Category: Logic

Would you agree with those such as Alister McGrath that Christianity is rationally defensible, or would you say that the rational aspect is unimportant? If the latter, how would you respond to charges of thoughtless fanaticism in your religiosity?

askmeLogic

This is a fantastic question. I begin my answer by noting that rationality is overvalued and its capacity overestimated. The ability of the human mind to apprehend what it considers is vast, but not unlimited.[…]

Continue reading …

Do you think that the following argument is a good one : X says that a certain metaphysical view is correct. X says that if this view M is correct, it should produce certain effects in the psychology of people that realize it. (Make them super-smart, or super-kind for example). It is observed that X has this type of psychology. Thus the metaphysical view M is true.

askmeLogic

I am part of a minority of philosophers who believe that some variant on the argument you proposed can be incorporated into a strong inductive argument –in fact I’m currently at work on just such[…]

Continue reading …

1) The claim “There is extraterrestrial life in the universe, because my father said so” is an example of an appeal to authority. But it can be viewed as an enthymeme, where the hidden assumption is that “my father is always right”. In such a case, there is no logical problem with the argument. Do you agree? 2) Do you think that to say that : “Person A is biased , therefore\what he says is wrong” is fallacious? It can be interpreted as “person A is biased, therefore his information cannot be trusted. Therefore what he says is wrong”. 3) Are errors of logic errors of psychology as well? Or perhaps, only errors of psychology? Appeal to authority besides being a logical fallacy, has a whole psychology and sociology besides it.

askmeLogic

1) We must always be careful to distinguish between arguments that are valid and those that are sound. A valid deductive argument has the proper logical structure (where true premises guarantee a true conclusion) but[…]

Continue reading …

On one hand, arguments are supposed to be objective – something which is true is always true, for everyone. On the other hand, if person says “P exists because X,Y,Z”, while he personally has seen the evidence (x,y,z) for P, and another person says “P exists because X,Y,Z” and he has only read about X,Y,Z from second sources – their knowledge is actually very different. Where is that difference (crucial one) reflected in logic?

askmeLogic

I think your question is rooted in the fact that we generally consider two distinguishably different subjects under the umbrella of logic. The first is the art of argument as it takes place in natural[…]

Continue reading …