LOGIC
THE SURPRISING LOGIC OF THE WORLD by Dr. Dan Sheffler log ic teacher often encounters the complaint that log ic is not useful, that being so abstract it is detached from the real issues of life. The student must memoriz e names (in Latin, of course) for basic patterns, and the examples of these patterns all seem to inv olv e S ocrates somehow. S tudents are made to work throug h exercises that they feel are repetitiv e, boring , abstruse, inane, pedantic, and, in a word, pointless. S ince readers of this essay are likely to be inv olv ed in the mov ement to renew the classical spirit in education, I can probably rely upon you to feel a certain hardnosed response to all this. The sometimes tedious labor of working through the patterns of various syllogisms produces in the student a v irtuous habit of mind that remains ev en when F ELAPTON and B AR OC O hav e faded from memory in adulthood. While I certainly support this hard- nosed response, I want to encourag e an additional, deeper kind of response. S tudents are only bored when they are not filled with wonder. They are not filled with wonder when they study logic because they do not yet see—because no one has yet taug ht them to see—that log ic is a kind of worship.
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Dr. Dan Sheffler is a professor of philosophy with Memoria College and has taught philosophy, logic, Latin, and history at the University of Kentucky, Georgetown College, and Asbury College.
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The study of log ic is the study of that which makes sense, the study of those structures that necessarily must be in order for thing s to hang tog ether without contradiction. The Greeks called the intellig ible structure of something its logos, and this is where we g et our word. These necessary structures, these logoi, are not thing s that we make up in our heads or record in our books. They are all around us, ev erywhere, the basic fabric of the world we inhabit. C onsider this example, which, while literary, is neither abstract nor detached from the issues of real life that press upon our teenage students: (Premise)
Whoever would be a good match for Juliet would not ruin her life.
(Premise)
Romeo will ruin her life.
(Conclusion) Therefore, Romeo must not really be a good match for Juliet.
This is an example of the basic log ical structure Modus Tollens, combined with an inference from the g eneral " whoev er" to the particular " R omeo." We can express the basic underlying structure of this scenario, (the logos) in this way: (Premise)
If P, then Q.
(Premise)
Not Q.
(Conclusion) Therefore, not P.
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