Syllogism Finder Directions
Syllogism Finder's purpose is to help you find syllogisms meeting certain kinds of criteria. Whenever I am teaching logic I often need to make up test questions containing syllogisms that only commit one or two specific fallacies. For example, perhaps I want a syllogism which commits the fallacies of Undistributed Middle and Illicit Minor fallacies but none of the others. Perhaps for a test question I need a syllogism in the fourth figure that commits only the Exclusive Premises fallacy. I used to hunt for syllogisms fitting these criteria - but now you and I can use the Syllogism Finder to accomplish the same task much more easily!
Let's now learn how to use Syllogism Finder. To the right you'll see the main interface for Syllogism Finder (if the picture is too small, click on it to make it larger). The top part of the Syllogism Finder contains the various options you can use to sort syllogisms. Right now 256 syllogisms are being listed in the bottom part of the Syllogism Finder (twenty at a time) because we have selected no search criteria - so it's displaying all 256 syllogisms! So let's put some criteria in to limit the number of displayed syllogisms. We'll put information into the top and syllogisms that fit the criteria will display at the bottom.
Above we can see the first row of search options (click on the picture to make it larger). Let's begin by searching for an AE syllogism in the second figure that commits the fallacy of Undistributed Middle. In the box below "Type a Mood" you would enter "AE" (without the quotation marks), in the "Figure" box you'll click on it and select "2", and once you click on the "Undistributed Middle" box you'll select "Commits" (to signify that it commits the fallacy). It'll then look like the picture below (click on the photo to enlarge it if needed):
As you can see there are only two syllogisms that meet our criteria (that is, that contain an AE in their form, that are in the second figure, and that commit the fallacy of Undistributed Middle): AAE-2 and IAE-2. As you can also see the IAE-2 syllogism also commits the Illicit Major fallacy (notice how it says "Commits" under the Illicit Major column) while the AAE-2 syllogism does not commit any other fallacies.
Alright, let's try a slightly harder example. Suppose you're writing a test and you want to see if your students understand the Fallacy of Illicit Minor. You want, then, a syllogism which contains that fallacy but contains no other fallacies. Using Syllogism Finder you can easily find syllogisms like this! Just go to the dropdown boxes, select "Commits" for the "Illicit Minor" box and "Does not commit" for the boxes of the other fallacies. You'll then see the forms of all the syllogisms meeting those criteria! Now it's easier to make test, quiz, and homework questions for your students when teaching syllogistic logic!
