james -
That’s nifty.
But not a counter-argument.
I understand logic and reason as a tool. But are you sure that rationality is the only method of inquiry capable of generating meaning?
Certainly true and I apologize. There are times when I am up to countering 15 different conflations at once, and sometimes when I am not. 
The only method of inquiry??
Rationality is a decision making process related to examining the goal and the situation so as to ration steps toward the goal. Without rationality, one is merely a pawn of circumstance and a puppet for their rational manipulators.
Faust,
We all curse the imprecision of language. It may be hyperbole, but it seems like the content of almost every thread in this site carries the unwritten question: What do you mean by what you say? If language truly had precision, the discussion of philosophy would have ended hundreds of years ago. The idea of logic as the “philosopher’s stone” is attractive, but if Bertie couldn’t make it work, that ought to say something. I think Whitehead got much closer to an honest assessment than his good buddy Bertram. Yeah, Neitzsche has been interpreted so many ways that he disappears in a fog - and that says a lot about language then and now.
Jim,
Perhaps. Of course, this would require belief that rationality is the only part of thought and action. If I don’t believe that, I can always say “or not” and go on about my business without being a victim of circumstance or a puppet. For your statement to be valid, it requires belief in rationality as the only component is assigning meaning, thought, and action.
I don’t believe that is true at all. Do you have support for that assertion?
It was your assertion, not mine. So what is your support for the statement that : “Without rationality, one is merely a pawn of circumstance and a puppet for their rational manipulators.” Please validate this statement and I’ll amend my comments.
THAT was your assertion. Why do you believe it is something that must be believed (“belief in rationality as the only component…”) in order for it to be true?
Tentative -
Bert’s just one of many. He was one of a group, the Founding Fathers of Modern Logic, all of which think there are more than one axiom of logic. Which was my reason for citing him. But i think that Bertie did make it work, along with Peano, Whitehead, Tarski and Frege. No, it’s not the answer to all our questions - it’s not an answer at all. It’s a perfectly useful method of teasing meaning out of a collection of statements.
However, what is a sudden discovery of meaning, attainable only through logic, to one person is an obvious fact to the next. I might think that the famous “Socrates” syllogism is a wonder of serendipity where you take the fact that he was mortal as a mundane bit of trivia. Logic is awesome and not awesome at the same time.
Oops.
Much like being male, it takes a logician to understand the extent and usefulness of logic.
Spoken like a true perspectivist!
I can’t help it.
generally, having what you know correspond in some way with what is the case - there’s a lot of facilitated guesswork involved - logic being one of the means by which we facilitate that guesswork
i haven’t set any specific standards - at most, i’ve made reference to the fact that one can be correct about things without logically reasoning them through, and one can also logically reason their way to a conclusion and still come out incorrect
i’m not “denying” reason - unless by that you mean disabusing myself of the rather religious notion that reason via logic is the only valid means by which we can determine what is correct
i don’t know what you’re referring to by pop-culture sentiments and social stereotypical ideas - and my “emotionalism” (if that’s what you want to call it) is not irrational - i make reasoned arguments for my assertions all the time - but logic can be used to undermine itself - rationality is not perfect that way, and i take that fact to be demonstrative of logic’s larger place in determining what is the case.
Logic IS playing with definitions (i.e. words), and I didn’t make any assertions about self-understanding - i fully believe logic can help provide us with self-meaning, but i don’t think that is unlocking any great secrets about the universe, merely synthesizing a sense of identity - something which can be done in numerous ways and is not necessarily contingent on the use of logic - i don’t dismiss logic as a source of understanding, but i do dismiss, among other things, the mysticization of logic as the key to hidden secrets about the universe
this is mostly true, but logic and reason are not the only keys - they are each one tool of many - and they can each be used is multiple ways, no one way is the best - there are no rules for thinking that are written into experience
i’m not scolding, logic and reason have their place - they are immensely useful and we probably couldn’t survive without them at this point in our evolution - but while it would probably be impossible to build a house without a hammer (or some substitute), that doesn’t mean the hammer is the “key” to building a house - you need far more than just that - i simply don’t think we should forget that logical rules for thought are contrivances and they are imperfect - again, obvious but frequently overlooked.
i have thought about it, and aside from your attacks on me, i don’t have problems with most of it, as far as it goes - i just don’t think it goes far enough - i think whether you realize it or not you define the limits of your own thought by the limits of logic, and i think that is a mistake.
basically, i’m talking about any application of logic whereby it is used to “reveal” truths about the universe - so yeah, scientific method, among, i suppose, possible other things
spoken like someone who is missing the point
yes, i know
i disagree. WE, as humans, decide which of our thoughts has relevance - WE, as humans, assign identities and determine what things are and aren’t - these are definitions - logic plays with those definitions so that they do not contradict one another = x=x is a tautology that we have DECIDED is a truism - we ASSIGN x-ness to various parts of the universe - those parts have no independent identity otherwise
i’m not sure what your point is here
no, i’m not talking about moral righteousness - except insofar as faith in reason is a moral decision (which i think it is, to some extent) - no, what i’m talking about is the simple fact that one can logically reason for the presumed goal of determining what is the case, and still be incorrect in one’s conclusions. I have no faith that, even if we were to have perfect knowledge, “rationale” would inexorably lead in every case to the correct conclusion.
And how do you know what is the case?
You see how your position is circular.
Logic has rules to it, which means that the “guessing” is ordered, directed, attains degrees of justification. Logic not merely some method for guessing answers; logic generates answers.
Your standards are evidenced here: you mandate that logic never be wrong, and that logic be the only means for being “right”, otherwise you see logic as in error, as no better than guesswork.
You fail to grasp the essence of what logic is, what separates reason from “guessing”, from imagination, from faith.
“Determining what is correct”, yes, and how might you go about doing this in a way which does not make use of any logic or reasoning? And how would you know that this “correct” is in fact correct? Do explain.
And yet you cannot demonstrate how one might come to “correct” conclusions without the aid of logic and reasoning, how one might come to know that they are indeed correct.
Heuristics are based on reasoning and logic, you know.
Logic uses symbols and the manipulation of concepts as much as “words” - we think in terms of geometric spaces, symbolism, when we think logically. Reason is not merely wording. There is a difference between “Earth is a planet orbiting the sun” and “The sun is a planet orbiting earth”. What do you think constitutes that difference, and how would you know, if not via reasoning and logic? You just “guess” which one is correct? You just assume, you just pick whichever feels better? You just leech off of the knowledge created by others as if it came out of thin air, as if it did not come directly from a necessary process of logical thinking and reasoning?
I didnt say you did. I was making my own independent claim there.
You are the only one invoking mysticism here.
What are the other “tools”, and how/why do they work, and why do they work where logic cannot?
I have explained why logical reasoning works regarding self-understanding and knowledge - you now need to explain what these “other tools” are, and how/why they work… and do it in a way which does not invoke logic or reasoning.
Im waiting.
Post and run, i’m already late for work:
facilitated guesswork, like i said - and a heavy dose of wishful thinking. obviously, we never know for sure - and some things are easier to know than others - those things that can be fit into a logical framework, for instance - but not every question regarding what is the case will have a logical answer
fundamentally, all “knowledge” is circular - the law of identity is circular - this is how humans think
sure, and it proscribes the way reality ought to work in the process - in many cases, it’s a means of inventing answers where there otherwise are none, it doesn’t mean those answers “accurately” (in any super-rational sense) reflect what is the case, only what we WANT to be the case - circular and wishful thinking, like i said
Logic can be wrong, and it is not the only means for being “right” - that’s precisely the point - it’s not “no better than guesswork”, it’s a highly refined, evolved form thereof - and i never said logic is in error as a standard rule, only that it’s possible that logic might lead to error
well then, what exactly separates it?
feelings, speculation, imagination, observation, personal preference - any of the ways we generate meaning - any of the foundations upon which we build our reasoning and logic - how do we tell it’s correct? same way: we feel it ought to be correct.
to repeat: guesswork - wishful thinking - the same way we come to correct conclusions and “know” they are correct WITH the aid of logic and reasoning - it’s all the same process, and that’s a big part of the point, here - one which you are missing (and perhaps one which i’m failing to adequately convey)
sure, but unless you want to expand “reasoning and logic” to include all the ways by which minds generate meaning (and i would then ask you to demonstrate that) then heuristics is simply a preferred method of generating knowledge.
i never said that logic and reasoning CAN’T generate knowledge - in fact i said that it is one of the means by which we arrive at an understanding of what is the case - but it is still all contingent on your definition of words (or symbols, or concepts) such as “planet”, “orbit”, “sun” - and those definitions are matters of perspective, appearence - you are employing logical rules to arrange words such that they make sense to you, provide you with a sense of meaning and reflect what you imagine or perceive to be the case
how so?
to do it in a way that does not invoke logic or reasoning would defeat the point - which is that logic and reasoning can be used to undermine themselves - see above for some of the other tools - we might generally include them under the rubrick of “feelings” - they work (when they do) because they have evolved to work - the same reason logic works (when it does) -
a man thinks he is a vegetable - to dismiss the possibility that, in some relevant sense, the man is in fact a vegetable as being “irrational” (we won’t even consider, here, the process by which the man may have come to the conclusion in the first place) is merely to appeal to the authority of the definitions of “man” and “vegetable” - it is circular. Saying the man is not a vegetable is to use logic to synthesize meaning - the fact that there ARE such things as men and vegetables, and that there are differences between the two, is ultimately an absurd one, one without any logical foundation - but it is one that we FEEL must be correct, it is one that we perceive - it is a consensus - the logical proof that the man is not a vegetable only comes after the fact of the “knowledge” that he is not. Ultimately, it is correct (if it is) only because the majority of us prefer to live in a world where the words “man” and “vegetable” have different, mutually exclusive meanings - but that preference itself is not based on any logical rules - there is no logical mandate claiming that there must be men and vegetables and that they must be different from one another.
“The falseness of a judgment is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgment (. . .) The question is to what extent it is species preserving, perhaps even species breeding; and our fundamental tendency is to assert that the falsest judgments (to which synthetic a priori judgements belong) are the most indispensable to us, that without granting as true the fictions of logic, without measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical, without a continual falsification of the world by means of numbers, mankind could not live - that to renounce false judgments would be to renounce life, would be to deny life (. . . )”
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Perhaps it would or perhaps it wouldn’t, the point here is that it might, and that’s why to grant as true the fictions of logic is to make a moral decision. Likewise, to deny that they are fictions in the first place is to make a leap of faith.
Need we bring in Hayek’s spontaneous order or Ryle’s “knowing how vs. knowing that?”
You’re subsuming logic to critique logic, no? You have no frame of reference. It’s as though you’re a child wandering into a theater – sorry, that’s Walter’s metaphor. It’s as though you’re taking a tour of a college campus. The tour-guide points to building’s saying, “That’s the school of journalism and there’s the philosophy department,” and on and on, until at the end of the tour you say to him, “Yeah, but where’s the campus?” That’s called a category mistake.
You don’t base how you balance yourself on a bicycle upon what you know about the physics and aerodynamics involved; you just know to do it. I know that 1 + 25 = 26 exactly because I know how to add. These two are complementary and neither can be distinguished as preceding the other.
Logic has arisen spontaneously. I know that. I’ve come to know that from how I got here.
Also, Karl Popper. I just wanted to say that. That is all.
Here’s a tip: just cuz i quote Nietzsche doesn’t mean i know my ass from Hayek or Ryle, or Walter, or even Popper. I’m subsuming nothing, but i am subjecting logic to logical critique, yes. If that leaves us with no frame of reference, then welcome to the human condition. Meanwhile, if you disagree, then make an argument, don’t just throw out a bunch of names and accuse me of a category mistake, which is begging the question.
erudition is all well and good, but ostentation is another thing all together