An argument is a statement (premise) or group of statements (premises) offered in support of another statement (conclusion). Argument may refer to:

• deductive argument, if valid, the conclusion follows by necessity
• inductive argument, if strong, the conclusion is, at best, probably true
• logical argument, a demonstration of a proof, or using logical reasoning for persuasion
• oral argument, a verbal presentation to a judge by a lawyer
• verb argument, a phrase in a sentence that qualifies a verb
• heuristic argument, a proof or demonstration relying on experimental results, or one which is not fully rigorous
• ontological argument, a proof by intuition or reason of the existence of God
• political argument, the use of logic rather than propaganda in promoting political ideas
• doublespeak argument, the use of misleading or irrelevant reasoning by one side during a debate
• javelin argument, a cosmological reasoning about the infinite size of the universe
• The Argument, an album by the band Fugazi released in 2001
• argument (literature), the brief summary at the beginning of a section of a poem
• grand argument story, a type of story that is intended to be conceptually complete

In mathematics, argument may also mean:

• independent variable or input of a function: the argument of $f(x)$ is $x$
• complex argument, the angular component φ of a complex number represented in polar coordinates
• argument principle, a theorem in complex analysis about meromorphic functions inside and on a closed contour
• diagonal argument, a type of proof over an infinite domain, used to identify the cardinal class of the real numbers
• probabilistic argument, any proof using probability theory

In computer science, argument may also mean:

• argument (computer science), an input to a subprogram or subroutine

See also

• Argument form, a method of logically analyzing sentences
• Argumentation theory, the science and theory of civil debates
• Argumentative, a type of evidentiary objection to a question for a witness during a trial
• Default argument, an actual parameter to a program that is used when no other actual parameter is provided
• Existence of God, contains lists of common ontological arguments for and arguments against the existence of God
• Toulmin Model, The model of an argument
• Distinction without a difference
• The Argument Skit, from Monty Python's Flying Circus

Philosophical arguments

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