Logic is such powerful medicine it should come labeled with both a promise and a warning.
Its promise is more practical and personal than it may seem at first glance By drinking logic's medicine, I have saved myself time, pain and money. Logic has saved me from falling head-first into many costly decisions I would have come to regret. This medicine can be seen as an inoculant against foolhardy impulses, the kind by which we throw caution to the wind and later wish we hadn't. This medicine is caution itself, a way of preventing our impulses and intuitions from leading us astray.
But this medicine can also become a poison which is why it warrants a warning label. Socrates noted that logic can be used as a way of dismantling and dismissing our opponent's arguments while indulging our own self-rationalizing impulses free reign. Socrates attacked the "Sophists," teachers who taught students how to exploit logic to prevail in arguments regardless of what they were arguing for.
This is the first temptation for all students of the subject. Having learned a little logic they'll declare themselves logic experts and then go about wielding their fake authority to "prove" that they are right about everything and that everyone who disagrees with them is "illogical".
People often think of logic or critical thinking as the formula for discovering what is absolutely true and right. By this naive and false assumption, if we all applied logic strictly, we would come to the same conclusions.
If only we had a system like that! Indeed, this was Socrates dream. Socrates noted that Pythagoras had discovered absolute facts about triangles by imagining the perfect, ideal triangle. Socrates implied that we could likewise employ logic to discover the true nature of perfect, ideal virtue, love, piety friendship and other human qualities.
Philosophy begins with surprise. When we think of philosophy, so many questions pop up in our mind such as, why we are here on the earth? What is the world made of Where does it come from? The speculations of ancient people were often artistic, but were speculative and irrational. Philosophy as we think of it today did not occur until the Greek philosophers of the sixth century BCE sought some overriding theories about the world. Is there one substance of which the world is made of? One principle that is universal throughout? One theory that why we all are here?
If we think of logic or philosophy, we should remember the contributions made by Socrates and Plato as they are considered as the great figures in the birth of Western philosophy, and we study them even today. Their greatness lies in part in their efforts to bring things into intellectual order to provide, or at least to seek, some coherent system that can explain why things are the way they are. But even before Socrates there had been deep thinkers-Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Democritus and others who had proposed assorted accounts of the fundamental stuff of the world, or of the fundamental principle by which all is governed.
All the above said philosophers were theorizing, not merely guessing-but there was no real science in these early speculations. Dogmatic suppositions, supernatural forces, the gods, ancient myths and legends had always to be called upon. As philosophy gradually matured there grew the drive to know, to discover principles that could be relied upon in giving explanations.
Thus logic begins. Judgments are sought that can be tested, confirmed and proved. The methods with which we discover and confirm whatever we really know need to be identified and refined. We must give a reason about everything happening around us and we are eager and hungry to understand the principles of accurate reasoning. Logic is an excellent form of mind-training because it involves a very particular way of thinking and focusses on truth. But how does it work and what are its limitations? To know this one needs to read the present book on loge, which serves as a tool to make someone understand the basic elements along with its nature and scope of logic. That first climb from chaotic thought into some well-ordered system of reasoning was an enterprise of extraordinary difficulty Its first master, Aristotle, having developed a system within which the principles of reasoning could be precisely formulated, was rightly held in awe by rational thinkers from his day to ours. Though he was well read and called as the scholar, he himself was questioned by his contemporaries. Still he is the first great logician.
Now-a-days, Logic is taken to be a formal science like mathematics. Its primary concern is not truth, but validity. It deals directly with implication, not with inference. Further, the aim of logic at present is to provide not only improved methods of testing reasoning, but also methods of systematizing our knowledge Thus, Logic plays a very important role in every branch of studies.
Chapter-1 entitled, "Nature and scope of logic deals with definitions and nature of logic since its inception level along with the theories of Aristotle. Arguments are based on some principles, So Logic has to study these principles and how they are to be properly applied. Besides all these, logic also includes a discussion on fallacies or the errors in its scope which we may commit, when we are careless. Most of the major concepts are introduced through discussion of existing examples from the history of philosophy and science.
Now-a-days, Symbolic logic has introduced into the scope of logic the concepts of symbolization and systematization. This has greatly broadened the scope of logic and it is no longer confined to merely testing the reasoning. This chapter also talks about the implications and distinction of logic. It also focuses on the three fundamental principles of Logic because without assuming them we cannot have any logical or valid thinking. They are the root of all kinds of proofs.
Chapter-II entitled, "Syllogism" discusses the different forms of syllogism with symbolical and concrete examples. The categorical syllogism has been very well explained with definitions and examples. The general syllogistic rules are also illustrated eloquently with the valid moods of the figures. Aristotle's dictum is also very well explained in this chapter. The sub section on 'Aristotle's Dictum and Reduction' ends with this observation: "Aristotle's Dictum and Reduction was the only method of testing the validity of syllogisms in the days of Aristotle, But now-a-days, there are other methods of testing the validity of syllogisms."
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