Question

Consider the conditional argument: "He would have been successful if he had

gotten a job. He is not successful. Therefore, he did not get a job." The second premise:

(A) affirms the antecedent.
(B) affirms the consequent.
(C) denies the antecedent.
(D) denies the consequent.
(E) None of the above

Answer 1

The second premise in the argument denies the consequent, which fits with option (D). This is part of the valid deductive reasoning form known as modus tollens in logic.

Step-by-step explanation:

The conditional argument states: "He would have been successful if he had gotten a job. He is not successful. Therefore, he did not get a job." The structure of this argument is similar to a logical form known as denying the consequent (modus tollens). In this form, the antecedent is what follows the 'if' and the consequent is what follows the 'then' in a conditional statement.

The second premise in the provided argument is stating that the result (consequent) 'He is successful' is not true. This is akin to stating 'not Y' from the logical form where 'Y' is the consequent. Hence, it matches with option (D) denies the consequent, which is part of a valid deductive reasoning form.

This is because in a conditional statement, the truth of the antecedent ('He had gotten a job') is sufficient for the truth of the consequent ('He would have been successful'), but the consequent can still be true by other sufficient conditions.

Therefore, denying the antecedent would not necessarily lead to the denial of the consequent, whereas denying the consequent does lead to the denial of the antecedent, making the argument a valid form of deduction.