In discourse and logic, a premise is a claim that is a reason (or element of a set of reasons) for, or objection against, some other claim. In other words, it is a statement presumed true within the context of an argument toward a conclusion. Premises are sometimes stated explicitly by way of disambiguation or for emphasis, but more often they are left tacitly understood as being obvious or self-evident ("it goes without saying"), or not conducive to succinct discourse. For example, in the argument
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- Socrates is mortal, since all men are
it is evident that a tacitly understood claim is that Socrates is a man. The fully expressed reasoning is thus:
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- Since all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, it follows that Socrates is mortal.
In this example, the first two independent clauses preceding the comma (namely, "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man") are the premises, while "Socrates is mortal" is the conclusion.
In the context of ordinary argumentation, the rational acceptability of a disputed conclusion depends on both the truth of the premises and the soundness of the reasoning from the premises to the conclusion.
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