Question

Consider the following argument:

Major Premise: No squares are rectangles

Minor Premise: All rectangles are circles

Conclusion: Some circles are not squares

What is the Mood of the above proposition ?

1. A I E
2. A E O
3. E A O
4. E A I

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 3 : E A O

The correct solution is "E A O"

 In order to identify the Mood of any statement or proposition, one need to know the basics which is:

• All S is P is represented as "A" which means universal affirmative.
• No S is P is represented as ''E'' which means universal negative.
• Some S is P which is represented by "I" which means particular affirmative.
• Some S is not P which is represented by "O" which means particular negative.

Name	Statement	Quantity	Quality
A	All S is P	Universal	Affirmative
E	No S is P	Universal	Negative
I	Some S is P	Particular	Affirmative
O	Some S is not P	Particular	Negative

Where S is the subject And P is the predicate in the sentence.

To identify the Mood of a particular proposition, one needs to keep the premises in standard form which is explained below:

Standard form:

• P1: Some men are mortal
• P2: All Socrates are men
• Conclusion: Some Socrates are mortal

The predicate of the conclusion i.e. mortal should be present in 1st premise which makes it a major premise  (Mandatory condition)

The subject of the conclusion i.e. Socrates makes the 2nd premise a minor premise.

• Now for Identifying the Mood of the Proposition we just need to identify which sort of statement is given to us. In the example above the First statement belongs to "some" which is represented by 'I', 2nd premise is "All" which is represented by 'A' and the conclusion again consists of "some" which is represented by 'I'. Hence, the mood of the above example becomes "I A I".

  Similarly in the question above the mood of the proposition becomes "E A O"