Being Logical

We will call “complex” ideas those for which there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between idea and thing. Here the correspondence is one to many. There is more than a single originating source for this kind of idea in the objective world.

A science is any organized body of knowledge that is possessed of first principles. The first principles of any science are those fundamental truths upon which the science is founded and by which all its activities are informed.

The user shapes language, but language shapes the user as well. If we consistently use language that serves to distort reality, we can eventually come to believe our own twisted rhetoric. Such is the power of language.

A is a statement (“If the Bulldogs win the game”) and B is a statement (“They will go to the playoffs”). The first statement is called the “antecedent”; the second is called the “consequent.” “A → B” (the first line) is the major premise of the argument; “A” (the second line) is the minor premise. The third line, “Therefore, B,” is obviously the ar

But it is possible for particular statements to be quite precise: “Sixteen percent of the runners finished the race in under two hours.” Always be as precise in your statements about things as your knowledge of them allows you to be.

It is important to be aware of the difference between truth and validity. Though often confused, they are in fact quite different. First, truth has to do only with statements, whereas validity has to do only with that structural arrangement of statements that we call an argument. Second, a statement is true if what it asserts reflects what is objec

the “coherence theory of truth,” is subordinate to the correspondence theory.

There are three basic components to human knowledge: first, an objective fact (e.g., a cat); second, the idea of a cat; third, the word we apply to the idea, allowing us to communicate it to others (e.g., in English, “cat”).

An ambiguous term (“equivocal,” in the language of logic) is one which has more than a single meaning and whose context does not clearly indicate which meaning is intended.