validjustifying

Validjustifying is a term used in logic and critical thinking to describe the practice of producing premises that validly support a given conclusion. In this sense, the focus is on the structural relation between premises and conclusion: if the premises are true and the reasoning is properly formed, the conclusion necessarily follows. The term separates the issue of logical validity from the truth of the premises themselves, which may be contingent or contested.

Historically, valid in logic refers to a deductive relationship where the conclusion follows from the premises regardless of the actual truth of the premises. Validjustifying emphasizes constructing arguments that meet this standard of validity; it is less concerned with empirical adequacy than with inferential correctness. Some writers consider it a pragmatic label for the practice of ensuring that a justification stands up to logical scrutiny.

Applications include teaching formal reasoning, evaluating argumentative essays, and designing artificial intelligence systems that perform deductive reasoning. Practitioners typically identify the target conclusion, extract the premises, and verify that the reasoning uses valid inference patterns, such as modus ponens, modus tollens, or hypothetical syllogism. They may also test arguments for truth-functionality and look for counterexamples that would refute the validity.

Relationship to related concepts: validity concerns the entailment relation, while soundness adds actual truth of premises; justification in epistemology concerns evidence. Validjustifying should not be conflated with simply asserting a conclusion; it requires a demonstrably valid inferential chain. Limitations include the fact that valid arguments can have false premises, and real-world reasoning often combines both valid and non-deductive considerations.

See also logic, argument, validity, soundness, inference, epistemology.