ABSTRACT
When arguments are valid, conclusions must follow from the premises. One way to establish whether a conclusion follows from its premises is to check its consistency by asking, ‘Could a rational person accept the reasons and deny the conclusion?’ More exact approaches to establish the validity of arguments are also available. For arguments in prepositional form, the patterns of reasoning are compared with those argument forms which logicians have shown to be valid. Venn diagrams are used to establish the validity of arguments in predicate form.1 We conclude with a discussion of the role of value judgements in the context of valid reasoning.
