Argument Schemes: Affirming the Consequent

Comment on 'Inception':
Notice that whether this is an invalid Affirming the Consequent argument or a valid Modus Ponens depends of course on the reconstruction of the main premise (the conditional statement).

Our reconstruction:
'If you are dreaming, you find yourself in the middle of a situation.'
Then the conclusion that she is dreaming does not follow (even if true) because she may, for example, not remember how she got there.
An alternative reconstruction:
'If you find yourself in the middle of a situation then you are dreaming.'
Then the conclusion that she is dreaming follows.

This video was created as additional educational support for the purposes of the 100-level course 'Logic, Information, Argumentation' taught at Amsterdam University College (AUC). It is made by students in the context of the AUC Educational Development Initiative project 'Flipping the Classroom: students teaching students' supervised by AUC logic teaching coordinator Dora Achourioti. The AUC students who have collaborated on making this video are:

Loes van Keulen
Anne Roosenberg