Talk:Introduction to Philosophy/Logic

Well, I've got as far as a table of contents. I welcome constructive comments. I might copy some of the wikiversity stuff I've written across to here, as I think this is where a lot of it really belongs. --publunch 12:40, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm busy working on this. But I need your help. I feel like there is some kind of 'mathematical creep' going on. Now this might be something to do with the nature of logic as a tradition - a lot of logicians were also mathematicians, predicate calculus has its roots in mathematical analysis, etc. Trouble is I've been steeped in mathematics and am part of this tradition myself. I don't want to expunge the maths, but I don't want the book to become too mathematical, which it could do if I'm the sole author. Logic should be able to cope with the real world, not just some platonic heaven.

It would be nice to have some logic gurus here. But failing that, I'll try to be the guru for any student who is moderately interested in being guinea pig for this text as it develops. --publunch 16:35, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Under construction, Update
I (User:JMRyan) have decided that it is best to move (most of) the newer pages (see Introduction to Philosophy/Logic/Some Properties of the Logical Connectives above) to a new book, Formal Logic. Introduction to Philosophy appears to be a general survey book which looks broadly at a wide variety of philosophical areas, but does not cover any one of them in much detail. The newer pages are a more detailed presentation of standard formal logic. I will also try to patch up the older pages to fit in with the apparent goal of Introduction to Philosophy. (October 13, 2005)

link back
publunch, good work. I think it would be good to have links from the subpages back to the main page. See the example I made on the modes page. What do you think? I was also wondering what the reasoning was behind calling the page Modes vs Introduction_to_Philosophy:Logic:Modes or Introduction_to_Philosophy:Modes? Does Modes ever have the potential of being a book of its own? It is possible I am seeing all these pages in a bit too linear of form though. liblamb 19:32, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks, liblamb. It is nice to know that someone is reading this stuff - I sometimes get the feeling that I am talking to myself when I am writing and that makes me feel lonely and depressed and makes me wonder what the point of writing this is.  Well, there is a lot of bad reasoning in the world, and a bit of teaching about logic might just help.  It could stop wars!


 * Perhaps there is a problem with the page called 'modes'. I needed to introduce modus ponens and modus tollens there, as they are pretty basic and I don't think the propositional calculus, which I am working on at the moment would make any sense without me talking a little bit about introducing MP and MT there.  Somehow some rather important stuff about logical fallacies has crept in at the bottom of the modes page.

--212.56.114.4 12:13, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I might get round to putting some links back in my pages, or you can put the links in for me. There is so much to do, so a bit of help is appreciated.  --publunch 11:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm note sure where this goes so feel free to move or delete it, but what I am trying to understand is another paradox and its relation to logic.

When a person is inebriated they often report bothing being and not-being themselves.

Or there are some logical arguments that have all sound premises that are true for the people who believe them. While there are opposite logical arguements leading to the opposite conclusions, but consisting of sound premises from the point of view of the people who believe them.

All x is y, a is x. .: a is y

But other people will believe that All x is ~y, a is x. .: a is not y.

My problem is that it can be shown by both parties that 1) All x is y and 2) All x is not y is sound from their point of view. But this leads to the unallowable a is not a, a contradiction

Now, is this handled by having some sort of statement that when we see "a is not a," what we are really seeing is that B(a is y) and C(a is not y) where B and C are the people holding those conclusions. Or they hold those beliefs because they flow logically from their assumptions B(All x is y) or C(All x is not y).

I guess what I'm asking is how does point of view fit into logic, specifically related to what are taken to be sound premises.

Almost all political arguments for policy outcomes seem to fall into the above (paradox?). The other example may not, but it's the one of both being and not being yourself when you are inebriated. I guess I'm trying to see if there's a relation of logic to psychology or if logic can't apply to psychological states. (teacher@mediawell.com)

false name space
I've been asked by someone on irc to move all the logic pages to a 'false name space'. So stuff is slowly being moved to 'introduction to logic'. This will be done, but it may take a while, 'coz I don't rush anything these days. --publunch 12:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Notation
I have just put a couple of paragraphs into the Modal logic section and I have used LaTeX with the "math" tab to write the formulae. I think they look much better this way. Although the formulae in the previous sections look fine, I don't think they will when they get more complicated. (80.58.11.107 11:52, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC))

Casing
I have started to moving (renaming) these pages to achieve better casing consistency, especially with the parent Introduction to Philosophy book. The parent book is not completely consistent, but it mostly appears to follow book title casing with the first and all subsequent non-minor words capitalized. --JMRyan 19:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

E-Prime
I thought this might be the place to also mention E-Prime. It relates very much to logic. Perhaps the regular editors to this book would be interested in incorporating a chapter about it. --Loplin 05:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)