We reason with pattern because...

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We reason with pattern because pattern is in the world.

Plato uses the metaphor ‘essence is idea’ (not explicitly but implicitly). Likewise, Aristotle uses the metaphor ‘idea is essence’. Plato considers that the highest reality consists in ideas while Aristotle places reality ultimately in the world. The difference in thinking by these two giants of thought rests on the basic axiom deduced from the question ‘does the world take its shape from ideas or do ideas take their shape from the world’. Plato’s axiom is ‘the world takes its shape from ideas’ while Aristotle’s axiom is ‘idea takes its shape from the world’.

Aristotle would say that the structure of rationality is in the world. This conjecture leads to the primary axiom of classical symbolic logic NOT [f(a) and NOT f(a)]. This is the law of non contradiction. “It is not the case that an entity a both has the property F and does not have the property F”. This is not only a truth about reason but is also a truth about the world.

Aristotle the “Father of Logic” says that ‘logic is the logic of the world’. In other words “the principles of reason are the principles of the world”. The principles by which the human mind functions are derived from the principles that underlay the world.

Ontology, what exists, comes before epistemology, what we know and how we know it. The law of non contradiction is an epistemological principle because it is first an ontological principle. Mother Nature molds the body to fit the world. The mind is embodied thus the mind is molded to fit the world. The mind can grasp the world directly because the mind came into existence just as the body came into existence; both the body and the embodied mind together are an extension of the world.

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Aristotle concludes that to perceive something is to actualize that form into mind. Aristotle is “using the common metaphors The Mind is a Container, Understanding is Grasping, and Ideas are Physical Objects.”

From all of this Aristotle created what we might call “container logic”. He equates predication with ‘inclusion’ within a category; he provides us with the implicit metaphor Predication is Containment.

“Containers are image schemas with logical constraints built into their very structure. They are not physical containers, but rather conceptualizations that we impose on space.” Some of these constraints are:
• Given a container and an entity, the entity is either inside or outside and not both at once.
• If Container A is inside Container B, and Entity C is inside Container A, then Entity C is inside Container B.
• If Container A is inside Container B and Entity C is outside Container B, then Entity C is outside Container A.

All of these form the basis for the well known logical principles “The Law of Excluded Middle”, “Modus Ponens”, and “Modus Tollens”. These laws form the basics of syllogisms, which is the fundamental form of reasoning. The syllogism is the central engine of scientific explanation.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” Lakoff and Johnson