Logic lessons for Jak and Marg

[_wenglund]

I think some here may not be using the terminology correctly. They are mistakenly calling unsound arguments illogical. Whether one believes the premises to be true or not, as long as the form of the argument is correct, or in other words if the argument is valid, the argument is considered logical. It is logically valid, though not sound.

So, rather than calling the argument illogical, simply refer to the argument as unsound.

(For a more detailed explanation, see: Validity and Soundness )

Also, if some people question the verity of the premises, that does not make the argument universallyunsound. It only makes the argument unsound to the person questioning the verity of the premises. For those who believe the premises of a valid argument, the argument is sound.

In this case, there is no way to definitively test the verity of the first premise ( "In God all goodness resides" ), and depending upon how one defines "good", the verity of the second premise (i.e. "all truth is good") may be limitied in its testability (It may be a "truth" that some people dispise the notion of God. Is that truth "good"). As such, it may not be very useful as a deductive argument within interfaith dialogue.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Aquinas]

I think some here may not be using the terminology correctly. They are mistakenly calling unsound arguments illogical. Whether one believes the premises to be true or not, as long as the form of the argument is correct, or in other words if the argument is valid, the argument is considered logical. It is logically valid, though not sound.

So, rather than calling the argument illogical, simply refer to the argument as unsound.

(For a more detailed explanation, see: Validity and Soundness )

Also, if some people question the verity of the premises, that does not make the argument universallyunsound. It only makes the argument unsound to the person questioning the verity of the premises. For those who believe the premises of a valid argument, the argument is sound.

In this case, there is no way to definitively test the verity of the first premise ( "In God all goodness resides" ), and depending upon how one defines "good", the verity of the second premise (I.e. "all truth is good") may be limitied in its testability (It may be a "truth" that some people dispise the notion of God. Is that truth "good"). As such, it may not be very useful as a deductive argument within interfaith dialogue.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Well put, thank you! I'm glad someone posted in here who understands what logic is. What is your profession Wenglund (you don't have to tell me if you want privacy, I can understand that, just curious). This is what I have been trying to explain to Jak and Marg all along, while my argument has been falsely accused by them of being illogical and invalid. They don't understand what logic is. I would like to say though, soundness of an arugment doesn't depend on whether someone believes the truth of the premises or not, it depends on if the premises are actually true. Someone could deny the truth of these premises:

1. All men have bodies
2. George Bush is a man
3. Therefore, George Bush has a body

If they do, they are only demonstrating that they are a moron, not that the argument is unsound "for them." The argument is sound, even if someone denies its truth. In my argument, a better criticism is that we cannot know if the premises are true or not, so we cannot know if it is sound. If Marg and Jak were to say that, I wouldn't have a problem. If they are going to say (as they did) the premises are nonsense, they should present an argument to show that they are, not make simple assertions. Lastly, the point was my original sentence was a logical statement designed for those who already accept that God exists, that he is all good and that all truth is good, those are whom it should persuad, obviously it will not be compelling to anyone else. I do see your point about the "all truth is good" premise, this would be a basis for possible argument, which is what you presented in response, rather than foolishly trying to question the validity or logical nature of the sentence! Thank you.

[_marg]

Let’s review Aquinas:

The argument you are interested in proving using formal logic is

If God is all good, then truth must lead to God, since all truth is good.

And I gave an example of a categorical syllogism in the same form:

(If) chocolate cake with whipped cream is all good
and truth is all good

therefore chocolate cake is truth or truth is chocolate cake

and you appreciated this was invalid

and you explained to me with an example in order to illustrate:

Chocolate cakes are all sweet
Donuts are all sweet
Therefore chocolate cake are donuts. (or donuts are chocolate cake)

And you pointed out “clearly invalid”

Now notice that sweet is an adjective, just as good is an adjective

So let’s rephrase in the same manner you did using God, truth, good and goodness
--------------------------------------------
All sweetness is (in) chocolate cake
All donuts are sweet

Therefore all donuts are(is) chocolate cake
----------------------------------------
all goodness is (in) God
all truth is good

therefore all truth is God

[_asbestosman]

So let’s rephrase in the same manner you did using God, truth, good and goodness
--------------------------------------------
All sweetness is (in) chocolate cake
All donuts are sweet

Therefore all donuts are(is) chocolate cake
----------------------------------------
all goodness is (in) God
all truth is good

therefore all truth is God

Yoy have changed your donut / cake analogy. The first premise has changed from saying that chocolate cakes are entirely sweet to saying that chocolate cakes contain the sum total of all sweetness (there is nothing sweet which is not chocolate cake).

[_marg]

by the way, I'm out for the afternoon will get back to this tonight.

[Mayan Elephant]

I posted something here, then deleted it because I need to give it more time before I post it. I have to go to work, so I'll look over marg's last post when I get back.

[_JAK]

1. In God all goodness resides
2. all truth is good and
3. Therefore, truth leads to God

Please define God, truth and goodness.

No, I won't. I don't care if you don't believe premise 1 and 2, plenty of people do and they are whom this statement was meant to be heard by. However, you don't even need to have a definition of these terms to show validity/invalidity. It's like math;

1. All g is in G
2. All T is g
3. Therefore, all T leads to G

You can show two plus two equals four and not five, so if you believe my argument is invalid, demonstrate it. Show us your skills.

-------------------
Aquinas,

(marg and Jersey Girl have asked me to participate here despite my intention to avoid what appears a quagmire of deceptive people.)

Your logic is flawed. By refusing to set forward clear, transparent definitions for terms you use, your use of terms lacks meaning.

I am just looking at what’s on the screen and your refusal to define.

God is a claim. It’s religious doctrine/dogma. By refusing to define, you obfuscate. It’s deliberate obfuscation done by pundits of religious dogma and by the religions which claim the dogma.

No evidence for God has been established. You didn’t establish it. And there is absence of general consensus about what that term means. It means something different to a Muslim than to a Christian.

Moreover, in Christianity (with which I am much more familiar), there is no genuine consensus among Christians.

The result is that all these many, many Christian groups claim and claim, and claim whatever they wish to make up about their God myths.

Surely you know there is absence of consensus about the many doctrines/dogmas regarding depiction of some entity God.

Your syllogism is irrelevant to the challenge to establish the claim God. Absent clear, transparent, skeptically reviewed analysis regarding any God claims, your syllogism is irrelevant.

Here is why. If the major premise is false or in the slightest flawed, the conclusion is flawed. You have not established “God”.

It’s the major premise in your syllogisms which you fail to establish. Failure in that makes any conclusion derived from the major premise unreliable.

A most important dimension of rational thinking (logic) is transparency. Understanding and agreement upon definitions is critical. A syllogism may be useful if there is genuine transparency. Generally, a syllogism has dissimilarities to what is being characterized. That’s an inherent weakness of any syllogism.

Second, inductive reasoning is first. Deductive reasoning (a syllogism) assumes premise 1 and premise 2 are without flaw and valid. Inductive reasoning establishes the first premise. (Since this is too long as it is, I'll not detail inductive reason here.)

All men will die. (A major premise.)

If we agree on all terms in the premise and their meaning, we do so by observation (not necessarily personal observation). We have evidence of death of men. We have evidence that every man (woman -- humans) die. We have ways to establish that a person is dead. And, we have no evidence to support that some (any) live endlessly. We can define men in the context of humans.

So in that major premise, we can establish all terms or agree upon all terms in the premise. If we cannot, a second premise and a conclusion are unreliable.


JAK

[_JAK]

I posted something here, then deleted it because I need to give it more time before I post it. I have to go to work, so I'll look over marg's last post when I get back.

Aquinas,

Your statement (as marg points out) establishes nothing for your case.

Let’s examine some of the problems in your statement.

Aquinas stated:
If God is all good, then truth must lead to God, since all truth is good.

You have not established your assertion God. That’s critical to your case. What you have done is to assume God.

Having assumed God, you continue as if your assumption is without question and continue to make yet another assumption. You state: “...then truth must...” What’s “truth”? You have not established any such thing. You move from one assertion to another assertion. Your use of “then” is also faulty. Why? It’s faulty because there is no “then” which you’ve established. Then (in accurate use) follows something previously established. (As marg points out, you have established nothing here.)

Let’s see an illustration: If we drop a drinking glass 20 feet to a concrete floor, then the glass breaks as it hits the concrete floor. In this case, we know the particulars and definitions (or can know).

You have not established God. You have not established truth. What you have done is make up assertions/claims absent definitions.

JAK

[_JAK]

Hopefully JAK will respond to you, in the meantime to get started you write:

I later defended this statement to demonstrate that it was logical, it fits the definition of a valid deductive argument, here was the defense I gave:

1. In God all goodness resides
2. all truth is good and
3. Therefore, truth leads to God

Please define God, truth and goodness.

by the way just because premises are put into a valid deductive formal form does not make the premises and their conclusion logical. Validity is only about form not about making sense or being logical. Logic is about a search for what is true.

marg, your rejoinder is correct.

marg stated:
Please define God, truth and goodness.

by the way just because premises are put into a valid deductive formal form does not make the premises and their conclusion logical. Validity is only about form not about making sense or being logical. Logic is about a search for what is true.

Definitions are extremely important in matters of “logic.” If the intent is genuine communication, we need agreement on the meaning of words used in discussion. (Debate is not discussion.)

While difficult for virtually all God pundits, definition is important. Otherwise different people use the same term and mean different things. However, most religious bias tends to avoid definitions. By keeping meaning vague, one insures flexibility and even self-contradiction.

marg is also correct that while there is a form for a deductive argument, it’s only part of the picture.

I’ll assume Aquinas might read here.

Allow me an example demonstrating the correct position of marg.

A syllogism:

All women are stupid. (Major premise)
marg is a woman. (Minor premise)
marg is stupid. (Conclusion)

The form of the syllogism is correct. And in this case we can know with considerable specificity what all words mean in the syllogism.

However, the Major premise has not been established. Failure to establish the Major premise renders anything which follows unreliable/false.

So, how do we establish a Major premise?

We need a sufficient number of cases/examples/studies to establish a Major premise.

Even the form for the syllogism is incorrect which Aquinas submitted. Let’s look:

Aquinas constructed:
1. In God all goodness resides
2. all truth is good and
3. Therefore, truth leads to God

First, we have no consensus on God in the Major premise.
Second God is not retained in the Minor premise.
Instead we have another Major premise.

2 is a different Major premise and makes an “all” statement about “truth.”

So even the form is faulty in the Aquinas example. There is no Minor premise.

The “all” statement is the first and the Major premise.

All women are stupid. This is inclusive and without exception. It’s critical in the syllogism form (or must be implied).

Once we have established: All women are stupid, the next step is to find a specific woman. We find “marg.”

Now we join the Major premise (All women are stupid) with a Minor premise (marg is a woman).

Given the establishment of the Major premise AND the Minor premise, the conclusion: (marg is stupid).

In Aquinas’ example God has not been established. What’s the subject? The subject is “goodness.” God is the object of a preposition -- of far less importance than the subject of the sentence.

Now I could continue, but this is sufficient to establish the flawed form as well as flawed reasoning (logic).

JAK

[_marg]

So let’s rephrase in the same manner you did using God, truth, good and goodness
--------------------------------------------
All sweetness is (in) chocolate cake
All donuts are sweet

Therefore all donuts are(is) chocolate cake
----------------------------------------
all goodness is (in) God
all truth is good

therefore all truth is God

Yoy have changed your donut / cake analogy. The first premise has changed from saying that chocolate cakes are entirely sweet to saying that chocolate cakes contain the sum total of all sweetness (there is nothing sweet which is not chocolate cake).

That is correct.

Categorical syllogisms are about classes of things and in valid categorical syllogisms the premises entail the conclusion.

[All chocolate cake] are [sweet] is entirely different to saying [all things in the world which are sweet] are chocolate cake. Those are 2 entirely different premises.

I asked Aquinas to define among other words good in his statement "God is good" and he refused though in the previous thread (re Bednar) he wrote: "in God all goodness resides". By goodness I'll assume he means [all things which are good in this world]. Though still what is meant by "good" is not defined.

So to put it into categorical syllogism format

[All things which are good in this world] are [(of the class of) God]
[All that True] is a [good thing in this world]

Therefore [all that is True] is [(of the class of) God]
---------------------------
In the previous thread where this discussion began I didn't say Aquinas' argument set up was invalid, I said it was nonsense. That is the premises without warrants to support them, and/or without definitions of words clearly understood, can not be relied upon to determine whether the conclusion is true.

The only value that deductive reasoning provides is if the premises are true and the argument is in valid form the conclusion must be true. If there is any ambiguity of what the words in the premises mean or represent, the conclusion can not be relied upon. The argument is useless, it's irrelevant. If any premises are false or nonsense the truth of the conclusion can not be relied upon.

So what Aguinas is doing is focusing on deductive reasoning..using the valid form AAA-1 of a categorical syllogism which is about classes of things..and thinking that plugging some words into that form AAA-1, it's saying something meaningful with regards to the conclusion. The implication being it is offering some new insight, some logical reasoning, not previously grasped. Yet he doesn't define his words, for example what does "good" mean.

In deductive reasoning the conclusion contains no more than is already stated within the premises. One can make up whatever they wish and plug it in.

So let's plug

So [All things which are good in this world] are [(of the class of) God]

[All sneezes] are a [good thing in this world]

Therefore [all sneezes] are [(of the class of) God]

or how about

all desserts are a good thing in this world

Therefore all desserts are (of the class of) God.