Free The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy by Kevin S. Decker Robert Arp William Irwin

whether all the premises are true.
    Notice the word
since
at the beginning of the premises and the word
therefore
at the beginning of the conclusion. The word
since
is an example of a premise indicator word, like
because
,
for
,
for the reason that
, and
as
, among others. The word
therefore
is an example of a conclusion indicator word, along with words like
hence
,
so
,
thus
,
this shows us that
,
we can conclude that
, and
we can reason/deduce/infer that
, among others. Premise-indicating and conclusion-­indicating words are important because they help us find the premises and conclusion in an argument. At times, it can be difficult to tell if someone is putting forward an argument or not. It’s therefore helpful to look for these indicator words to see if there’s an argument in front of you and, if so, then you can identify what the conclusion and the premises of the argument are. Unfortunately, indicating words aren’t always present, and people sometimes place the conclusion in different places in their argument (sometimes it will be the first claim, sometimes the second, sometimes the last). In such cases you’ll have to infer and supply these words to make the structure and parts of the argument apparent.
Deductions and Inductions
    There are two main kinds of argument,
deductive
arguments and
inductive
arguments. In deductive arguments, the arguer intends her conclusion to follow from the premises with
absolute certainty
. This means that if all her premises are true, then the conclusion must be true without a doubt. To say that a conclusion
follows
from a premise means that we’ve reasoned appropriately from one claim (the premise) to another claim (the conclusion). Cartman puts forward a deductive argument in “The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000” episode that goes something like this:
   
Premise 1
:
If the boys combine their lost teeth, then they’ll get money from the Tooth Fairy
   
Premise 2
:
If they get money from the Tooth Fairy, then they can buy a Sega Dreamcast
   
Conclusion
:
Hence, if the boys combine their lost teeth, then they can buy a Sega Dreamcast.
    If the two premises are true, the conclusion must absolutely be true. We can also see that there’s no other conclusion that could correctly follow from these premises. In fact, from looking at the premises alone you know the conclusion before even seeing it. The previous argument about Jews apologizing for Jesus’s death is also a deductive argument. Just like with the Tooth Fairy argument, if all the premises are true then the conclusion must be true; there’s no other conclusion that possibly could be drawn from the premises, and you know exactly what the conclusion is without even seeing it.
    In inductive arguments, the arguer intends his conclusion to follow from the premises with a
degree of probability
. Here, if all of the premises are true, then the conclusion probably or likely is true, but it could be false. In the “Towelie” episode, the boys notice that when they speak about anything having to do with towels, Towelie shows up, and so they reason like this:
   
Premise 1
:
In the past, when we mentioned towel-related things, Towelie showed up
   
Premise 2
:
And, because we will mention something towel-related now
   
Conclusion
:
We can conclude that Towelie will show up.
    Provided these premises are true, the conclusion is probably or likely true, but not definitely so. It’s what we call an “educated guess” that Towelie will show up, given past experience. But because Towelie has regularly appeared in the past doesn’t
guarantee
that he
will
show up now.
    Consider Stan’s reasoning at the end of the episode “Scott Tenorman Must Die” after it’s revealed that Cartman orchestrated the death of Scott’s parents and added their bodies to the chili, while the band Radiohead witnessed the entire thing so they could make fun of Scott for being a wussy:
   
Premise 1
:
Since Cartman does horrible things to