Argument from cause

The students must have come into the classroom soaking wet because they came cycling through the pouring rain.

Since “they” refers to “the students”, it is easy to see that the argument form is alpha (a is X because a is Y): “The students (a) must have come into the classroom soaking wet (X) because they (a) came cycling through the pouring rain (Y)”.

Both the conclusion and the premise can be classified as statements of fact (F), so the argument substance is FF: “The students must have come into the classroom soaking wet (F) because they came cycling through the pouring rain (F)”.

The keyword CAUSE describes the relationship between predicates Y and X. The argument lever can thus be formulated as “Cycling through the pouring rain (Y) is the CAUSE of entering the classroom soaking wet (X)”.

Source

This is an invented example.

Other examples

I will make New York safe for everyone because I will tackle the rise of hate crime (reconstructed from Zohran Mamdani’s Terminal 5 rally speech, June 15th 2025, NYC).

Notes