premissen

Premissen are statements that serve as the foundational propositions in an argument. They provide the information or assumptions from which a conclusion is drawn. In everyday language, premises may be stated explicitly or left implicit, and they function as the basis for reasoning rather than as conclusions themselves.

In formal logic and syllogistic argumentation, premises are used to derive conclusions through rules of inference. A typical deductive structure includes a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. For example: major premise: All humans are mortal; minor premise: Socrates is a human; conclusion: Socrates is mortal. The validity of an argument depends on the logical connection between premises and conclusion, while the truth of premises concerns their factual accuracy or accepted axioms.

Arguments are evaluated in terms of validity and soundness. An argument is valid if the conclusion logically follows from the premises, regardless of whether the premises are actually true. It is sound if it is valid and its premises are true. Premises can be contested, revised, or supplemented by evidence. In everyday reasoning and scientific practice, premises may include explicit assumptions or hidden premises that require justification; poor premises can lead to weak or misleading conclusions and to fallacies such as circular reasoning or non sequiturs.

Etymologically, the term premisse, and its plural premissen, appear in several languages to denote a premise in an argument. In Dutch, premisse (plural premissen) is the standard term for a logical premise, used across philosophy, rhetoric, and law.