In logic, a middle term is a term that appears (as a subject or predicate of a categorical proposition) in both premises but not in the conclusion of a categorical syllogism. The middle term (in bold below) must be distributed in at least one premise but not in the conclusion. The major term and the minor terms, also called the end terms, do appear in the conclusion.
Example:
- Major premise: All men are mortal.
- Minor premise: Socrates is a man.
- Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
The middle term is bolded above.
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or term:
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)