Does Logic Itself Beg the Question?

[Avi Love]

I came across this difficulty in my studies of logic, and perhaps it is easily disproved. If not, I'm hoping there is an existing system or philosopher who has worked with this.

It seems to me that logic proves or disproves all arguments, but the proof of logic is logic. The implicit premise then to any argument is, "Logic is an accurate method of evaluation." So if I asked why we adhere to logic then someone might reply that it's so we don't contradict ourselves. However if I then ask why we don't want to contradict ourselves, the answer would seem to be because it's logical.

I'm not sure if I'm right about this or if there's a crucial step that I'm missing here, however it seems that if you ask "why" enough times to any question concerning logic the eventual answer would have to be "because it's logical."

That's fine in science where the child can ask why to every answer the parent gives them about why they are the way they are, and even the most knowledgeable parent will eventually have to say that we don't know the answer to that yet. Thus in science and many branches of philosophy the eventual result of "I don't know" in response to too many iterations of the question "why" is reasonable. Many answers can often be given, but at a certain level the questioner will hit a level where we don't know yet which does not inherently invalidate the previous answers.

The idea of "not knowing yet" in logic does seem to invalidate the previous answers because logic is a measure of accuracy. Logic is the evaluation of our knowledge. It is more or less how we judge the accuracy of many of our ideas.. If I present an argument, my argument is evaluated both for its content and whether it is logical. Because logic seeks to demonstrate the truth or falsehood of the argument, it should also be able to demonstrate the truth of its demonstration.

If logic as a measure was wrong, that would create a fairly large problem. Many arguments or ideas rendered invalid might have unseen validity. Likewise many arguments rendered valid may have unseen weaknesses.

We have knowledge of the rules of logic, and those rules are questioned. However the questions and our knowledge are then evaluated by logic. So we have knowledge of the measurement but then use the measurement to measure our knowledge. That seems rather like using a 12-inch ruler to verify that another ruler is 12 inches. You might catch a small discrepancy in one usage of the system, but you wouldn't catch it if the entire system was inaccurate in itself. If that is actually the case, logic, by its own rules, is self-defeating.

Is there a logical proof to circumvent this, or is there a system of logic that takes this into account? Is there some fatal flaw in the question that I'm not seeing?

[Whut]

Well, logic alone is merely logic.

which is to say; 1+1=2... but who cares, if we have no apples?

[flannel jesus]

This is a thought I sometimes come to as well, Avi. The syllogistic form seems intuitively obvious, but that's not really satisfying enough, is it?

I'd imagine there've been some rigorous attempts to explain why logic works without becoming circular, but I haven't been interested enough to look for them. If someone finds one online and links it here, I'd really appreciate that.

[Yorkshire]

Sir,
I admire your assertions/questions; don't personify logic. I'm not asserting mental prowess, but I believe that part of our answers lay in understanding that 'things' cannot prove anything; only people can prove/disprove everything.

If you eliminate personification, answers may be inherently more logical. You know more than I do (this is fact); it is people that assert logic, and people ONLY. Presented logic cannot be demonstrated w/out a person at the helm--it is not born, does not live, and certainly cannot speak for itself.

Sorry if I have wasted your time, but you may find me to remain 'on-topic.'

Yrs.,
Peter
post script: Logic cannot beg a question. Only people CAN beg a question. I am not trying to correct you. Where to find answers... or are they questions?

[Avi Love]

So it seems that both Whut and Yorkshire are saying that logic is a category which cannot be self-refential. However logic is not just a category. It is a process.

If I say:
A mammal is an animal with x features.
A whale has x features.
A whale is a mammal.

And someone else says, "That follows."

Why does it follow?

It cannot be simply based on observation. Neither person in that dialogue has to actually have seen a whale. That is inherently the point of logic. We can evaluate the truth of things without needing each person to run out and verify it for themselves. If this weren't the case, we'd all still be watching the skies for UFOs and local graveyards for ghosts. We would not be able to say 95% of the population has seen no evidence of UFOs, nobody who has seen evidence can produce any, and therefore the problem is not worth our time. That is logical, not inherent from observation.

So logic is, thereby, a process. It is not simply a category. There is something which makes us capable of seeing the argument in the above examples. It also enables us to make a judgment concerning the truth of that argument. You don't have to call it logic, but that's what it is commonly called. You could also call it human reasoning or even some kind of informed intuition. Regardless of what you call it, there is a process. Any process which tests for accuracy and inherently claims accuracy within that test should be understood in how it achieves that accuracy (or doesn't). Otherwise we're placing blind faith in something which is supposed to deny blind faith.

[Athena]

The beginning statement of logic is the mistake the Scholastics made, and why we turned against Aristotle. Logic itself is not necessarily accurate. We must test what we believe is so with the scientific method. Which appears to be what the above post explains.

[Yorkshire]

Beautiful stuff!
Repeatability--right on!
Without Newton's Laws, we often cannot build 'things.'
Newton's Laws are not always correct.
Are Newton's Laws truly laws.
Should we then build 'things?'
(or is there somewhere in-between?)
"We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless." --Oscar Wilde 1891
YOU FOLKS ARE GREAT

[Yorkshire]

AVI & ATHENA
Apologies for over-posting.

Abstract is neither good or bad.
All science, with the exception of physics (mostly), is abstract.
Any study or creation that takes the observer into account is not abstract.
Art, fiction, etc. are not abstract.

My statistical graph cannot show anything, but I can show you my statistical graph.
To make this graph I had to weigh thousands of stream pebbles to create a mean, median, and mode for their masses.
I show you my graph, and you say, "So the average pebble in this stream has a mass of 1.478g."
You logically infer from my "observations" from which I constructed a graph that you could search more than one-hundred lifetimes and never find a pebble of that mass.
Is this inference, reasoning, logic? I am trying to learn from you folks. I am not sure of your terminology.

[Keep_Relentless]

I very much approve of this train of thought, even though I am such a lover of logic.
It ties into ethics very well... who is right, who is wrong? Perhaps everybody is entitled to their own opinion after all, perhaps all is only relative! But the reason logic stands as the pinnacle of human thought is, quite simply, that it WORKS. What that means is almost arbitrary, though. Avi, I really do not think there is a simple answer to this one...

I have discussed with one person at length the possibility of an attempt at a certain Logical Movement, which would consist of an appeal to reason among everybody, convincing all, if possible, that a certain way is fallacious and why... an advanced form of The Enlightenment. Education to all who need it, real education. Like a good parent, one that communicates rather than enforces tradition without explanation. But this person is very bright, and his spanner in the works is precisely that... there is no "correct way". Drop the notion of "perfection" as a true, actual existent/condition.

[neuro]

It seems to me that logic proves or disproves all arguments, but the proof of logic is logic.

This reminds me of Goedel's theorem.

If you look for an "exact" (fully consistent) logics, then you won't be able to have an unlimited logics (applicable to everything).

If you look for an every-encompassing logics, you won't manage to make it fully consistent.

Usually, one uses logics - because IT WORKS, as it has been said above - within the domain for which it was developed.

The fact it cannot exit such domain, and proof its own validity from the outside like a person who flew by pulling on her bootstraps, does not take anything out of logics.

For example, you may turn to "fuzzy logics" to deal with physical, social or epistemic problems that are ineffectively dealt with by classical logics: you shall have a more powerful tool for those domains, but a less powerful tool for discerning a true/false dichotomy.

[Avi Love]

I was not familiar with Goedel's theroem, but it's a fascinating point.

It would seem that a fully consistent logic should actually be impossible.

I'm going to make a few assertions that may not be seen as fully agreeable but which are necessary to support the statement above. The first concerns the bundle view of the self. We are a collection of parts which produce some extremely sophisticated processes. There is no core self of some kind which is separate from all of the parts.

If this can be taken to be the case (which I think it can), our perception is a facet of the way our parts work. Each of our sets of parts are fairly similar but also uniquely different. I do not perceive the same as you, but we perceive similarly enough that you have some understanding of what I'm saying. Logic would seem to be the attempt to formalize a certain type of communication in order to allow better communication between those of us who think that way, but that has a few unintended consequences.

My bundle of parts cannot directly perceive your bundle of parts or really anything else for that matter. Any information received must be translated into a form that my bundle understands. So when you say something to me, I hear my bundle's interpretation of it, not yours. This can hopefully be clarified to a larger extent through further questioning and explanation, but it cannot be ultimately resolved. Logic proposes an ultimate resolution.

However the use of logic will cause a loss of information that was included in the original user's thought process as well as the elimination of the perspectives of all individuals who do not think in a manner conducive to the rules of logic.

If I am thinking something diverse and complicated, but have to whittle it down to be logical, I have inevitably lost certain information that was included in my initial set of perceptions. This is perhaps, to some degree, unavoidable in any communication with another individual, but it seems necessary to note that logic perpetuates this.

Additionally, if a certain individual expresses their perceptions through dance, they are removed from the community of logical discussion. That means that anything which might be radically different in their perspective from those in the logical community, which could be an accurate perception of a kind only to be found in the mind of a dancer, is entirely lost to logic. Logic, in putting itself above all other languages, loses the ability to learn from them.

So what I'm proposing here is not even remotely that we should abandon logic. It's incredibly useful. Dance, and other mediums, all have their own standards of formal communication as well. I think, though, that it's important to acknowledge that every rule of logic is not the handed down wisdom of the universe but simply something that those who use that particular rule agree represents truth. This conclusion seems to be in line with what many of you are saying.

[Keep_Relentless]

I was not familiar with Goedel's theroem, but it's a fascinating point.

It would seem that a fully consistent logic should actually be impossible.

I'm going to make a few assertions that may not be seen as fully agreeable but which are necessary to support the statement above. The first concerns the bundle view of the self. We are a collection of parts which produce some extremely sophisticated processes. There is no core self of some kind which is separate from all of the parts.

If this can be taken to be the case (which I think it can), our perception is a facet of the way our parts work. Each of our sets of parts are fairly similar but also uniquely different. I do not perceive the same as you, but we perceive similarly enough that you have some understanding of what I'm saying. Logic would seem to be the attempt to formalize a certain type of communication in order to allow better communication between those of us who think that way, but that has a few unintended consequences.

My bundle of parts cannot directly perceive your bundle of parts or really anything else for that matter. Any information received must be translated into a form that my bundle understands. So when you say something to me, I hear my bundle's interpretation of it, not yours. This can hopefully be clarified to a larger extent through further questioning and explanation, but it cannot be ultimately resolved. Logic proposes an ultimate resolution.

However the use of logic will cause a loss of information that was included in the original user's thought process as well as the elimination of the perspectives of all individuals who do not think in a manner conducive to the rules of logic.

If I am thinking something diverse and complicated, but have to whittle it down to be logical, I have inevitably lost certain information that was included in my initial set of perceptions. This is perhaps, to some degree, unavoidable in any communication with another individual, but it seems necessary to note that logic perpetuates this.

Additionally, if a certain individual expresses their perceptions through dance, they are removed from the community of logical discussion. That means that anything which might be radically different in their perspective from those in the logical community, which could be an accurate perception of a kind only to be found in the mind of a dancer, is entirely lost to logic. Logic, in putting itself above all other languages, loses the ability to learn from them.

So what I'm proposing here is not even remotely that we should abandon logic. It's incredibly useful. Dance, and other mediums, all have their own standards of formal communication as well. I think, though, that it's important to acknowledge that every rule of logic is not the handed down wisdom of the universe but simply something that those who use that particular rule agree represents truth. This conclusion seems to be in line with what many of you are saying.

Agreed with every word.

[mtbturtle]

previous thread touching on logic proving logic, etc.

Proof Demonstrating Proof

Proof: demonstration from all angles in Christian Science Monitor

By Robert P. Crease
STONY BROOK, N.Y. – Pythagoras's theorem changed the life of the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Until he was 40, Hobbes was a talented scholar exhibiting modest originality. Versed in the humanities, he was dissatisfied with his erudition and had little exposure to the exciting breakthroughs achieved by Galileo, Johannes Kepler, and other scientists who were revolutionizing the scholarly world.

One day, in a library, Hobbes saw a display copy of Euclid's "Elements" opened to Book I, Proposition 47 - Pythagoras's theorem. He was astounded, exclaiming, "This is impossible!" He read on, intrigued. The demonstration referred him to other propositions, and he was soon convinced that the startling theorem was true.
Hobbes was transformed. He began drawing figures and writing calculations on bedsheets and even on his thigh. His approach to scholarship changed. He began to chastise philosophers of the day for their lack of rigor and for being unduly impressed by their forebears. He compared other philosophers unfavorably with mathematicians, who proceeded slowly but surely from "low and humble principles" that everyone understood.

[Lomax]

It seems to me that logic proves or disproves all arguments, but the proof of logic is logic.

This reminds me of Goedel's theorem.

If you look for an "exact" (fully consistent) logics, then you won't be able to have an unlimited logics (applicable to everything).

If you look for an every-encompassing logics, you won't manage to make it fully consistent.

Usually, one uses logics - because IT WORKS, as it has been said above - within the domain for which it was developed.

The fact it cannot exit such domain, and proof its own validity from the outside like a person who flew by pulling on her bootstraps, does not take anything out of logics.

For example, you may turn to "fuzzy logics" to deal with physical, social or epistemic problems that are ineffectively dealt with by classical logics: you shall have a more powerful tool for those domains, but a less powerful tool for discerning a true/false dichotomy.

I agree with the principle that logics should be chosen simply on the basis of whether they work (which, by the way, leaves us with the problem of showing that a logic works without relying on logic to do so).

However, Godel's theorem is one of those things that gets dragged into discussions where it doesn't really fit (much like the Heiseberg principle, for instance). What Godel showed was that a logic capable of dealing with the Peano arithmetic can't be both complete and consistent; this finding doesn't extend to all logics.

[Keep_Relentless]

I agree with the principle that logics should be chosen simply on the basis of whether they work (which, by the way, leaves us with the problem of showing that a logic works without relying on logic to do so).

How should this be possible? If we define another method of demonstration we must have another one that demonstrates that in turn, and so on ad infinitum, no?

Perhaps it is just like the ultimate question "Why is there something instead of nothing?"... for any possible answer I think, we would still be unsatisfied... eventually we must know when we have the greatest possible and be done with it... and I think logic is very close to the greatest possible.

[PrayerReason]

Maybe I understand something wrong, but logic can be demonstrated if we use consistency?, I explain :
If I say logic (the process) is logic (the fact)... I am consistent, the fact logic is the result of the process of repeatedly logic operation.
If I say illogic is illogic... I am inconsistent, the illogic is the whole things I don't understand, so it is logic to not understand what I don't understand (I can process by logic operation on what I don't understand, I can understand). So illogic is logic.

So as logic is the case, Logic Beg the question : question are asked by entities, entities are material, material is logic, so question is logical.

[mtbturtle]

logic is material?

[Yorkshire]

I suppose that even the truth can be proven. Are you asking, also, if the answer can be the question?

[Athena]

AVI & ATHENA
Apologies for over-posting.

Abstract is neither good or bad.
All science, with the exception of physics (mostly), is abstract.
Any study or creation that takes the observer into account is not abstract.
Art, fiction, etc. are not abstract.

My statistical graph cannot show anything, but I can show you my statistical graph.
To make this graph I had to weigh thousands of stream pebbles to create a mean, median, and mode for their masses.
I show you my graph, and you say, "So the average pebble in this stream has a mass of 1.478g."
You logically infer from my "observations" from which I constructed a graph that you could search more than one-hundred lifetimes and never find a pebble of that mass.
Is this inference, reasoning, logic? I am trying to learn from you folks. I am not sure of your terminology.

Why does the average size of a pebble matter? Socrates gave up on such study, because it became obvious the more we attempt to find the smallest particle, the smaller the smallest becomes. However, Socrates did not give up on arguing what is just. Our understanding of what is just matters a lot, and the only way to assert what is just is logic. However, our effort may be like trying to touch a droplet of mercury. Truth seems to slip away when we get too close.

[Yorkshire]

Exactly...
Such endeavors are futile. It's the demonstration that matters. Perhaps to children who love statistics; or Wall Street Bankers. If you trace to the Greek logic of "form", that could matter... And a pebble is matter--even in free-fall, it may not weigh anything, but still has a mass that is specific only to that pebble. I cannot find logic back as far as 15Ga., but as a neophyte, I love these discussions. YOUR LAST LINE WAS PERFECT. As soon as we think we've finally found the truth, it transforms and shape-shifts... start over again.

[SilverJade]

I only skimmed the original post and did not take care to read any of the others so forgive me if what I'm going to say has already been said but:

You have committed the error of seeing logic itself as an 'institution'. Or more generally, as a 'thing'. That is to say you are likening the existence of logic to that of say, an apple, just an object in general. Logic is really more typified by something like space. People make the same mistake when they try to treat science as though it in itself were capable of being incorrect when it is only ever our understanding of science which is incorrect.

Now there is an important difference between logic and science because the means to the former is not mediated by interpretation as it is with the latter. So one's actual understanding of logic is never incorrect, it is only their misunderstanding of it which could ever be.

If you are searching for a philosopher who has demonstrated why and how logic is necessary in this sense, then I should definitely recommend to you Ludwig Wittgenstein(undoubtedly you have already heard of him, but I mean either reconsider your understanding of his works or delve more deeply into his secondary writings(I particularly recommend On Certainty, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, and Philosophical Grammar. Also there are some relevant discourses extant within his Nachlass and the 1913-1918 years of his journals)).

To put it quite simply, you've just forgotten about the idea of necessity! Logic does not beg the question, it is simply 'neccesary'.

[Avi Love]

Hi SilverJade,

Sorry about the late response. In saying that one's understanding of logic is correct until misunderstanding occurs, you are saying that logic is correct unless it isn't. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting.

Actually I think my argument in this instance (though it may be modified now from my original) is that logic is not an external object. Science as an entity cannot be wrong because science is the investigation of the external world. Thus a scientist can be wrong in their conclusions as demonstrated by examining the external world. Science cannot be wrong as it is the examination of the external world.

However what does logic examine exactly? It seems to me that logic is the direct result of human reason. Therefore if I could prove human reason to be flawed then I could prove logic to be flawed simultaneously. Logic would then have to be revised to account for this flaw.

Are you saying, then, that logic is simply the entity of human reason in its entirety where the entity cannot be wrong because it is modified as reason develops, in the same way that science is modified as our understanding of the world develops?

I would buy that as an argument, but it also seems to directly contradict many logicians or logical philosophers who claim the already existing rules of logic as a sort of higher power than reason. It might even be claimed that aspects of logic transcended empirical evidence despite the fact that I would argue that human reason is based entirely on the development of empirical perception.

So if logic is merely reason, how do we keep it in check? A potentially valid new rule of logic can be contradicted by saying it does not fit with the old rules of logic. Since there is no logical way to prove either set of rules valid other than via a set of logical rules, what should be done to understand what form of reason provides the greatest accuracy in reasoning?

I would postulate that a potential solution to this is to view logic empirically. I enjoy the more recent interplay between science and philosophy because it seems to be accomplishing something. The give and take between the empirical observation and the logical dissection of what that observation does or does not indicate seems crucial to the development of understanding. The logical dissection is then best performed by those who did not make the observation.

However this does not seem to account for mathematics.

[Whut]

So it seems that both Whut and Yorkshire are saying that logic is a category which cannot be self-refential. However logic is not just a category. It is a process.

I'm saying logic is useful, for a certian end. Logic loses all meaning when we talk about logic "itself."

Why does it follow?

It cannot be simply based on observation. Neither person in that dialogue has to actually have seen a whale. That is inherently the point of logic.

It is precisely based on observation. All apples do this, therefore all oranges do this (we assume oranges can't be that fundamentally different from apples). Logic holds onto those occurrences in the universe we have observed don't tend to change. We apply them elsewhere.

[Avi Love]

Whut: This would seem to support the conclusion of my most recent post. If logic is based on observation then logic is the attempt to abstractly categorize empirical information in order to apply it to unobserved circumstances. Logic and empirical perception are then inextricably bound in human understanding.

Logic does not deal with a "correct" system of human reason but rather challenging the accuracy of observation. Observation likewise challenges the accuracy of logic. To separate one from the other then would seem to be metaphysical suicide.