Minor Premise : One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --
CQ1 and CQ3 challenge the acceptability of the major premise and the
minor premise respectively.
This formula reduces decision-making to an Aristotelian syllogism with the law (L) as the major premise, the facts (F) as the
minor premise, and the decision (D) as the conclusion of the syllogism.
All four arguments have three parts: major premise,
minor premise and conclusion.
The verification task prompts participants to engage in the first step while the inference task plus the negative
minor premise "not-B" prompt people to engage in the second step.
While a so-called middle term is common to the two premises, the other two terms are the major extreme in the major premise and the minor extreme in the
minor premise. Here is the instance of a deduction (which is also a necessary demonstration), whose inferential necessity is independent of the predicative necessity of each premise and conclusion: if every animal is a substance, and if every man is an animal, it results of (inferential) necessity that every man is a substance.
These premises are essentially a more elaborate version of a popular syllogism among the nonreligious sections of the pro-life movement: a fetus is a human being (major premise); all human beings are entitled to human rights (
minor premise); therefore fetuses are entitled to human rights (conclusion).
The major premise of the argument is simply a definition of simplicity, and so the real interest lies in the truth or falsity of the
minor premise, which asserts that the soul satisfies the definition of simplicity.
Minor premise: Our feelings come from our thoughts.
In his counter-argument, Saruman attacks first the
minor premise: it is true that war has caused the deaths of valiant men, but the war was not Saruman's doing.
Minor premise: Some circumstances--poverty, youth, illness, immaturity, lack of health care or insurance--limit a woman's freedom to choose life.
Here the comparative argumentation from the
minor premise to the major is set up between the universality of Adam's sin and the universality of Christ's grace: 'Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned (after the insertion of verses 13 and 14, the comparison continues) 'But the free gift is not like the trespass.