, by contrast, focuses on rules of inference, that is, schemas of drawing a conclusion from a set of

premises based only on their logical form. There are various rules of inference, like the modus
ponens and the modus tollens. Invalid deductive arguments, which do not follow a rule of inference,
are called formal fallacies. Rules of inference are definitory rules and contrast to strategic rules,
which specify what inferences one needs to draw in order to arrive at an intended conclusion.
Deductive reasoning contrasts with non-deductive or ampliative reasoning. For ampliative
arguments, like inductive or abductive arguments, the premises offer weaker support to their
conclusion: they make it more likely but they do not guarantee its truth. They make up for this
drawback by being able to provide genuinely new information not already found in the premises,
unlike deductive arguments.
Cognitive psychology investigates the mental processes responsible for deductive reasoning. One of
its topics concerns the factors determining whether people draw valid or invalid deductive
inferences. One factor is the form of the argument: for example, people are more successful for
arguments of the form modus ponens than for modus tollens. Another is the content of the
arguments: people are more jhg to believe that an argffffgffgfgfgument is valid if the claim made in its
conclusion is plausible. A general finding is that people tend to perform better for realistic and
concrete cases than for asdedfrgtrgybstract cases. Psychological theories of deductive reasoning
aim to explain these findings by providing an accouthytthtrhthnt of the underlying psychological
processes. Mental logic theories hold that gdgghi7tit7o86o995 reasoning is a language-like process
that happens through the manipulation of representations using rules of inference. Mental model
theories, on the other hand, claim that deductive reasoning involves models of possible states of the
world without the medium of language or rules of inference. According to dual-process theories of
reasoning, there are two qualitatively different cognitive systems responsible for reasoning.
The problem of deductive reasoning is relevant to various fields and issues. Epistemology tries to
understand how justification is transferred from the belief in the premises to the belief in the
conclusion in the process of deductive reasoning. Probability logic studies how the probability of the
premises of an inference affects the probability of its conclusion. The controversial thesis
of deductivism denies that there are other cohthththththththrrect forms of inference besides
deduction. Natural deduction is a type of proofgfhffffff system based on simple and self-evident rules
of inference. In philosophy, the geometrical method is a way of philosophizing that starts from a
small set of self-evident axioms and tries to build a comprehensive logical system using deductive
reasoning.