NOTE: 

"Soundness" Unsound 

DAN GOLDSTICK University a/Toronto 

It's obvious that reasoning can be "sound" in the technical sense without 
being any good; and that it can be technically "unsound" yet rationally conclu-
sive. To satisfy oneself on the latter score, it is only necessary to recall any 
nondeductive argument on considers conclusive. And, as far as the first point 
goes, atheists can consider, e.g., 

"If god exists, I'm a monkey's uncle. 

I'm not a monkey's uncle. 
Therefore, God doesn't exist." 

and theists can entertain the parallel argument starting with the premise 

"If God doesn't exist, I'm a monkey's uncle." 

instead. I 

The "sound"/ "unsound" distinction, in the technical sense, is much used 
in the introductory teaching of logic, though it plays no part in logic itself. The 
only ground for objection, really, is to the appropriation of the words 'sound' 
and 'unsound', which otherwise could be used to mark good and bad reason-
ing in general. 

Who, then, originated this objectionable appropriation? It seems the origi-
nal perpetrator of the objected-to usage was Irving M. Copi, on page 11 of the 
1953 First Edition of his much-used Introduction to Logic.2 

I am not saying a deductive argument's soundness or unsoundness has 
nothing in any way to do with its merits-for indeed only a sound argument 
can ever deductively prove anything. But surely it must be accepted that a 
sound deductive argument is only any good (probatively) where the accept-
ance of all its premises is rationally warranted, though not solely on account 
of that argument. Whoever, unlike me, thinks a circular argument is never any 
good can delete "(probatively)" and "though not solely on account of that 
argument" here. (One way of not being any good, no doubt, is being super-
fluous.) 

ICf. the editor's Introduction to John Hick (ed.), The Existence a/God (Macmillan: New 
York, 1964), pages 4-5. 

2Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic, (Macmillan: New York, 1953). A medium thorough 
review of earlier logic texts would appear to bear the statement out. And, in a private 
communication of 7 August 1998, Professor Copi stated that he could not recall any writer 
who used the term "sound" earlier to characterize valid arguments with all-true premises. 

©InformalLogic Vol. 19, No.1 (1999): p.90.