Talk:Rule of inference

A request has been made for this article to be peer reviewed to receive a broader perspective on how it may be improved. Please make any edits you see fit to improve the quality of this article.

Rule of inference has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: April 3, 2025. (Reviewed version).

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The content of Inference rule was merged into Rule of inference. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. For the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

A fact from Rule of inference appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 June 2025 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that logicians using classical rules of inference can deduce any arbitrary statement from a contradiction? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2025/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Rule of inference.

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I've listed this article for peer review to prepare it for a featured article candidacy. I would be interested to learn what changes are required to fulfill the featured article criteria, but I'm also open to more casual improvement ideas. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I read the article and I enjoyed it very much as it reminded the days back at the university. Though I might have to re-read again to fully appreciate your work. I am going to leave some comments:

Hello A.Cython and thanks for the detailed comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. Some employ many intuitive rules of inference to reflect how people naturally reason while others provide minimalistic frameworks to represent foundational principles without redundancy. You may want to copyedit this to avoid MOS:WEASEL flags, especially at the lead.

   Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

2. The letters P and Q in these formulas are so-called metavariables: they stand for any simple or compound proposition I think this should be at the beginning of the paragraph right after the definition of the relation. Otherwise, one reads a whole paragraph without knowing what P & Q are.

   I moved the explanation to the first paragraph. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

3. You have the portrait of Boole, but I failed to see a mention to Boolean Algebra. I think you need to mention it briefly and provide a wikilink.

   Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

4. After each "e.g." add a comma.

   Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

5. "Others" subsection title is too vague consider a more informative subsection title

   Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

6. You mentioned that Aristotelian logic is one of the oldest. You may want to double check if Indian logic & Logic in China is worth mentioned in the article?

   I found a way to mention the Nyaya school. However, the general difficulty is that many of these traditions were not particularly concerned with rules of inference but focused on good reasoning and judging in a more general sense, such as Mohist logic. So they are less relevant to this article than to argumentation theory, epistemology, or logic in a wider sense. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

7. I think "computer science" and "mathematics" are wikilinked twice.

   I don't think that this is an issue since one link occurs in the lead section and the other in the body of the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

8. conceptions of logical consequence. Logical consequence, a fundamental concept in logic, You may want to copyedit this to avoid repetition.

   Reformulated. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

9. They observe that humans are better at using some rules of inference than others. For example, the rate of successful inferences is higher for modus ponens than for modus tollens I think this needs some copyediting. I notice that you use regularly the word "others". But to the point if you are only going to provide one example, then just describe the example: "They observe that humans are better at using modus ponens than for modus tollens." This way you are more concise and avoid leaving gaps to the reader, i.e., in which other rules of inference the humans are good for.

   Reformulated. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

10. Based on the previous comment. The way you wrote it They observe that humans... creates to the reader the anticipation of telling them about other species being good at inference. Are there any studies of other species? If not, please consider rewriting.

    I kept the first reference to humans but removed the second one. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

11. I might be mistaken but the Rule of inference should be important in legislative and law fields, which is not mentioned in the article. I think it should briefly mentioned in "In various fields" section. These links might be useful [1], [2], [3]

    I added a paragraph to the section "In various fields". However, the connection is not as straightforward as one might hope for. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A.Cython (talk) 05:31, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add some remarks now, and will try to add more if I get time to read the article in depth. Happy to read and review another article by you, they are always great in quality. HSLover/DWF (talk) 18:45, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Define propositions in a short sentence, perhaps in parentheses
• "articulating the internal structure of propositions"- can this be made easier to read?
• Define paraconsistent in a short sentence, perhaps in parentheses

• "and the conclusion. As a result, the actual content"-> "and the conclusion, that is, the actual content"(I don't think as a result are the accurate words here)
• "In addition to modus ponens,...":the sea of blue is in the lead and in classical logic, it's pretty much redundant here
• Define universal instantiation in a short sentence, perhaps in parentheses
• "One of the earliest ... early modern philosophy."- redundant, please remove

• • Define technical terms such as the 4 introduction and elimination things, and disjunct and consequent and such in short sentences, perhaps in parentheses