From: merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Logic
Date: 14 Dec 92 22:54:18 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.theory
Organization: Boston University Physics Department
In-reply-to: chiwingkwok@cuhk.hk's message of 14 Dec 92 05:50:39 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.055039.1798@hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk> chiwingkwok@cuhk.hk (Kwok Chi Wing) writes:


%   Subject: Re: Logic
%   From:  Kwok Chi Wing  (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
%   Email address:  chiwingkwok@cuhk.hk
%
%
%   "What logic is" is an ambiguous question.  We should try to clarify it
%   before we can really give the answer.  Some people who ask this question
%   may expect the answer tell us what "logic" refers to; some may expect we
%   will say something about the intension (i.e. meaning) of "logic".
%
%   Here, we will try to discuss the first one.
%
%   The term "logic", in our context, refers to a field of knowledge.  What
%   does this field of knowledge concern ?  Many may answer in this way: it
%   is a subject which investigates the underlying rule of thinking.  It is
%   even tempted to assert that (in fact, many philosophers did, such as
%   Kant) logic gives insight into the structure of our mind.  
%
%   However, after a careful examination, one can find out that all the
%   statements (or, to be more precise, propositions) in logic are analytic,
%   i.e. we need not examine the real world before we can decide whether such
%   statements is true.  It has no empirical content and hence it cannot tell
%   us anything about the structure of our mind.
%
%
%   Then, what job does logic actually do ?  Logic is a subject which
%   investigates logical concepts.  By the term "investigate", I mean
%   "analysis".  Loosely speaking, logical concepts includes logical
%   conectives (e.g. "and", "or", "if...then...", "not", "neither...or...",
%   "unless", ...etc.) and also some of the concepts which frequently appear
%   and is key to determine the truth value of our statements (such as "for
%   all", "there is some", "there is at least twelve", "there is not", "it is
%   possible", "it is not possible",...), some basic concepts (such as
%   "true/false", "valid/invalid argument"...).  What a logicist does is to
%   clarify all these concepts and find out the relation between them.  As an
%   example, a truth table for "and" is a clean way to define the concept
%   "and" in term of the concept "truth value".
%
%   How can logic help us in thinking, if logic is really something like this
%   ?  Clear thinking requires clear concepts.  Logic helps us in this way ! 
%   In fact, saying that logic gives us rule of thinking sometimes may be
%   misleading (especially when we want to understand the nature of the
%   subject; note that I only say that it is misleading, not say that it is
%   wrong).
%
%   What is my point ?  My point is that logic, in this sense, is linguistic
%   (of couse, the term "linguistic" is not quite well-defined).

What I am finding distasteful in all of this is that people are 
equating "Logicality" simpliciter with "Rationality". 

Getting back to Ayn Rand, she feels it is rational to be concerned with
ones own welfare/happiness. Agreed. However it is also rational(I believe)
to be concerned with the welfare of others. I do not wish to be
compelled or coerced into being altruistic but I find it rational
to feel altruistic. Ayn Rand accepts the self interest part and then resorts
to logic to reach conclusions based on this. This is a correct use
of logic.

Logic provides algorithims to reach a conclusion only after you have
framed the problem and established the axioms. Goedel tells us
we can never prove the axioms but rather we must accept them and
continue from there. Ayn Rand frames the problem incorrectly I
feel by rejecting the value of altruism.(if I am altruistic
and others are likewise this does benefit me.)

I would resist and object to any person or goverment telling me
I must be altruistic however. Still being logical, or thinking
logically is a subprocess of rationality and not an equivalent posture.
 

-sjm
--
Sean J. Merritt		         | "Every revolt is a cry of innocence    
Dept of Physics Boston University|  and an appeal to the essence of being."
merritt@macro.bu.edu             | Albert Camus, The Rebel
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:5421 talk.politics.misc:64004 alt.conspiracy:13077