The minor term here is mammal, which is not distributed in the minor premise "All cats are mammals", because this premise is only defining a property of possibly some mammals (i.e., that they're cats.) However, in the conclusion "All mammals are felines", mammal is distributed (it is talking about all mammals being felines). It is shown to be false by any mammal that is not a feline; for example, a dog.
illicit, minor, formal, fallacy, committed, categorical, syllogism, that, invalid, because, minor, term, undistributed, minor, premise, distributed, conclusion, euler, diagram, showing, illicit, minor, where, subset, both, subset, this, fallacy, following, arg. Illicit minor is a formal fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its minor term is undistributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion An Euler diagram showing an illicit minor where the set A is a subset of both B and C but B is not a subset of C This fallacy has the following argument form All A are B All A are C Therefore all C are B Example All cats are felines All cats are mammals Therefore all mammals are felines The minor term here is mammal which is not distributed in the minor premise All cats are mammals because this premise is only defining a property of possibly some mammals i e that they re cats However in the conclusion All mammals are felines mammal is distributed it is talking about all mammals being felines It is shown to be false by any mammal that is not a feline for example a dog Example Pie is good Pie is unhealthy Thus all good things are unhealthy See also editIllicit major Syllogistic fallacy Association fallacy This article was originally based on material from the Free On line Dictionary of Philosophy which is licensed under the GFDL nbsp This logic related article is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Illicit minor amp oldid 1144734253, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
