Rigorous Reasoning
← Reasoning Lab

Diagnose & Evaluate · Free

Relevance & Sufficiency Checker

Test whether the reasons actually support the conclusion, and whether the support is strong enough. The tool walks you through two distinct evaluations: relevance is per-premise (does this bear on the conclusion?); sufficiency is across the whole set (taken together, do the premises do the inferential work?). A premise can be directly relevant and the argument still insufficient.

Pairs with: the Fallacy Diagnostic (which names common patterns of bad reasoning) and the Argument Repair Tool (which helps fix the diagnosed problems). This tool sits between them — it's the structural evaluation step.

2. Identify the structure

Pull the conclusion out of the surrounding language, then list the reasons offered for it. The relevance test treats each line as a separate premise.

Where to go next

Fallacy DiagnosticCheck the argument against 14 named patterns of bad reasoning before (or alongside) the structural evaluation.Open tool →Argument Repair ToolOnce you've found insufficient support or irrelevant premises, use the Repair Tool to rewrite the argument.Open tool →Bayesian Update ToolQuantitative complement: where this tool asks whether premises support the conclusion, the Bayesian Update Tool asks by how much, given a prior and likelihoods.Open tool →Induction Strength CheckerWhen the argument is an inductive generalization or analogy, score its structural strength on the four standard criteria — sample size and diversity for generalizations, similarity count and disanalogy count for analogies.Open tool →Argument to the Best ExplanationEvaluate competing explanations side by side.Open tool →