Coffee for Dessert

–Sharp Eye Sherlock–

Logic in the words we say and ideas we express is taken for granted but when studied and examined, logic is not nearly as intuitive as it should seem.  Both inductive and deductive reasoning are present in all of our thoughts whether we realize it or not. Now that I realize it, I may sometimes stop to think twice about what has been said during discussion and actually assess it with some sort of intellectual process.

The tools used in logic are very similar to those used in math. This course essentially opened my eyes to the connection logic pulls between language and math. Both language and math are subject to the rules of logic and therefore similar properties can be applied towards both. It makes me see why ancient philosophers were known as masters of many domains because all of the different domains are indeed connected.

However, today we seem to pull apart and differentiate all these domains because we see them as known and deciphered. It is when all the pieces are put together that we see the truth in the world and how the world really exists. Our education of the sciences is based upon a vast amount of knowledge deciphered inductively and collected endlessly. We accept the truth of this vast amount of knowledge because we have these logical systems that assure as that these are true. Logic is the check and balance system for science and our brains are preprogrammed to use this system with only some minor tweaks and upgrades along the way.

Inductive logic is our way of taking a ton of information, plugging it into an equation and assessing the answer. This is the same thing we do for math; we just use different symbols. In math we take numbers (which are symbolizing some other statistic or piece of information) and plug them into an equation and assess the result that the specific equation renders. This course has taught me the proper way to use the symbols towards arguments and what the symbols mean and how they can lead to conclusions.

Deductive logic is the way to assess logical relationships and the truth of the relationships. Knowledge is not gained nor lost in deductive reasoning, it is only found valid or invalid depending on the form of the argument and the truth contained in the original premises and conclusions.

Similarly to inductive logic, deductive reasoning uses symbols and specific forms with specified rules to assign truth-values to statements. Deductive arguments are simplified and generalized with symbols so that the content of the sentence does not confuse the analysis. The content of the sentence is irrelevant because the truth will remain when the original content is substituted back in. The truth is irrelevant if the form of the argument is not valid or is subject to a fallacy.

Overall, the complexity of the concepts discussed in this course oftentimes lead to vague discussions about mechanics. Philosophical reasoning is a vague subject matter in general, but I absolutely learned new ideas about the value of symbolization to represent ideas, simplify arguments and avoid redundant information.