ABSTRACT
The view here is essentially a reductionist one with regard to good reasoning and fallacies. Good reasoning can be reduced to a single notion, that of deductive soundness: (a) the premises must be true and (b) the argument valid so that the conclusion follows from the premises, in that to assert the premises and deny the conclusion would involve a contradiction, that is, would be inconsistent. It is from (a) and (b) alone that an argument giving one a reason to accept a conclusion as true is ultimately derived. Included in the analysis of validity is that it is a matter of form, and that one should not be distracted by irrelevant content in assessing validity. Individual arguments are valid because they are instances of valid forms of argument: valid argument-forms. In this way, it is hoped, the notion of good reasoning can be applied to any situation irrespective of subject matter.
