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9.10 INCONSISTENCY
An argument is proved invalid if truth values can be assigned to make all its premises true and its
conclusion false. If truth values cannot be assigned to make the premises true and the conclusion
false, then the argument must be valid.
Any argument whose premises are inconsistent must be valid.
Example 1:
If the airplane had engine trouble, it would have landed at Bend.
If the airplane did not have engine trouble, it would have landed at Creswell.
The airplane did not land at either Bend or Creswell.
Therefore the airplane must have landed in Denver.
A B
~A C
~(B v C)
D
In this example, the premises appear to be totally irrelevant to the conclusion. No truth-value
assignment can make them all true because they are inconsistent with one another. Their
conjunction is self-contradictory. We can provide a formal proof of its validity.
1. A B
2. ~A C
3. ~ (B v C) / D
4. ~B ~C 3, De. M.
5. ~B 4, Simp.
6. ~A 1,5, M.T.
7. C 2,6, M.P.
8. ~C ~B 4, Com
9. ~C 8, Simp.
10. C v D 7, Add.
11. D 10, 9, D.S.
In this proof, lines 1 through 9 are devoted to making explicit the inconsistency that is
implicitly contained in the premises. That inconsistency emerges clearly in line 7 (which asserts
C) and line 9 (which asserts ~C). Once this explicit contradiction has been expressed, the
conclusion follows swiftly using Add. and D.S.
Thus we see that if a set of premises is inconsistent, those premises will validly yield any
conclusion, no matter how irrelevant.
Example 2:
Today is Sunday.
Today is not Sunday.
Therefore the moon is made of green cheese.
In symbols we have
1. S
2. ~S / M
And the formal proof of its validity:
3. S v M 1, Add.
4. M 3, 2, D.S.
An argument that is valid because its premises are inconsistent cannot possibly be sound
for if the premises are inconsistent with each other, they cannot possibly be all true. By such
an argument, therefore, it is not possible to establish any conclusion to be true, because we know
that at least one of the premises must be false.
What we have shown is this: Any argument with inconsistent premises is valid, regardless of
what its conclusion may be.
The contradiction is first formally expressed (for example, S and ~S), the desired conclusion is
then added to one side of the contradiction (for example, S v M), and that desired conclusion
(for example, M) is then inferred by Disjunctive Syllogism using the other side of the
contradiction (for example, ~S).
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