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:
“In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)