate and
subject are not merely reversed, but one of them is changed. Instead of
[A] and [B], the terms of the new proposition are [a thing which is not
B], and [A]. The original proposition, Some A _is not_ B, is first changed
into a proposition equipollent with it, Some A _is_ “a thing which is not
B;” and the proposition, being now no longer a particular negative, but a
particular affirmative, admits of conversion in the first mode, or as it
is called, _simple_ conversion.(48)
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