Any tips on where to begin? I’ve become extremely interested in the subject of logic thanks to the Austrian school. Problem is, I have no clue where to start. I need entry-level stuff because most of this is going to be self-taught.
I know there’s the “stickied” praxeology thread but that’s logic specifically in regards to the Austrian school.
There are a number of solid intro. to logic books.
H.W.B. Joseph’s An Introduction to Logic is a really well-written exposition of traditional logic. It’s loaded with footnotes, original Greek and Latin, and references to sources ancient, scholastic, modern. It’s not an easy read, but it’s worth going through slowly. It’s probably my favorite.
David Gordon just used George Hayward Joyce’s Principles of Logic for his class, I think. It’s also a traditional book, but it’s easier to read than the above and also comprehensive, and it has great references.
Mises recomended An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method by Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel (I don’t think this is available online; though, you may be able to find it on scribd; I’m not sure) to his students. It’s also one of my favorites. It has good exercises, and the appendix is especially neat; it goes over some famous propisitions of Archimedes and Euclid and breaks them up and demonstrates how they are proved.
Jevons’s two books Primer of Logic and Elementary Lessons of Logic are great for beginners. The former is really short and really will prime you for a more comprehensive reading of the other books mentioned. The latter reads like the books of Joyce and Joseph do, and I think it’s actually now available at the Mises Store. Both books include questions and exercises.
I saved my Intro to Logic book from college – I was a huge formal logic dork when I first encountered it (in college, unfortunately). It’s a good one. I’ll check the title when I get home.
A List Of Fallacious Arguments
I also recommend you take a look at a computer logic book since seeing how logic can be physically realized (in mechanical or electrical systems) is helpful in visualizing what is going on. Even more important, I think it helps you avoid attaching any sort of mystical awe to logic, which I feel sometimes the more metaphysical approach can lapse into. DeMorgan’s theorem is pretty much the most advanced logic concept you need and the explanation you will find in a computer logic book is very straightforward and practical… in a metaphysical logic book, I’ve seen a lot of unnecessary verbiage and over-gushing adulation of the theorem as if it were the handiwork of God Himself.
In other words, get good at Boolean algebra… the rest is just warm and fuzzies.
Clayton -
First figure out what you even mean by the word logic. If you weren’t a grand master of deductive reasoning already, you’d be dead by now. The only reason deduction is ever hard is because words get in the way. The problem is that people are imprecise with words. Once you have precision, logic becomes a simple matter of noting the structure of your mental pictures.
Studying logic would be purely a waste of time if it weren’t for the fact that it makes you do a bunch of exercises where you’re forced to notice how to be more precise in your expression and interpretation of words. Aside from whatever value you might get from knowing the common logical terms and symbols, you can end-run the whole study just by being a stickler about definitions.
Wow thanks guys, this is basically what I’m looking for.
And what I mean by logic is…well…just the field involving (how to avoid) fallacies, a priori, empiricism, stuff…see I know what I mean but I can’t really explain it.
Thanks for the reminder of not to get too mystified by logic, I fear I may have actually been doing so.
I don’t mean to strawman or misinterpret, but are you saying that definitions are basically good enough? (Like searching the definition for a priori.) Because I’ve actually been doing that up to this point and so far it seems to have worked out alright.
Reading about it and being useful in practice are different ducks. You must make a habit of approaching every problem with a method. Otherwise you are just another nirvana critic. There is an undersupply of engineering technique.
I’m surprised no one has linked to the Mises Academy courses yet.
David Gordon just finished teaching a round of How to Think: An Introduction to Logic and his next class How to Know: The Epistemology of Ludwig von Mises is actually about to start on April 7.
Not “searching a definition for a priori,” as there is nothing in a definition besides some words designed to get other people to see what you are referring to. I just mean, if you are completely clear with your definitions and wording and insist that other people be clear with theirs and stick to them (every key word that makes or breaks their argument), logic will take care of itself by the natural reasoning ability you already use successfully for everything else in life.
Here’s the book I mentioned:
Copi and Cohen’s Intro to Logic, 10th edition
They have later editions, which may or may not be better, here.
Even if you are right about logic, that’s like saying that we don’t need to understand linguistics because we don’t need it to speak, we just need our natural language ability. But in studying linguistics there is a lot to learn about that natural language ability, and in studying logic there is a lot to learn about what makes a valid argument and so on.
I’d say look at this first. Feel free to ask me any questions.
As I mentioned above, if there is any value in studying “logic,” it is that the exercises and examples and law force you to notice how tricky words can be. People have no trouble understanding what makes a valid deduction when words aren’t getting in the way. If they did, they’d fail at every mental task they attempted. Understanding word-based errors and the praxeology of communication are where the action is, not so-called “logic.”
The whole Laws of Thought approach is kind of a pet peeve of mine. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but it makes it look like there are some authoritative laws that need to be followed for some philosophical reason, when really all they are are ways to prohibit (via a sort of philosophical intimidation) certain common verbal misunderstandings of people’s utterances. I propose actually looking at the source of the problem: how and why words can be so confusing.
I don’t get that meaning from the Laws of Thought at all. To me, the Laws of Thought are about non-contradiction.
The nature of words is something of a different story IMO. Words can be so confusing because they’re not bound to certain definitions. At all times, people are free to use whatever meanings for whatever words that they want to use.
Words are not bound to certain definitions, but people have a tendency to cling to their own definitions when discussing things as if everyone else really means the same thing when they say the same word. Even though they know (if you point it out) that other people have different definitions, they seem to compartmentalize that knowledge so they are temporarily blind to it during a debate. Something in them wants the word to mean the same thing to everyone, or feels it really objectively should have the same meaning to everyone.
I sometimes have called it the phenomenon of “sticky definitions.” You can feel the definitional the stickiness in every debate on these forums. It’s visibible in the slightly longer (and sometimes much longer) time people take to adjust the tenor of their responses, compared to how fast they would adjust if they had been fully aware of the possibility of other people using different definitions.
But the elephant in the room when it comes to all thinking and intellectual discussion is something called word-thought overwriting, which I mentioned briefly elsewhere but hope to explain in greater depth in future posts. If I could eliminate just one thing from everyone’s thought process, and from my own, it would be word-thought overwriting.
AJ, you’re definitely right that (some) people have that tendency. I think they have that tendency because they simply lack the mental discipline to use definitions that are different from the ones they’re used to, and/or (worse IMO) they actually aren’t concerned with the validity of the arguments presented per se - they’re concerned with looking like they’re “winning” (i.e. in the “stronger” position). All the emotional grandstanding you see in debates, both online and offline, have to do with that latter reason.
That’s all true as well. One thing, though: I’m not sure there is anyone who is totally fluid with their definitions. I remember when you wrote in another thread something like, “By certain definitions of exist, you don’t exist.” There’s still a little shock when the reader sees that, I think, even if they are aware of this, and even though - obviously - those other definitions could be anything at all. In the very next sentence you could have continued, “For example, if exist is defined as ‘weigh 500kg’ then you don’t exist.” The reader knows that, but it still hits him a bit. It still hits me for a brief moment, but I just make sure to adjust for it before I reply. Recognizing the effect is probably enough a lot of the time.
I think an important underlying reason is there is a social pressure to respect the authority of words. Words are supposed to be able to do things in society. Some words can seal a marriage. Merely uttering some words could get you arrested. And even just the fact that other people react strongly to words - even if you originally don’t - is enough to make everyone react strongly to them, because we’re social animals. And think of words like love, duty, honor, sin, etc. They are each part of their own set of social relations and pressures that bear down on every person in society.
The thing is, what authority do words (i.e. sound-forms) have on their own? None. It’s the semantics (the mapping of meanings to sound-forms) that have authority, by virtue (so to speak) of their common agreement. On the other hand, one is never bound prima facie to follow or even respect that semantic authority. He is, at all times, free to use different meanings for the same words. What I would consider dishonest (if not fraudulent) is if he does so without communicating it to those with whom he converses.