This idea first appeared early in the second half of the first millennium BC, when teachers in India, Greece, and China showed an intense interest in formulating rules for the correct use of reason. Practical issues probably underpinned these movements: for pleading in courts, arguing between embassies, persuading enemies, and extolling rulers, it was important to make arguments watertight. There was a vital by product” rules for differentiating truths from falsehoods.

The most rigorous and systematic exposition was Aristotle’s strapping common sense into intelligible rules. If we think we understand him, it is because he taught us how to think. To this day, even people who have barely heard of him use the techniques he taught, which have seeped into the way we think through the channels of tradition. He was the best ever analyst of how reason works, inasmuch as it works at all.

According to Aristotle, or to a doctrine he wrote down, all valid arguments can be broken up into more-or-less identical phases, in which a necessary conclusion can be inferred from two premises established by prior demonstration or agreement. If the premises are – in what has become the standard syllogism-“Men are Mortal” and “Socrates is a man,” it follows that Socrates is mortal.

There is a flourish of the conjurer’s wand about the method. The whole art and science of logic after Aristotle became focused on improving his rules for distinguishing valid arguments from misleading ones (like “Socrates is a mortal; Socrates is a man ‘therefore all men are mortal”). By the time his followers had finished, arguments seem unbearably cumbersome, over-analyzed into 256 distinct types.

This was a method akin to mathematics: two and two make four irrespective of whether they are two eggs and two irons, or two mice and two men. The rules of logic yield the same results, whatever the subject matter; indeed, you can suppress the subject matter altogether and replace it with algebraic-style symbols. Clearly the system was imperfect.

There have to be axioms to start from: propositions deemed to be true that cannot be tested within the system. Aristotle saw no conflict between reason and observation or experience; he thought all were means of establishing truth. His legacy, however, made it possible to take sides, and people have done so ever since – some mistrusting “science” and doubting the reliability of evidence.

A roughly the same time in India, the Nyaya school of commentators on the ancient texts demonstrated their own confidence in reason and analyzed its processes in five-stage breakdowns that resembled syllogisms. Their concept, however, was in one fundamental way different from Aristotle’s: they claimed reason was a kind of extraordinary perception, conferred by God; nor were they strictly rationalists, for they believed meaning did not arise in the mind but was conferred on the objects of thought by God, tradition, or consensus.

“Illogical Captain”

The “mechanical” application of logic – famously championed by the half-Vulcan Mr. Spock from the television series Star Trek – appears alien to some, to others a sign of distinctively human rationality.



Man versus machine – When chess master Garry Kasparow took on the IBM computer “Deep Blue” in 1986 and 1987; it seemed to be an ideal way of testing pure logic against the more creative, if erratic, powers of the human brain. Man and machine won one game each.



And as usual a quote I will leave behind:

“Contrawise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and if it weren’t so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (1872)

Good readings on this topic include:

I.Bochenski’s “A History of Formal Logic (1956) is an excellent introduction.

W.H.C. Guthrie’s “Aristotle (1981) describes brilliantly the author’s “encounter” with Aristotle’s thought, while J.Lukasievic’s “Aristotle’s Syllogistic (1957) is a valuable technical exposition.

C. Habsmeier’s “Science and Civilization in China (1998), R. Collin’s “ The Sociology of Philosophies” (1998), and J. Goody’s “The East in the West” (1996) help set Greek logic in its global context.

Aristotle was actually wrong about quite a few things.

Zeno was right about the quantized nature of this universe, yet ironically Aristotle rejected Zeno's logical presentation.

It took about 2000 years before we finally proved experimentally that Zeno was right. And many logicians, mathematicians, and even physicsts, still don't "get it" yet.

Oh come on! Sky, Creative, Jeanniebean, Abra, Shoku, Redy, Billybush, Lamuerte, jrborgie!

You all are experts on this topic. I am sure you can give an logical opinion on it.

Just don't raise your eyebrows like Spock always did. That means you had to give it some thought.

It is the most reliable means we have at our disposal for recognizing wrongful thought processes through an objective demonstration which displays what grounds a conclusion are based upon.

It is not perfect!

I really have to find a book on Zeno and see what you are exactly talking about.

Will there ever be a day someone will come up with a better method to perfect it? That would be interesting to know

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Bertrand Russell may not have added anything new to the rules of logic, but he used them masterfully, in my opinion.

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Agreed!



Literally at the risk of life and limb.

my eyebrows not being as stylish as spock's, i don't look as attractive when i raise them and draw attention to my lack of grooming. having said that, i think the pointy eared one would agree that no proof of any kind actually exists. which raises the question, does spock actually exist?