How to Think: Introduction to Logic, Lecture 2 with David Gordon - Mises Academy
0 likes702 views
For lecture videos, readings, and other class materials, you can sign up for this independent study course at academy.mises.org.
More Related Content
Similar to How to Think: Introduction to Logic, Lecture 2 with David Gordon - Mises Academy (7)
More from The Ludwig von Mises Institute (20)
Recently uploaded (20)
How to Think: Introduction to Logic, Lecture 2 with David Gordon - Mises Academy
- 1. Introduction to Logic with David Gordon Lecture 2 Mises Academy February 15, 2012
- 2. When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?. . . Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence. And theres not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, its the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business. The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.
- 3. When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?. . . Last spring Politico. com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence. And theres not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, its the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business. The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line. Krugman says that an increase in toxic rhetoric will inevitably cause some people to cross the line into violence. But even if an increase in toxic rhetoric increases the probability that some people will cross the line, this doesnt show: 1) that the increase in rhetoric makes it likely that someone will cross the line or 2) that the increase in rhetoric causes someone to cross the line.
- 4. Krugman has committed an ignoratio elenchi. He is trying to show that the increase in toxic rhetoric causes an increase in violence. He instead shows something else, i.e., that an increase in rhetoric increases the chances that someone will be violent. Increase the chances does not imply makes probable Makes probable does not imply causes
- 5. The first lesson is that property is originally communal (owned by the community). Indeed, the very idea of a purely private property is a contradiction in terms, since the right to private property must be recognized by the community to have any value. For example, the owner must be able to call upon the police to be able to exclude others from his property, or his property cannot be said to be private at all. M辿daille, Toward a Truly Free Market
- 6. The first lesson is that property is originally communal (owned by the community).Indeed, the very idea of a purely private property is a contradiction in terms, since the right to private property must be recognized by the community to have any value. For example, the owner must be able to call upon the police to be able to exclude others from his property, or his property cannot be said to be private at all. --M辿daille, Toward a Truly Free Market The author claims that private property is originally communal, but he argues instead for something else---that the community must recognize private property if it is to have value. Again, an ignoratio elenchi.
- 7. A Judgment affirms or denies an attribute of a subject. A Proposition is the verbal expression of a Judgment. In Two Name Scholastic Logic, both subject and predicate name the same thing. In Socrates is mortal, both Socrates and mortal are names of the same entity, i.e., Socrates. Mortal is a way of referring to Socrates in this proposition. If its impossible to combine a predicate with a subject, the proposition isnt allowed. All dogs are reptiles is not a legitimate proposition.
- 8. In Two names Logic the verb is always is or is not. This is one of the main areas where Scholastic Logic differs from mathematical logic. Frege and Russell thought that subject-predicate logic cant handle relations. We thus have to change, Hitler invades Russia to Hitler is invading Russia. Otherwise, the proposition cant be analyzed properly in this kind of Logic. The copula is indicates the existence or being, of the subject, but this doesnt have to be existence in reality. It can be existence in the mind. e.g., Hamlet was indecisive.
- 9. Quantity of propositions: A Universal affirmative I Particular affirmative E Universal negative O Particular negative Its very important to learn this table, because the Scholastic analysis of the syllogism depends on this classification. Some propositions are hard, but not impossible to classify, e.g., Singular Propositions, Complex Propositions, and Compound propositions.
- 10. Joyce says that in an analytic proposition, either: the predicate is contained in the intension of the subject, or the subject in the intension of the predicate. A simpler way to understand this is that in an analytic proposition, the predicate is part of the concept of the subject or follows from the concept of the subject. Different from the logical positivist view that analytic propositions are conventional. A synthetic proposition is one in which there isn t a conceptual connection between the subject and predicate.
- 11. Two meanings of possible Hypothetical propositions Disjunctive propositions
- 12. "If there is a dominant theme that runs through our discussion, it is this: Private property is a legal convention, defined in part by the tax system; therefore, the tax system cannot be evaluated by looking at its impact on private property, conceived as something that has independent existence and validity. Taxes must be evaluated as part of the overall system of property rights that they help to create. . . The conventional nature of property rights is both perfectly obvious and remarkably easy to forget . . . We cannot start by taking as given . . . some initial allocation of possessions what people own, what is theirs, prior to government interference" Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership (Oxford, 2002), p.8
- 13. "If there is a dominant theme that runs through our discussion, it is this: Private property is a legal convention, defined in part by the tax system; therefore, the tax system cannot be evaluated by looking at its impact on private property, conceived as something that has independent existence and validity. Taxes must be evaluated as part of the overall system of property rights that they help to create. . . . The conventional nature of property rights is both perfectly obvious and remarkably easy to forget . . . We cannot start by taking as given . . . some initial allocation of possessions what people own, what is theirs, prior to government interference" Murphy and Murphy are begging the question: they are claiming that property rights are conventional because property rights are conventional. Note: Beg the question does not mean raise the question.
- 14. Because in fact these high tax economies actually do well, it follows that what happens in the real world is that much of that tax money is spent constructively, on programs that inspire a sense of confidence, improve productivity, and promote good health and education. --Jeff Madrick, The Case for Big Government, Princeton, 2009, p.17 This is the famous post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. If the government imposes high taxes and the economy then did well, it doesnt follow that the high taxes contributed to the prosperity
- 15. Suppose there were a 100-percent probability that unless prevented, a terrorist known to be loose in Manhattan would explode a nuclear bomb. No sane person would balk at abandonment of the conventional limitations on the power to search and seize and the power to extract information from suspects and even bystanders. Would he refuse to countenance an exception for a lesser threat to public safety? If the probability were 99 percent rather than 100 percent, could he sanely adhere to that position? Eventually, a rule and exception approach would dissolve into balancing, and disagreement would shrink to differing assessments of the risks and harms --Richard Posner, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy, (Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 315-16.
- 16. "Suppose there were a 100-percent probability that unless prevented, a terrorist known to be loose in Manhattan would explode a nuclear bomb. No sane person would balk at abandonment of the conventional limitations on the power to search and seize and the power to extract information from suspects and even bystanders. Would he refuse to countenance an exception for a lesser threat to public safety? If the probability were 99 percent rather than 100 percent, could he sanely adhere to that position? Eventually, a rule and exception approach would dissolve into balancing, and disagreement would shrink to differing assessments of the risks and harms" This is an example of the misuse of the sorites paradox. If you start with a completely bald man and then add one hair, isnt the person still bald? But adding one hair cant change whether someone is bald. Therefore, someone with a full head of hair is bald.
- 17. Richard Posner responds the objection to judicial review that it permits elitist judges to impose their values on the rest of us in this way: "Liberalism is in tension with democracy. Democracy is a means not only of dispersing political power and thus of protecting the private sphere against invasion by the public sphere, but also of enabling people to enforce their dislike of other people's self-regarding behavior --Richard Posner, Overcoming Law, (Harvard, 1995), p.25. This is an ignoratio elenchi. Posner says there are problems with democracy. But even if he is right, this doesnt respond to the point about elitist judges.