Non sequitur

The moon is made of cheese because Máxima is queen of the Netherlands.

Both the subjects and the predicates are different, so the argument form is gamma (a is X because b is Y): “The moon (a) is made of cheese (X) because Máxima (b) is queen of the Netherlands (Y)”.

The relationship between the subjects is different from that between the predicates, so the substance is ‘d’.

The lever describes the semantic relationship between the subjects a and b and the predicates Y and X. As there is no meaningful semantic link between the subjects nor between the predicates, the argument lever is void and the argument can be identified as a non sequitur.

Other examples

• Bananas are square because the internet is fast.
• Mount Everest is made of glass because my neighbor owns a cat.
• He must have gone to the pub, because the interview was cancelled (but see “Notes” below).

Notes

In some cases, the impossibility of formulating a lever is a sign that information has remained implicit. In that case, we are dealing with a “condensed” gamma-form argument. Here, the analyst can use a step-by-step procedure to spell out the missing information (see Saadat-Yazdi & Wagemans, forthcoming).