Being Logical

So long as the entire class is not being referred to, the statement is particular. Be it large or small, a portion is a portion.

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.

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

We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide. —DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

Truth has two basic forms. There is “ontological” truth and “logical” truth. Of these two, ontological truth is the more basic. By ontological truth we refer to the truth of being or existence. Something is said to be ontologically true, then, if it actually exists; it has real being.

Your premises must measure up with respect to two counts, truth and strength.

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.

Logical truth, in other words, is founded upon ontological truth.

When we define something, what we are attempting to do is simply identify it more precisely—first by grouping it with other things that are generally similar to it, then by noting what is unique to it (the specific difference) in comparison with the other things in the group.