As a student of law with a vivid interest in logic (in a broad sense), I find myself intrigued by the possibility of combining these two subjects. From what I so far have found, the implementation of the latter field of thought to legal discipline is mostly only done with regard to informal logic, with fairly simple overviews of the rules of inference etc.; the scope is mostly one aimed to serve the practical law-man in, say, procedural contexts. The ones that serve the academic community, seem not to be quite technical. Yet, the legal system seems highly infested with what logic is concerned. The relation between propositions of facts and norms, the norms being constructed with the help of sentential connectives, say, material conditionals or bi-conditionals to name just a few. Yet other phenomena could be named: judgments and other propositional attitudes, the normative "it is the case that", whose descriptive accuracy depends on what legal institution one is in(e.g. penal-law demands higher...

What are some of the most common mistakes of reasoning or logic that you have experienced being made by non-philosophers? What are some aspects of reasoning schools should particularly focus on?

I seem to remember the "heap paradox" being a very old one (given a heap and repeatedly removing a single grain of sand, when does it stop being a heap?). Yet I don't ever recall hearing a solution to it. No doubt there are different views of things, but is there at least a generally accepted solution to this paradox?

Is an emotional reaction to a fact/situation a logical conclusion that follows from observed premises? Is it logical, for instance, to mourn the death of a loved one, or is mourning a phenomenon independent of logical analysis of a situation?

Recently I tried to explain to a friend what interested me about Hume's 'problem of induction.' I told him how if we want to give an argument for the superiority of inductive reasoning (concluding x's are always P, based on observed instances of x's that are P) over, say, anti-inductive reasoning (concluding x's are not always P, based on observed instances of x's that are P) then we would have to give either an inductive argument or else a deductive argument. We cannot give such a deductive argument, I told him, and to give an inductive argument like 'inductive reasoning has led to good results in every observed instance' would be circular. He replied with the question 'why is there no problem of deduction?' He asked why he couldn't give a similar argument that any defense of deductive reasoning (concluding C based on premises that logically entail C) over, say, anti-deductive reasoning (concluding not C based on premises that logically entail C) needs to be either deductive or inductive. A deductive...

Hello, I would like to ask a kind of multiple angled question I have noticed a "lack of" while studying logic. Is "the process of elimination" a sound "Rule of Inference"? (Perhaps, we've all used this "process of elimination" in taking a multiple choice test.) I have read two books on Logic: one by Irving M.Copi & Carl Cohen as well as The Logic Book by Merrie Bergmann, James Moor, Jack Nelson. I have not seen a single logic text nor a logic website where "the process of elimination" appears as a inference rule. Why is this not included as a rule? Is it not considered Deductive? Does it go by another name? What is the deal? Thank you for considering this question in advance.

Let's say I have a machine with a button and a light bulb where the bulb lights up if and only if I press the button. I don't know anything about it's inner workings (gears, computers, God), I only know the "if and only if" connection between button and light. Can I say that by pressing the button I cause the bulb to light up? (I would say yes). It seems to me that for the causal connection it doesn't matter that I don't know the exact inner workings, or that I don't desire the effect (maybe I press the button just because I enjoy pressing it, or because there is strong social pressure to press it, ...), and that I consider it very unfortunate that the bulb lights up wasting electric energy. Let's now change the terms: instead of "pressing the button" we insert "having a kid" and instead of "the bulb lights up" we have "the kid dies" (maybe when adult). I think the "if and only if" relationship still holds, and so does the causal connection. It would seem to me that parents are causally connected to...

Consider the following: "If we lower the standards we lower the results, so if we raise the standards we raise the results" (in passing this is about education). I have the impression that there is a fallacy in this - even if I assume the first part of the inference, I suppose we could raise educational standards and just watch everybody fail miserably), but I cannot phrase clearly why/how this is a fallacious claim. Am I right? Is this fallacious and if so, is there a technical term for it?

Is this a valid argument? If not, what is the fallacy committed? (1) A hypocritical agent is one that says one thing, but does another. (2) The government kills people. (Through wars, the death penalty, etc.) (3) The government tells us not to kill. (By making it a law to not murder. Murder is a form of killing, thus making it a law to not murder is a form of making it a law to not kill.) __________________________________________________ Therefore, (4) The government is hypocritical.

Hi, I'm having an argument with my pal. He argues since logic prescribes (creates a standard) what is a good/bad inference (valid/invalid) it is normative. On the other hand, I think Logic is like mathematics or physics - there are laws of logic, but they are not normative (they only describe). Can you help us settle this beef? Thank you, Miko