In two of my collections,
The Matrix Revealed and
Power Outside The Matrix, I include basic training in the art of logic and more advanced critical analysis.
The basic fact is: students in schools are rarely taught how to follow a
line of reasoning from beginning to end. Nor do they practice
analyzing half-formed, faulty arguments.
Who teaches young students, these days, how to distinguish between a polemic and a formal argument?
Teachers spend little or no time discussing hidden premises or assumptions, which color a subsequent argument.
Increasingly, people are "learning" from watching videos. Some videos
are well done; many others intentionally omit vital data and make
inferences based on "shocking images."
A focused study of logic can illuminate a range of subjects and
disciplines. It can suddenly bring perspective to fields of inquiry
that were formerly mysterious and impenetrable.
Logic is the parent of knowledge. It contains the principles and methods common to all investigation.
Being able to spot and understand logical flaws and fallacies embedded
in an article, essay, book immediately lifts the intelligence level.
Logic isn't a prison; one isn't forced to obey its rules. But the
ability to deploy it, versus not understanding what it is, is like the
difference between randomly hammering at a keyboard and typing coherent
paragraphs. It's the difference between, "I guess
I agree with what he's writing," and "I know exactly how he's making
his argument."
In the West, the tradition of logic was codified by Aristotle. Before him, Plato, in the
Socratic Dialogues, employed it to confound Socrates' opponents.
Reading the
Dialogues today, one can see, transparently, where
Plato's Socrates made questionable assumptions, which he then
successfully foisted on those opponents. It's quite instructive to go
back and chart Socrates' clever steps. You see logic
and illogic at work.
High schools today don't teach logic for two reasons. The teachers
don't understand the subject, and logic as a separate discipline has
been deleted because students, armed with it, would become authentically
independent. The goal of education rejects independent
minds, despite assurances to the contrary.
Logic and critical analysis should be taught in phases, with each phase
encompassing more complex passages of text offered for scrutiny.
Eventually, students would delve into thorny circumstantial arguments,
which make up a great deal of modern investigation and research, and
which need to be assessed on the basis of degrees of probable validity
and truth.
It's like a climbing a mountain. The lower paths are relatively easy,
if the map is clear. At higher elevation, more elements come into play,
and a greater degree of skill and experience is required.
My college logic teacher introduced his subject to the class this way:
Once you've finished this semester, you'll know what you know, and you'll know what you don't know.
The second part of his statement has great value. It enables real
research beyond egotistical concerns, beyond self-serving presumptions,
beyond secretly assuming what you're pretending to prove.
We certainly don't live in an age of reason; far from it.
Therefore---the greater need to learn logic. Among other benefits, it
centers the thinking process.
In a landscape of controversy, babble, bluster, public relations, covert
propaganda, and outright lying, one has a dependable compass.
For instance, understanding the scientific method
(hypothesis-prediction-verification) would go a long way toward
untangling some of the outrageous claims of science, and separating them
from the political agendas they serve.
Beginning in ancient Greece, coming up through the Middle Ages, and into
the 19th century, logic was one aspect of education called the Trivium
("the three"): in sequence, a student learned grammar, then logic, then
rhetoric.
Except in scattered places, where people have consciously instituted a
revival of the Trivium, that integrated method of teaching is gone now.
Instead, in primary and middle schools, we have superficial coasting
through many academic subjects, minus the necessary exercises and drills
to ensure that students grasp material. In other words, we have
imposed ADHD.
Logic isn't the end-all and be-all of life. It doesn't define what life
is. It's a tool. You either have it or you don't. You can use it or
you can't. When you can, you have more power, and whole new vistas,
previously unseen, open up to you.
Logic is a tool in your box. When you need to go in and remove it and use it, is it dull or is it sharp?
Finally, studying logic gives a student an appreciation of
consequences. For example, a politician announces a high-flying
generalization, as a plank of his platform. Two things ought to
follow. The student does his best to translate that generality into
specific terms which actually mean something. Then he traces what
would happen if the plank were, in fact, put into effect; what would the
consequences specifically entail? There are always consequences---it's
just that most people never see them or think
about them, because they haven't the foggiest idea about how to flesh
them out and map their implications.
Logic: one of the great contributions to civilization, left to die on the vine.
It needs to be resurrected, in full flower.
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