Lecture Summary I: Basic Logical Concepts Subject:

Philo1 (Logic 1)
Michael Jhon M !amayao June "1#
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Logic is defined as the science of correct reasoning. As a science, it provides
methods and principles for distinguishing good (correct) from bad (incorrect) reasoning.
1
But why
do we exactly need to know these methods and principles !t is for the simple reason that we
care to be correct. "he human mind always strives for the #truth.$ !t is precisely this #truth$ that
correct reasoning aims for. But what exactly is #truth$
%e say that something or a statement is true if it coincides with reality. !f ! saw a
poodle, for example, and it is for a fact that it eats meat, then a true statement basing from what
! perceive would be #"he poodle is a carnivore.$ Truth then is defined as the correspondence of
the mind to reality. "hus, if what is thought in the mind does not coincide with the reality, then it
is said to be false.
"he simplest act of the mind to attain truth is judgment. %hen ! affirm (or deny) an
attribute to a sub&ect, ! am making a &udgment. %hen ! #think$ for example that #"he poodle is a
carnivore$ ! am affirming the attribute #carnivore$ to the sub&ect #poodle.$ 'y act of affirming this
description to the house is a &udgment. (ow this &udgment can be true or false. !n this case
(given the condition is indeed followed) it is true.
)ven before the mind makes a &udgment it has already done a simple
comprehension. "aking the same example above, even before ! made the &udgment #"he
poodle is a carnivore$ ! already conceived individually the notions of #carnivore$ and #poodle.$
"hus my simple apprehension of the notions #carnivore$ and #poodle$ is a more elementary act
of my mind than my &udgment. !t is only when ! affirm the attribute carnivore to the sub&ect
poodle that ! will actually make a &udgment.
(ow if ! make a series of &udgments following an orderly structure and flow, then !
make an inference. *or example,
All dogs are carnivores
All poodles are dogs
"herefore, all poodles are carnivores.
!n other words, inference is the process of deducing or extracting a &udgment from previous
&udgments.
+ooking now at the whole process of reasoning, we first have simple apprehension,
then &udgment and lastly inference. (evertheless, these are only #acts$ of the mind. ,nless they
are verbally expressed, they cannot be evaluated through the logical methods and principles.
"he end products or verbal expressions of the three acts are term/name (for the notion
conceived in simple apprehension), proposition (for &udgment), and argument (for inference).
!n "raditional +ogic, syllogism is the typical format of the arguments (as seen in the example
above). !t is composed of three propositions.
-ne of the fundamental principles of traditional logic is that a proposition is always
composed of two terms, the subject and the predicate. !n the proposition #All poodles are
carnivores$, carnivore is the predicate because it is that which is predicated (affirmed.denied) to
the sub&ect poodle. "he poodle is said to be the sub&ect because it is the ob&ect being affirmed
(or denied) of the attribute #carnivore.$
Arguments always have two parts, the conclusion and the premises. -therwise, it is
not an argument. "he conclusion is the statement supported by previous statements. /remises,
on the other, are the statements that support the conclusion. 0eferring to the example above,
the conclusion is #All poodles are carnivores$ and the premises are #All dogs are carnivores$ and
#All poodles are dogs.$
Arguments are central concepts in logic inasmuch as they support our claim to truth.
"here are two factors to assess the worth of an argument, its truth and validity. "ruth has
already been elucidated, but what is validity %e say that an argument is valid, like in the
example above, when its premises give conclusive grounds to its conclusion. !n other words, the
premises give 1112 support to the conclusion, otherwise it is said to be invalid. 'oreover,
validity is anchored on the rules of inference so that once these rules are broken an argument
becomes invalid. 3owever, it must be well noted that truth is properly used for propositions and
validity for arguments. "hus we say #propositions are true.false not valid.invalid$ and #arguments
are valid.invalid not true.false.$
"he first principle in logic is the independence of truth from validity. An argument may
be valid but has one or more false propositions, or an argument may be invalid but has true
propositions. *or example,
All priests are humans
All angels are priests
"herefore, all angels are humans.
Although the second and third propositions are false, the entire argument is still valid because it
does not break any rule for making a valid argument.
!nasmuch as truth and validity are the basis of making a good argument, we say that
an argument is good or #sound$ when all of its propositions are true and the entire process of
reasoning is valid. 4onsider the following example of a #sound argument$5
All priests are humans ("rue)
All /opes are priests ("rue)
"herefore, all /opes are humans. ("rue)
But if one or more propositions are false and.or the reasoning is invalid, then the argument is
said to be unsound or fallacious. Fallacies usually commit these errors because of their
ambiguous or vague language. 4onsider the following example5
6od is love
+ove is blind
"herefore, 6od is blind.
"he argument seems to be valid but, in close inspection, it is fallacious. (ot only is its
language ambiguous, it also has an invalid argument considering its form and figure. "he
explanation for the second point will be elaborated in later lectures. "he meaning of the word
#blind$ in the second statement is a metaphor for #does not seek for any specific answer$ while
the word #blind$ in the third statement is understood as #physical blindness.$ !t sounds
persuasive but it is fallacious.
'oreover, there are two kinds of arguments5 the Deductive and the Inductive. An
argument is said to be deductive if is necessitates validity, that is to say, its premises must claim
to support the conclusion with necessity. An !nductive argument, on the other hand, also have
premises that support its conclusion but do not guarantee its necessity. "he example of the
sound argument above is a deductive argument because the premises guarantee the necessity
of the conclusion. An example of an inductive argument, on the other hand, is #Of all the 50
million swans I saw, nothing is black. herefore, !o swan is black. Although the argument
provides support to the conclusion, it does not give a 1112 support to the conclusion because
there is still a possibility of error. 7eeing fifty million swans which are colored black does not
entitle you to say with #1112 correctness$ that #all$ swans are black. #*ifty million swans$ is not
the sane with #all swans.$ Although the premise gives support, it is only done out of #probability.$
6athering therefore all the basic concepts we have5 LOGIC !I"#L$
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1
Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic ( New York: Macmillan Puli!"ing Co., Inc., #$%&' p. (.