Stupid? Or smart?(Repost) – Tyler Lee

Either I am smart or stupid

I am not smart

/Therefore I am stupid

I used disjunctive syllogism for today’s post. It’s a pretty simple syllogism that uses a simple form. An example of disjunctive syllogism is
Major premise:   Either the meeting is at school or at home.
Minor premise:   The meeting is not at home.
Conclusion:      Therefore the meeting is at school.

(From http://www.fibonicci.com/logical-reasoning/syllogisms/examples-types/)

Let’s discuss about the form and factual correctness of this argument. First, let’s take a look at my major premise: Either I am smart or stupid. To me, this is factually correct since I see nobody in between stupid and smart. Since this is true to me, the argument so far is sound. Now, take a look at the second premise. This premise is obviously not factually correct, so that means that the argument is now not sound. Since there is a…