argument (argument)

[ It is an argument the times are sore, When virtue cannot safely be advanced. B. Jonson, Sejanus, iii. 1. Thicker than arguments , temptations throng. Pope , E ay on Man, ii. 75. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. Lowell , Democracy. [This, the familiar meaning of the word, probably originated in Roman law-courts. The usual definition given by Cicero and almost all authorities is ratio rei dub iæ faciens fidem, a reason causing belief of a doubtful matter. Boe. tius in one place defines it as a medium proving a conclusion. The word medium here means a premise, or premises, according to all the commentators. ( Petrus Hisp., tr. v. ad in it.) But since medium usually means the middle term of a syllogism, some logicians have been led to give argument this signification.] a series of numbers in a numerical table depends and with which the table is entered. If, for example, a table of the sun's declination were formed corresponding to every of the longitude being known, the declination might be found opposite to it, then the longitude would be called the argument of the table. Tables of double entry have two arguments. In the Ptolemaic astronomy, the argument, without qualification, is the angular distance on the epicycle of a planet from the true apogee of the epicycle; and the equation of the argument is the angular distance, as seen from the earth, of a planet from the center of the epicycle, the correction to the second inequality. See equa tion. Argument from enumeration, a rude kind of induction in which the inference is made that something true of whole cla , because it is true of certain mem bers of that cla . - Argument from example. See ex ample. Argument from exclusion, an argument in which, after showing that all causes but one are insuffi cient to account for a phenomenon, it is urged that the one remaining cause must be the true one. - Argument of the latitude, the arc of the orbit reckoned from the ascending node.- Artificial argument, contentious argument, cumulative argument. hisee the adjec Dilemmatic argument, one which purports to show that a whole cla has a certain character by dividing it into parts, and showing that every part has that character. Disjunctive argument, a reasoning of the form: S is either Por Q; it is not P; hence it must be Q.-Di ent a neo us argument, extrinsic argument, etc. the adjectives. - Hypothetical argument, an argument one of whose premises is hypothetical or conditional See proposition. It is not identical with hypothetic inference. See hypothetic.- Inductive argument, an argument founded on an induction. - Negative argument, an argument which concludes the non-existence of a phenomenon from its not having been observed. (For other phrases, see argumentum, place, proof.) = Syn. 3. Plea, Argument. " Plea should be used of the pleadings or of the arraignment before the trial, not of the argument at the trial. A plea is always addre ed to the court; an argument may be addre ed either to the court or to the jury." A. S. Hill, Rhetoric, p. 53.