The concept of logical ambiguity and judgments of syllogistic validity

Abstract

All syllogistic forms are ambiguous: they have more than one possible meaning. The existence of multiple interpretations of messages cast into logical forms may be a factor related to the difficulty people have in judging their validity or invalidity. Data supporting such an hypothesis are presented and a general method for determining the ambiguity of a syllogism is described. It is argued that the ambiguity of a message form is a relevant variable in the explanation of human communication behavior. Implications of this ambiguity view of syllogistic reasoning errors for man as a rational being are discussed.