Talk:Logic/Archive 2

message: logic is before math and phylosephy(meta-physics) is after math and next to physics.Saeed.Veradi (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic, a branch of philosophy? 

message: I copied the page up to Wikiproject? to the archive, then selectively extracted material that still seems relevant in sections Specialized logics to Wikiproject?. leaving later sections intact.  The sections that have been copied to the archive I've noted with (archived); additionally sections that are incomplete I note with (../pruned).  Deleted sections are deleted silently.  I've gone to the efforts, because lots of this stuff is still relevant... ---- Charles Stewart 07:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[/archive-1]] created 

message: Four main things bother me about the article as it now stands.  Firstly is that there are subsections that are stub-like (eg. modal logic); second, I'm not at all happy with what I wrote in "Dialectical logic", either wrt. the name or the content, also to some extent there are issues outstanidng in mathematical logic raised by CSTAR; third, I think that while I agree with Siroxo's merge inot the one paradigms of logic, I think there are two different kinds of topic there, and I think that should be reflected in the article structure; fourth, I think the article should introduce some key terminology that can act as a baseline for other articles on logic; last, I think there are some POV issues with the preamble (ie. the part before the first section); to a lesser extent I have some issues with the text in .  The last two points I think are most worthwhile to be tackled next.
My points:
* I think the preamble should be shortened: I think articles are more navigable if the TOC appears quite early;
* In the first paragraph appears: where "formal" means that the relations are independent of the assertions themselves -- I could quibble that the inference "A&B therefore A" most certainly does depend on there being an "&" in "A&B", but more seriously, I think this cannot be corrected in a NPOV manner: skeptics about the existence of logical form will not agree to these kinds of assertions about the independence of logical arguments.  These sentences establish an important and fruitful view of logic, but it should as far as possible be moved to a subsection within "Scope of Logic";
* Also It is thus seen that logic plays an important role in epistemology in that it provides a mechanism for extension of knowledge: true, but it doesn't go far enough -- logic is a controversial topic, and to decide on this or that shape for logic is to have decided on the outcome of both epistemological questions (what is a judgement? what is an inference?), philosophy of language (what is a proposition? how do propositions relate to assertoric utterances?), and metaphysics (what are individuals?  what is truth?);
* Next paragraph: logic provides prescriptions for reasoning, that is, how people—as well as other intelligent beings, machines, and systems—ought to reason -- This view is widely held but far from universal: the conjunction of the ideas that logic tells you when certain arguments are truth-preserving, and that one need not always be rational, I think is common enough.
* and How people actually reason is usually studied in other fields, including cognitive psychology -- maybe so today, but it was not always so (rhetoric was part of logic according to the Stoics), and I think this way of putting things seems to prejudice against the many philosophers and didacticians who think this is wrong.  Cf. term logic and Fred Sommers, I personally am for having jointly computational and psychological foundations for logic;
* Next paragraph: including reasoning about probability and causality -- very controversial!
* There are several pieces of terminology, and relationships between terms, that I think should be fixed in this article, so that the article can fulfil he standardising role I suggested above; these should be in Scope of logic:
** Some possible definitions of logic, no need to be exhaustive...
** Symbolic logic and its relationship to formal logic;
** Inference: deductive and other forms;
** Proposition, sentence, judgement;
** Possibly a very brief outline of the main definitions in Tarski's theory of logical consequence is appropriate here, since it is so ubiquitous.
I have some ideas about how to apply the changes, but I think I will wait until I hear some reactions first ---- Charles Stewart 21:09, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preamble and terminology 

message: User:Passw0rd added a wikiversity logic stub.  I tend to think that this is not beneficial yo the page, since:
# The course (wikibooks:Wikiversity:Logic) is so raw, it contains less information and is less structured than this page;
# It isn't clear that a single logic course is appropriate: it may be appropriate to have several introductory courses, eg. Logic for critical reasoning, Logic for mathematicians, Logic for philosophers, etc.  Hence linking to a particular book may be premature.
Hence, I am reverting this edit. ---- Charles Stewart 19:37, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, that was me.  I've moved some of the logic stuff from the wikiversity philosophy dept to a chapter of wikibooks' 'intro to philosophy', which is a work in progress.  I need some of you clever ppl to help me edit it.  Anyway I don't really know what to put in a wikiversity page except 'read these texts, and talk to us' - wikipedia and wikibooks seem to be the place for most of the writing.--Publunch 18:20, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiversity course logic 

message: I've been meaning to provide comments on User:CSTAR's excellent content on the Is logic empirical? subsection.  Just a note to say I've still not skimmed the articles I meant to, but I hope to this week.  In the meantime some non-content comments:
* I had a dialog with CSTAR in my talk page, User_talk:Chalst#Quantum_logic, which may be of interest to other editors here;
* There's really too much content here for a side topic on the main logic page.  I propose to put what CSTAR wrote on a new page, and put a short precis in its place on the Logic page.  In addition, there's more to the question of the empiricalness of logic than quantum logic: CSTAR's material has the potential to grow quite a bit;
* I won't pass the comments onto my chosen philosopher until the material has a bit more meat; no point underutilising this input.
It's probably better if I do the surgery than CSTAR: all the stuff about many eyes being better than two... ---- Charles Stewart 07:25, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Vas-y  CSTAR 17:57, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I agree that it is best to keep the Quantum logic article oriented the way it is now, but it might be nice to add a subsection Philosophy of quantum logic that might have the Is logic empirical? page as its main article.  The section Quantum logic needs, as you observe, more flesh before it can stand as an introduction to Dummett's critique. ---- Charles Stewart 21:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is logic empirical? 

message: I just ran into this 2002 Kuro5hin article entitled Alternative Logic.  It seems to have content that could be usefully added to this article ---- Charles Stewart 21:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already a topic on Paraconsistent logics in WikiPedia.  Shouldn't a link to it be inserted int the Logic article? --Hgfernan 08:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Right.  It would be a good topic under Controversies in logic, maybe following  the subsection dealing with paradoxes of implication. --- Charles Stewart 09:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative Logics 

message: I looked at that new external link inserted by an anon user.  The site seems extremely rudimentary and it may possibly be a veiled advertisment.CSTAR 01:05, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  The link leades to part of somebody's webpage/blog.  Is this a legitimate use of an external link?  No product appears to be sold here, but the link does appear to me to be unwarranted promotion of some kind.  I will (soon) remove it, if nobody objects.CSTAR 14:49, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: OK, let's leave the link in for now, but I do want to register my concern about this kind of link.CSTAR 17:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New external link 

message: The current contents of this section are mostly not within the scope of this article (very few people think that Hegel's logic is actually about logic; in his Science of Logic he says logic must certainly be said to be the supernatural element which permeates every relationship of man to nature ...).  I'm not sure what best to do with the text here, most of which is from a 7-week old edit by User:210.21.221.178 (text added).  Does it have any value?  Should it be merged with  dialectic?  My current inclination is to say that the term dialetical logic dos not mean what that text says it means and simply delete the text. --- Charles Stewart 16:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My inclination would be to include a distillation of your remarks above into the article (as a sort of disclamer) and merge the rest of the text in that section into the article on dialectic or Hegel or something else, but in any case nothing about logic itself. I certainly never understood in what sense Hegel's logic is in any way logic.  --CSTAR 16:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dialectical logic and Hegel 

message: Following the problems with the title Dialectical logic, I changed the title of this section to Deduction and reasoning, and made the main subsection article point to deductive reasoning.  I toyed with logical argument as the link, since it is a much better article, but I think in the long run we need the broader context of reasoning.  I deleted the following text:
: These cautions aside, the notion of a dialectical logic at least reminds us of differing ways of critical thinking about real problems. For example, in daily life, people often seem to act "irrationally" and in defiance of their own interests when they do not feel sufficiently recognized. Their actions may be a perverse attempt to raise a conversational issue, suspect to the push-pull of dialectic, but perverse only when, unlike Hegel, one doesn't make individual and social will a prime mover.
:Another important meaning of "dialectical logic" is found in Hegel, who described the logic of history as proceeding less in a syllogistic fashion than in the form of his "thesis", which produces the dialectical antithesis and, in most cases a synthesis or higher truth that combines (in a way practically opaque to formal logic) features of both.
:Examples of this process are found most frequently in "unexpected" historical events such as the support by German socialist parties for Germany's entry in WWI and the rise of Islam or Christianity. When superficially described, such explanations seem often uniquely after the fact and contrived. In depth they can be far more useful in accounting for mass movements considered as made up, not of syllogistically predictable automata but of reasoning beings engaged in political and historical "conversations".
:The most developed form of dialectical logic as found in Hegel appears in the Marxist tradition. Responsible members of this tradition (cf., for example, George Novack's Introduction to the Logic of Marxism) emphasize the ability of syllogistic and mathematical logic, on the one hand, and dialectic on the other, to coexist, where the former is useful in solving the problems of daily life and the latter is useful for understanding large events.
:However, it seems impossible to treat dialectical logic as a field independent of its application for the very good reason that our way to do so would be to simplify dialectics...down to a micro level where syllogisms and formal logic applied; where a computer program (by definition having no truck with dialectic) could be written to predict the outcome. Like the related "transcendental deductions" in Kant, dialectical logic is all philosophical praxis and no independent theory. Hegel himself seems to have regarded any form of decontextualization of logic as forms of charlatanry (such as the Phrenology and Mesmerism of his day) which could be used to obtain any result desired.
...which I don't suppose anyone will shed any tears about, but maybe some of the text can be scavenged for articles such as dialectic. --- Charles Stewart 15:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changed section title to Deduction and reasoning 

message: Moved from above, where I missed it until just now:
:3-25-2005 Edward G. Nilges spinoza1111@yahoo.com w
:An excellent article in its way on Logic but as ethnocentric as the 1913 Encyclopedia Britannica, as if Mo Tzu or the Arabs had nothing special to contribute.
:And, nothing at all on dialectical or Marxist logic.
:I am not qualified at this time to contribute anything on non-Western logical traditions. I have been so bold, however, as to add the section on Hegel's "logic" and Marxist logic which derives from Hegel.
:Please feel free to edit or to change. Note that even Copi mentions these forms of logic, albeit in a dismissive form, and I feel the general reader is ill-served by the latest news from computer science but nothing on what Hegel meant by the dialectic.
:I have placed this discussion at the beginning of what seems to be the most appropriate location for it for visibility and to get feedback on my alteration.
I don't think the Arabic contribution is ignored, since the Arabs were the carriers of the Aristotelian and Platonist tradition to medieval Europe, but a more explicit mention would be in order.  The text Edward G. Nilges wrote on dialectical logic is really not appropriate for the main logic article, but the existence of the Marxist & Hegelian contribution needs to be mentioned.  I'll try to do both of these when I have a bit of time.  As for Mo Tzu and other ethnic traditions: yes they deserve a place, but I don't know enough about them to write anything.  Maybe User:Mel Etitis could say something?  --- Charles Stewart 15:11, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just raising a quibble with myself: of course the Arabs were not the only source of Platonism in medieval Europe, since there was the indiginous neoplatonic tradition, but I understand that they were the source of real scholarship on Plato. --- Charles Stewart 15:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnocentrism et al 

message: I've created a new subsection History of logic and made it the first topic in the topics section.  I think this more or less deals with the ethnocentric part of EGN's complaint, and I don't think there is a real issue with not handling Hegelian "logic", although perhaps a subsection in controversies dealing with controversies as to what logic is about is worthwhile. --- Charles Stewart 19:56, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New subsection

message: The latest edit replacing "distinguish good from bad arguments" with "distinguishing between arguments" doesn't seem helpful.--CSTAR 00:48, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distinction between arguments 

message: It would maybe be easier to get this article into a stable state simply by stating that the article is about logic understood to be in conformance with a given definition, and farm out rival conceptions of logic to another section.  Might this work? --- Charles Stewart 20:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This may be a possibility, although it does admittedly a problem for a source with pretensions of cultural neutrality.  The article seems to have changed direction very recently and in my opinion has become too general and too ambitious. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the rival conceptions of logic, so I can't offer any useful insight here. I am completely out of my depth. --CSTAR 20:59, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If the definition is one that spans several different cultures, as some possible definitions involving arguments would, then it doesn't result in an ethnocentric article.  But I don't like this suggestion anyway: it is sure to create pointless duplication and I don't the simplification to be had is all that great. --- Charles Stewart 19:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another idea 

message: I've done the reworing of the first section as I proposed.  It's a pretty big change, but I think its a big improvement.  Feedback eagerly sought.
While I'm on the topic, I raised the possibility of a WikiProject for logic on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics.  The text of that announcement follows:
:Encouraged by User:Paul August on Talk:Aristotelian logic, I'm posting an invitation to comment on the idea for a WikiProject for Logic.  I have a draft proposal at User:Chalst/WikiProject Logic proposal, and I am interested in:
* Indications of interest
* Criticisms of the what is on the page
:Many thanks in advance for your comments.
--- Charles Stewart 06:49, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restructuring & WikiProject for logic 

message: :(3) Informal logic is the investigation of logical inference independent of any particular analysis of the structural regularities of the inference.
Is this really true? Informal logic pays to attention to form (although the form may not be specified by a set of formal rules) and in particular, analysis of fallacies does pay attention to their form.  Also informal logic can be rigorous; most mathematics is informal and yet entirely rigorous.
:(4) An inference possesses a purely formal structure if it can be expressed as a particular application of a wholly abstract rule, that is a rule that is not about any particular thing or property.
This deals with my previous concern, to some extent although abstract may not be the right word (I think it is more like formally specified structure, although this seems circular).  
More later.--CSTAR 15:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next sentences 

message: Note: I added numbers to your texts above.
*(1,2): Ah, right, what I wrote in (1) was very unclear.  I meant that the "formal" in formal logic is ambiguous.  So (2) is saying something quite different to what I intended.
*(3): This is a convention I am proposing for the article, and while it is along the lines of definitions I have seen used elsewhere, it is my original formulation.  I'd say what is going on in informal analyses of fallacies fits my definition very nicely: one usually sees attempts to look at the fallacy from several different angles, rather than, as with formal logic, having a predetermined manner of analysing the argument that fixes a particular interpretation.  I've no problem with informal rigour, actually the phrase deserves an article.
*(4): Right.  These definitions were hard work: they're probably not as accessible as they could be, but I guess it will be hard work again to improve on them.
Thanks for the close reading.  I'll change (1) accordingly. --- Charles Stewart 15:54, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply

message: :While on the above analysis, formal logic is old, dating back more than two millenia, symbolic logic is comparatively new, and arises with the application of insights from mathematical abstraction to problems in logic. Certain conventions have become prevalent in the symbolic analysis of logic: the logic is captured by a formal systems, comprising a formal language expressing claims that may be demonstrated or refuted, which we call formula, and a set of rules of derivation (often called "rules of inference"), and sometimes a set of axioms.
Shouldn't formula should be formulae or forumlas?  The other item in boldface I have a quibble with.  Isn't formula something which is either true or false which is different from being demonstrable or refutable.  Shouldn't expressing be consisting of a set of?  Again these are quibbles; however, I am being deliberately argumentative.--CSTAR 17:14, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: On formula: yes it should be plural.  On claims: the formal system can't establish the truth or falsity of the claim without a demonstration of soundness, which can't be established by purely symbolic means.  On expressing: I wanted to keep the propositional claims separate from the symbolic formulae, but what I wrote is unclear.  I'll fix the first and third points now, but I'll have to think a bit about the second to see what, if anything, needs fixing. --- Charles Stewart 13:48, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next sentences 

message: :The most essential property of a logical formal system is soundness, which is the property that under interpretation, all of the rules of derivation are valid inferences. The theorems of a sound formal system are then truths. Also of the essence is consistency, which states no theorem contradicts another.
Most essential sounds strange.  Second boldface sentence: You mean I assume any theorem is a true statement.   Could we use something else instead of of the essence.--CSTAR 17:57, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Next sentences (cont'd) 

message: The word "Logic" does not correctly come from "Logos". It comes from "Logikos". "Logikos" is derived from "Logos", "Logic" is not. Derivation is not transitive. I would change this myself, but I can't work out how to change the Greek letters (damn my eyes). There's more to change in this article, but I'm anally retentive about working methodically through articles. Pontifexmaximus 12:49, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you find this derivation?  I seem to recall that User:Mel Etitis was the source of the current claimed derivation. --- Charles Stewart 16:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dictionaries are useful. Logic comes most directly from logikê tekhnê which was the phrase used by Aristotle (from memory). Logic does not come from logos, but logikê does derive from logos through logikos. Pontifexmaximus 15:25, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Opening Paragraph

message: Isn't formal Logic (what this article is about) usually written with a capital 'L', to distinguish it from 'everyday logic'? DirkvdM 07:30, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never heard of this.  If anyone follows it, it is not followed widely. --- Charles Stewart 16:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalisation 

message: ;"This conception can be criticised on the grounds that we do not regard the manipulation of just any formal system to be logic: ;such an account omits an explanation of what it is about certain formal systems that makes them systems of logic."
Who is we? I removed the last sentence. Until you qualify the statement better I would consider it argumentum ad populum.
:There is no argument being made here so I don't see how this can be a case of argument ad populum. The author is just reporting on the view and a possible objection to it. Still I'll remove the "we" if that helps.Wjwma 11:04, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who is we? 

message: This article implies that Greek logic was influenced by Islamic/Indian logic. On what basis? Just because some Ganeri (2001) published work in this regard? I think all references that imply Greek logic was influenced by Islam or India should be removed. These are not factual and distort the truth. Greek logic and thought was unique. It had no precedent or influence from any of the previous cultures. 158.35.225.229 15:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  And assuming this did have any influence on Boole and De Morgan, what influence did it have on later logicians via those two?  I am looking through Venn's System of Logic which was easily the most influential work on logic in its day (and has an encyclopedic reference).  I see nothing there of Indian logic.  Dbuckner 20:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Ganeri argues plausibly that a familiarity with the contents of a tradition of logic very different from that derived from Aristotle would encourage willingness to break with tradition" - but Boole certainly did not break with tradition.  He was simply trying to mechanise Aristotelian logic.  The real decisive breakthroughs occured in the 1860's  Dbuckner 20:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with the assesment of Boole's work: if his aim was simply instrumental interpretation, why did he labour so hard with the peculiarities of his system (ie. all the stuff about uninterpretable terms)?  Boole's system is distinguished by the algebraic identities, and I think that he stuck by them because he was trying to uncover a mathematical foundation underpinning both arithmetic and reason.  And this is a big break with tradition. --- Charles Stewart 22:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Postscript Ernst Schröder clearly thought Boole's work was revolutionary. --- Charles Stewart 15:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

text: If anyone would influence Greek thinking it would be someone more local. Given that the Greek script is phonecian, and that the only users of Semitic and pactitioners of oral deductive discussion in the area are Hebrews at the time of the evolution of known Greek theories, it would be logical to suggest that it is the influence from Israel that was dominant in the development. In fact the term for a practiotioner of logic, i.e. story teller, is logoi, and is a Hebrew expression lo goi, meaning 'not stranger' (suggesting that otherwise deductive thinking was considered foreign outside of Israel at the time?!)--Mrg3105 21:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek logic influenced by Islamic/Indian logic ? 

message: Anybody else think logic needs a portal or a wikiproject or both?  I'd like to see a huge amount of improvement on most of the articles on logical topics (nearly all of them lack the precision the topic deserves), and I think this might be helped if we had a unified place from which to start.  I don't have the kind of time or energy required to start such a project, but I can certainly help contribute with design and editing.  Let me know what you peeps think. KSchutte 22:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had User:Chalst/WikiProject Logic proposal knocking about for some time, but never quite had the impetus to finalise it.  The portal would probably be a good thing, but I don't have any sort of knack for graphic layout.  --- Charles Stewart 22:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic Portal? Wikiproject? 

message: An anonymous editor placed the following paragraph in the article:
:Frege's original system of predicate logic was not first-, but second-order. Second-order logic is most prominently defended (against the criticism of Willard Van Orman Quine and others) by George Boolos and Stewart Shaprio.
There's interested ground here, but Frege's system of the Begriffschrift is not problematic in the way that the system the second-order logic article describes is.  This needs fixing, no time now. --- Charles Stewart 21:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  FOL vs. second-order 

message: Peeps, we really need to do some systematic review here.  I've spent the morning fixing up the various conditionals pages, neglected for at least a year, and they could use a rough re-edit by someone else (especially counterfactual conditional, which I didn't spend much time on).  Also, our articles on basic inference rules shouldn't have false claims and miswordings in them like Conditional proof, Destructive dilemma, and Hypothetical syllogism (and I'm sure many more) all do.  I don't have a lot of spare time, so I can't be the only one trying to fix these things.
Sorry for the rant.  I know you guys try. KSchutte 18:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 

message: There should be a section linking to, and briefly summarizing, natural deduction. I may add this, if anyone else agrees, but I am sure there are more qualified people to do it than me. --Kevin L. 03:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural deduction in propositional logic 

message: a whole article dedicated to logic without a single example or piece of logic in it to give an idea of what the hck is being talked about.--Lacatosias 13:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The currently-suspended work at User:Dbuckner/logic is going to result in big changes to this article, and contains several examples of formal inference.   User talk:Dbuckner/logic is currenmtly the best place to talk about what should go in the revised article. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 17:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok then. Thanks for the directions. I'll see if I can be of any help there.--Lacatosias 18:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Well how 'bout that.. 

message: This law states that a substance can not be something and not that thing at the same time.  Substance(A) can not be (B) and (-B) at the same time.  This principle is important to understand if we are to have true thinking, comunicating and speaking.  The hard thing about this law is that it can not be proven.  In order to prove this law we must assume that the law is true.  So in order for us to see that this law is true we must test it from that point of it not being true.  Example: using the Modus Tollens form of reasoning;  If a person has won the masters Golf Tournament, then he has played golf at Augusta National Golf Course.  If it is false that he has never played at Augusta, then it is false that he has won a masters golf tournament.  see if we deny the law of noncontrodiction it implies many false consequenses. (Nash  196)  In order for anything to be true we must except the law of noncontrodiction, other wise this writing is meaningless.
Please leave your thoughts about how to polish this. 
: The law of non-contradition cannot, and to my knoweldge has never been, proven. It is accepted ad a fundamntal self-evident axiom by Aristolte in the Logic. Howvere, modern dialetheists deny the law and argue that the consquences are not as dire as you suggest. Hegel and many other unorthodox logicians have also, historically, rejected non-contradiction. It must be either simply accepted or rejected and the sort of logics that follow will be dramatcially at variance between them. --Lacatosias 09:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The dialetheists reject classical mathemetical logic, preferring instead forms of paraconsistent logics. Grahan Priest, and the like, are not talkign about rejecting a principle of "reason" but a fundemntal pricniple of logic, in the same way that intuitionaist reject the law of exluded middle and double negation. Quantum logic rjects the law of distributuon, etc.. Hegel aslo was rejecting the law of non-contradiction when he adopted the poistion that thesis + anthises (A and not A) = higher truth or some such wackiness.  If he's talking about "reason", than it's even worse. He's rejecting what you just called "common sense". Iìve taken three semseters of formal logic. I know a little somthinf about. I'm far from an expert, but I'v never seen a proof of LNC from axioms.  --Lacatosias 16:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Law of noncontradiction 

message: The article makes numerous references to dialetheism as a "logic."  Dialetheism is the philosophical view that some contradictions are true; it is not a logic, per se.  (Graham Priest, for example, never uses the term dialetheism to refer to a logic or type of logic.)  I tried to fix this before and it was reverted.  How about changing "dialetheism" to "dialetheic logic" in the article?  (Priest does use this term, occasionally, to refer to a type of logic, namely one whose semantics allows statements to be both true and false.)  That would be far less objectionable.  dbtfztalk 23:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an absolutely whopping error. Thanks for pointing this out. I sometimes scan through these articles too quickly to even spot such things.--Lacatosias 08:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dialetheism is not a logic 

message: hello, great page everyone. In epistemology class we have talked about potential boundries of logic, examples when logic stops working. zeno's paradox, 
Here is one hand. both examples of when great logic brings unintuitive, problematic results. think theres a spot for this epistemology theory on the page? Spencerk 04:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At least as far as mathematicians are concerned, Xeno's paradoxes have been logically resolved.  Xeno's mistake was to assume that an infinite series must have an infinite sum.  We now know that, for example, 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... sums to 1, even though it has an infinite numer of terms.  Thus Achilles can win the race, because the infinite number of infinitessimal time intervals it takes him to cover the ground have a finite sum.  Rick Norwood 13:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  boundries of logic 

message: However the subject is grounded, the task of the logician is the same: to advance an account of valid and fallacious inference to allow one to distinguish good from bad arguments.
shouldn't that be 'non-fallacious'?  and if so, isn't that, following on the heels of 'valid', redundant.
would:
However the subject is grounded, the task of the logician is the same: to advance an account of valid (i.e. non-fallacious) inference to allow one to distinguish good from bad arguments.
with 'fallacious' wikilinked to logical fallices be better? --DakAD 09:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  typo? 

message: I added a  plate. This article has an utter lack of inline citations. I'll get on the task of tying statements to their sources, but any help would be appreciated. Simões (talk/contribs) 20:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article has ungone peer review and the header tag on this page has suggested items to be incorporated.  You might check these suggestions to see if your tag is premature or needed. Amerindianarts 20:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I checked the peer review page; it makes no mention of the article's lack of citations. Furthermore, Dbuckner's article proposal not only suffers from the same problem; it also seems to be an exercise in original research. If a signicant number of others think the tag is improper, feel free to revert, but I'm of the opinion that it is fitting for now. Simões (talk/contribs) 21:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is no mention of the need for citation in the peer review, there should be.  By all means, go for it. Amerindianarts 21:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The article has many references at the end, so it is not unreferenced.  It would be more helpful to the cause of getting inline citations if you pick the specific facts or sections where you would like to see inline citations, and tag them separately.  There is no requirement that every fact have an inline cite, only that everything be verifiable. CMummert 12:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the sections in the article have information that we are to trust come from somewhere in one or more of the books listed in the references section. A list in Chicago style of random logic textbooks at the bottom of an article is not what I would call references. If I were to tag the article by section, a large majority of the sections would be so. I think it is appropriate to have the entire article tagged because of this and have therefore restored the  template. Simões (talk/contribs) 02:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tagging the article section by section would give other editors the ability to make incremental progress in satisying your request. If that is the majority of sections then so be it. Just putting the tag at the top of the article won't help anyone know which things need to be referenced, and so is unlikely to lead to any improvement in the article.   Moreover, Template:Unreferenced suggests not using this tag if there is a references section. CMummert 02:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've done as you've suggested. That bullet point you mentioned doesn't say that, though. It tells us to not use the template if there is a combined external links/references section. That's an odd little piece of advice. I removed it. ;) Simões (talk/contribs) 03:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need for Inline Citations 

message: I can see no section here (or anywhere alse in Wikipedia) regarding reductive logic. Before i attempt to source some reliable definitions and external references, is there any reason as to why it has not been included? Jarryd Moore 13:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's just because reductive logic is not as well-studied today as other non-classical logics. There appears to be no more than a single book, Reductive Logic and Proof-search, on the topic, and it came out in 2004. If you want to add a brief mention of it, go ahead. I wouldn't add its own subsection under topics, though, because the topics section is a broad categorization scheme, not an exhaustive list of every system of logic out there. Simões (talk/contribs) 18:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reductive Logic 

message: The first sentence contains this bit: “and the practitioners such as Herodotus became a logios—a reciter of logoi or oral stories, eventually written in prose (but coming to mean thought or reason with revival of study of the Ancient Greek in Europe)” Not only does this belong in the “History of Philosophy” section, but it makes the first sentence unwieldy and grammatically incorrect. 
Since this is my first post on WikiPedia, I won’t change it, but will defer to the veterans.Pescofish 08:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly agree, and will make the necessary change myself if someone else does not. Rick Norwood 17:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Sentence 

message: "Compound proposition" redirects here, yet it isn't mentioned in the text. Fresheneesz 01:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "and" and "or" statements are examples of compound propositions. Rick Norwood 13:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compound proposition 

message: However, it is not possible to express this inference in the traditional system, because the manner we
 should represent the first term in the classical subject-predicate form, ensures that the second term 
 our predicate will be "X is feared by every mouse"
I realise this passage isn't from this article, but it is from a related one which gets rather less traffic.  Anyone know what it's supposed to mean and how it would be better phrased? garik 11:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I gave it a shot.  The article still needs references. Rick Norwood 14:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  From the [[Problem of multiple generality]] article 

message: surely the page on logic doesnt need sources, it should just be logical, as all things stm from that, it is its source 89.240.68.145 21:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Wikipedia doesn't work that way.  Applying your logic to the page is OR, you need to cite the logic of published, standard references. Rick Norwood 14:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't take him too seriously, Rick.  To be fair, logic doesn't really work like that either. garik 15:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  sources 

message: I might suggest that a section be used to isolate flawed logic.
If justice can be used to do injustice.
If health can be used to do unhealth.
If equality can be used to do inequality, then logic can be used to do illogical things.
Case in point.  (original research, you may find elsewhere)
Stop violence against women.
"Since most violence is by men against women, then we must stop violence against women"  and the assumption is that all violence is by men.  (false jump of logic) 
--Caesar J. B. Squitti  :  Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 12:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? Simões (talk/contribs) 03:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is one of the classic errors in logic.  It is called false dichotomy. Rick Norwood 13:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flawed logic. 

message: This article and the article History of logic make claims that are not supported by the sources.  For example, we read "received sustained development originally only in three places: India in the 6th century BC, China in the 5th century BC, and Greece between the 4th century BC and the 1st century BC".  Searching for evidence of this "sustained development" we find the "Chinese logician" Mozi.  But very little by Mozi (or his school) survivies, and most of what does survive is about gods, ghosts, and anti-Confucian philosophy.  The mathematical contributions of the Mozi school that have survived consist of a small handful of phrases such as "One and one cannot become two, since neither becomes two."  I do not think these contributions can be considered as substantive as those of Aristotle.  Comments? Rick Norwood 18:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic in ancient India and China 

message: I want to get this right, and my work in mathematical logic was back in the days when it was still called symbolic logic.  At that time, it was an effort to capture the rules of language in symbols, for example, "not not A = A".
Would you say that this is still called "symbolic logic" and that "mathematical logic" is the larger field that is more loosely related (or maybe not at all related) to formal logic?  I know we did not call what I was doing "formal logic", so your deletion has left it without a name.  Rick Norwood 16:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose maybe I would still call that sort of thing "symbolic logic". The term "mathematical logic" has morphed into meaning "proof theory, model theory, recursion theory, set theory, and maybe a few other things that have a similar character". But surely the "not not A = A" stuff has all been cut and dried since the early part of the 20th century, except for variant weak logics (e.g. linear logic)? Could you enlighten me on just what there was left for you to do? --Trovatore 16:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, well that's "symbolic" in a sort of abstract sense, but at this point I'd say we're crossing over into set theory, given that the symbols aren't ones you can actually write down. Are we talking about stuff like the Barwise compactness theorem and Scott rank and so on? --Trovatore 17:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question for Trovatore 

message: .......  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.43.29 (talk) 21:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  QUOTES 

message: There needs to be an article which also explains how logic can be abused, or misused--mrg3105mrg3105 22:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is titled fallacy. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abuse of logic 

message: Pure Logic defined by my person, is initially all the fields of rational/irrational thought analysis, and all the fields, and scopes known/unknown of logic/illogic, defined yet or not ! I do not have enough money as yet to publish these new writtings. Aiming to unite Science and Logic, without overpassing the Philosophy of Science, or philsophy in Science. (24.86.57.172 (talk) 07:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a place for publishing original thought. If you publish your ideas on "Pure Logic" elsewhere, and they are sufficiently notable that they are reported on independently in multiple reliable sources, then this can be given a place in Wikipedia – but by someone else than you, because you would have a conflict of interest.  --Lambiam 19:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can a new definition of Pure Logic be added here ? 

message: i) P,Q therefore (P & Q) is a deductive argument,but P,Q is not a general premise and (P & Q) is not a particular one.  Writer was thinking perhaps of All As are Bs, X is an A therefore X is a B? 
ii) Implicaton that argument can have but one premise (in sing. in quote)
iii)The very strong relation is called enatilement, why not say so?
Really this passage does not say very much and what is say is wrong, or so it seems to me
--Philogo (talk) 21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My first point was that it is just not true that  Deductive argument follows the pattern of a general premise to a particular one" - some do and some do not as my example, and we should not in an encycopedia say of that which is not that it is. Would you care to edit or delete this passage?--Philogo (talk) 23:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Rick Norwood just stated the rule of inference known as the "Conjunction": P, Q, Therefore P & Q.  Just thought it worth noting.Prussian725 (talk) 17:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  re ''Deductive argument follows the pattern of a general premise to a particular one, there is a very strong relationship between the premise and the conclusion of the argument''. 

message: Maybe I am a little off, but I have been studying logic for almost three years and it has always been my undetstanding that the base definition of "Logic" is "the science and art of reason".  I did not see this in the opening section and was just wondering what everyone else's thoughts are.Prussian725 (talk) 17:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The word "logic" can be used as a synonym for "reason" but these days I think that "reason" is used more broadly, "logic" more narrowly.  Essentially, all logic can be reduced to deduction (though it often isn't, it can be in theory), while reason would include inductive reasoning as well. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  Thanks for the info!Prussian725 (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: I'd be happy to "learn basic of logic before reverting", but whether this is basic of logic or not, I just can't figure out the intended meaning of what is:
:"Traditionally, logic is considered a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, meaning of what is, was or will be."
 --Lambiam 13:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nor I, so I have reverted to former content.  If User:Francos22 or  anybody else knows what was meant by that meaning of what is, was or will be." and can cite a source please say so here for further consideration.--Philogo 12:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of what is, was or will be 

message: Whats your opinion about Ch. Henke, The Mathematics of the Phaistos Disc, Forum Archaeologiae 48/IX/2008 (http://farch.net)?
--Kadmossios (talk) 15:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link 

message: To the moderators:
Can the topic on pure logic, be initially covered or made reference to, for historic reasons?  And some links to a basis book ? As to any detail, it is my copyright, in the Book of Pure Logic (1).
These are the links:
William Thomson Archbp.,1819-1890
An outline of the necessary laws of thought: A treatise on pure and applied logic
(GeorgeFThomson (talk) 00:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links or References that can be added to the Article 

message: According to the article the history of logic stopped in the middle ages,--Philogo 12:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of logic 

message: First Mathematical Logic Calendar Sticks - Lunar CalendarAlexander Marshack examined the Ishango bone microscopically, and concluded that it may represent a six-month lunar calendar.  Claudia Zaslavsky has suggested that this may indicate that the creator of the tool was a woman, tracking the lunar phase in relation to the menstrual cycle.Zaslavsky, Claudia: Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture, L. Hill, 1979.Zaslavsky, Claudia: "Women as the First Mathematicians", International Study Group on Ethnomathematics Newsletter, Volume 7 Number 1, January 1992.
The Lebombo bone dates from 35000 BC and consists of 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a baboon's fibula. The Lebombo bone resembles the calendar sticks still used today by Bushmen in Namibia.
 The Lebombo bone, a baboon fibula It was discovered within the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland.David J. Darling.  The Universal Book of Mathematics: From Abracadabra to Zeno's Paradoxes. John Wiley and Sons, 2004 () 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebombo_bone
The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, about 18000 to 20000 BC.
The central column begins with three notches, and then doubles to 6 notches. The process is repeated for the number 4, which doubles to 8 notches, and then reversed for the number 10, which is halved to 5 notches. These numbers then, may not be purely random and instead suggest some understanding of the principle of multiplication and division by two. The bone may therefore have been used as a counting tool for simple mathematical procedures.
Furthermore, the number of notches on either side of the central column may indicate more counting prowess. The numbers on both the left and right column are all odd numbers (9, 11, 13, 17, 19 and 21). The numbers in the left column are all of the prime numbers between 10 and 20 (which form a prime quadruplet), while those in the right column consist of 10 + 1, 10 − 1, 20 + 1 and 20 − 1. The numbers on each side column add up to 60, with the numbers in the central column adding up to 48. Both of these numbers are multiples of 12, again suggesting an understanding of multiplication and division.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishango_bone --Tales23 (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Math, Prime Numbers, Division, Muliplication - Lunar Calendar 

message: But when you see the history of logic section, it starts with "A", "not A", "A and not A", and "not A and not not A" so but now in 35000 they got this already 10 + 1, 10 − 1, 20 + 1 and 20 − 1, so in the respect of Mathematical Logic, and in particular the History, How did humans start to think logic - woman tracking menstrual cycles with lunar phases using a device the bone tools. This had a lot of logic applied! At least contributed here and therfor it has its place in History --Tales23 (talk) 08:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is on the subject of logic.  The material you add is not on the subject of logic.  It may belong somewhere else, maybe in the article calendar, but it certainly does not belong here. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree --Philogo 13:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree. dougweller (talk) 09:12, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

text: Tales23 put the off-topic material back again today so I have removed it again.  Tales23 does not appear to understand that it is no the material itself that is the problem it is its lack of relevance to the subject of the article.
--Philogo 14:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

text: You should not speculate on what other's beleive unless you are a mid-reader in which case you could make a fortune playing poker - I'll be your agent for 10%.  You shold also clealy distinguish "arguing" and "asserting" usepecailly of the Logic talk page!- we are VERY hot and that point I can tell you.  Your contribution to this article was not helpful because it was not relevant, as two other editors and I have been an some pains to point out,  not because it was not true, although its veracity is not suppored by any citations.  You may find a better place for the material.  I do not believe that Logic is not your strong point nad perhaos not arheology and it is better to have at least an elementary knowledge of a subject before venturing making to make a contribution  to an article in that subject. You are however to be congratulated on your apparently novel fallacy.  If it is not mentioned in the fallacies article I will post it there, and if it has no name I'll suggest naming it after you, if I might be so bold.  You may even become famous!--Philogo 02:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is not correct see above my contribution which are considered legit wiki pages. Also i still wait for an explanation as why this is not hystorical mathematical logic and you seem not to be able to make one. --Tales23 (talk) 09:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The History and Begin of Logic 

message: According to the article the history of logic stopped in the middle ages,--Philogo 12:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved us up at least to the start of the 20th Century. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well thanks for that but shouldn't Frege get just a teen-weeny mention? --Philogo 01:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

text: After you!--Philogo (talk) 00:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More to the point 

message: I'll be away from WP for a few days, on my return I expect to have some time to do some serious work on the article.  Two things to emphasise:
1. I don't think the current article is really an improvement on what I submitted for peer review on the 18th November 2005 , despite the article having received over 1000 edits in that time.
2. I think that all of the criticisms from the peer review still apply, and that Peter Damian's idea for how to introduce the idea of logic still provides the best way to go ahead with fixing the peer review criticisms.
I'll post a plan when I have time to make a real start, hopefully next Tuesday. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's probably worth pointing out that I have no plans to do this kind of substantial work on Wikipedia in the forseeable future; cf. my user page. — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intent to rework article before submitting for 2nd peer review 

message: Logic as it is taught and studied in the university, is a mathematical kind of model that seeks to pick some of certain important characteristics of the things mentioned in the first sentence, but does not seek to do so in the most descriptive manner possible. It just wants to know that if a computer knows one scientifical kind of fact, what can it deduce from it. What we with pictures of the world, enormous amounts of experience, with a nature that has instinctual wisdom, what we humans can deduce from the same facts is an entirely different thing. Logic in the university is calculations, it is not understanding. It gets its spirit from copying from the computers! InsectIntelligence (talk) 19:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Logic is much more than just computers.  Historically, it began in philosophy, and the editors currently think that the reference to computer science is currently sufficient.  If you like, you can propose a new first sentence here and we all could discuss it. JEN9841 (talk) 07:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The first sentence of the article is incorrect 

message: 1. I've reworded the lede, which is bound to be controversial, but WP:BOLD.  I think it is good to cite some definitions of logic that "cover the bases", rather than make up our own.  I've not asserted any branchhood, but have emphasised the subjects affinity for philosophy.
2. I think this article would benefit from being presented in a "notes+references" style, where all the texts are given in a references section, but we use notes to indicate the place that such citations are made, and where cites to non-peer reviewed web sites are left in notes forms.  Does anyone have a strong opinion against this?
3. Someone has made the effort to convert the references section over from "." separated fields (ie. AUTHORLIST (DATE). TITLE. SOURCE. PUBLISHER.) to "," separated.  Please don't do this again: I've converted this back because it is a marginal style for lists of references, and it is against the style used by the citation templates.  I don't like the citations templates: they make references hard to read and they don't handle everything they should, but they do indicate a sort of house style. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some things 

message: Its a shame that this article sucks, there should be an explanation of what deduction is how its linked to proof (a complete and sound deduction system) with a basic basic truth functional and monadic overview. Also something on the importance of algorithms and interpretation.  Finally an explanation of a set theory or polyadic system, say its incomplete and undeciabable, and leave syllogism, recursion, notation and etc. for history of philosophy and computer science or mathematical logic subsections.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.86.4 (talk) 07:45, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Entire Article 

message: Can we puleez change the first sentence of the lede?  Right now it is wrong and gross.  First of all, it has an inactive link to the Penguin Encyclopedia, and I think the definition of logic is not as accurate as it should be.  Saying that it studies "valid inference and correct reasoning" makes it seem that only arguments that can be valid are the ones that logic studies.  This would exclude inductive arguments.  And since when did the Penguin Enclyclopedia become the end all of philosophy authorities?  I think something like this, which is from a prior archived discussion of the same topic would be better:
:Logic is the art and science of reasoning which studies the principles of valid demonstration and inference.
Sagan666 (talk) 05:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The def you provide is unsourced, and as the footnote from the lede says, the issue of the definition of logic is fraught, cf. Definitions of logic and footnote #2.  The Penguin definition is chosen for being modern and mainstream, and it is suggested as just one of mane, fn #2 gives some others.  The Penguin Encyclopedia certainly deserves an article, so someone should WP:SOFIXIT. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And the present source, found by googling the phrase, dates from 1896, when Logic was something different than it is today - as reading Lewis Carroll on the subject will show. Tagged accordingly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and in 2009 people getting degrees studying logic are still getting B.A.'s. The reason it is an art is because it is the art of giving logical examples. This is still the case today. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 05:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This asserts that Latin ars and English art are coterminous. They were once; they are not now: to use art as though it were ars is bad style; to do so without making clear to the reader what you are doing is bad content.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lede 

message: I'm just pointing out that this article is written like a lecture, complete with rhetorical questions, not like an entry in an encyclopedia. I'm simply not knowledgable enough to rewrite this myself, but I thought I would throw the idea out to anyone who might want to fix it up a little bit. 68.215.72.31 (talk) 08:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What? 

message: There is no reason to cite this minor, popular work when there are many better references. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Better references?  Providing better definitions? Name one! — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penguin Encyclopedia 

message: Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days.--Oneiros (talk) 13:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This talk page has fairly low traffic, so I think archiving after 6 months would be appropriate. If threads on this talk page would be archived after 30 days, the only thread here would be this one. There is no need to archive that aggressively. Svick (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'd configure MiszaBot to keep the last ten threads. Thus it will be a while before it kicks in.--Oneiros (talk) 22:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: --Oneiros (talk) 23:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automate archiving? 

message: Sorry to post anonymously, it has been awhile seen I'd last participated and I need to recover my password.
Anyway, I was actually trying to find the root of logic and naturally ended up here, as well as several other sites. I noticed that wikipedia and sites that link its material list 'logikos' as the Greek root of logic, however others say it is 'logos'(ex. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Logic and http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Logic). I will have to verify this offline to be sure for myself, but if someone could confirm the correct Greek derivative in the meantime it may help. Thank you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.93.220.117 (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logikos or logos 

message: After some years of gestation, this article is now largely finished.  I am thinking of taking it to FA but would like some thoughts from people first, as I have heard such bad things about this process.  It should go there one day, the history of logic is one of the top 50 articles that should be in an encyclopedia.  I welcome any thoughts.HistorianofLogic (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[History of logic]]