Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Sun, 23 Nov 1997 03:55:20 +0100
In reply to Anders:
"logic per definition doesn't deal with objects or subjects, but deals with
the truthfullness of sentences".
This is a very complex question. I think I disagree with you and I will try
to explain why and how.
Logic was first made explicit by Aristotle, and, given my present knowledge
of this, logic arose in connection with his work on the categories, his
structuring the world in a non-contradictory way. And by non-contradictory
I dont intend to say that logic arises from language, which would be a
circular argument, but that logic arises as an integrated part of the very
nature of *representing*, whether in language or pre-linguistic.
So, is logic something which exists independently of this categorical
structuring, or does it arise as an integrated part of such structuring? I
would say the latter, and saying this I distinguish myself from the
platonist view of logic and mathematics, which asserts the first.
To paint with the big brush, I take geometry to arise from the ideas of the
position and movement of objects, numbers to arise from the idea of 'same
kind' of objects, and logic to arise from the idea of 'different kinds' of
objects.
If we make a certain structure of representation of the world, like
Aristotle did, that structure embodies a certain logic, this logic
distinguishing the unambiguous from the ambiguous structure. And the logic
embodied in the an objective structuring is what we call subject-predicate
logic, or so is my conjecture. In other words, structuring the world as
things with properties, embodies the logic we know from Aristotle, which is
the logic we use every day.
Moving beyond this 'thingish' structure, we cannot avoid rupturing the
logic it is connected with as well. (I am not saying Aristotle did not see
this, he may well have - I don't know yet, but we have taken a thingish
categorical structure as our heritage from Aristotle.)
There is nothing un-MoQ as such in this foundation, the point being that it
deals with the static patterns (objects) of nature. MoQ merely points out
that it neglects the dynamic part of the world, and, us being dynamic
creatures, this brings forth a host of problems, as long as we insist that
it is a complete description of nature (or, in some other SOM way take it
for granted). In other words, these our tools for handling the objective
world are fine as long as we (or, - when we eventually) acknowledge the
limits of their application.
I am still not quite clear on how modern logic relates to the logic of
Aristotle, but one characteristic seems to be, as Anders says, that modern
logic insist on that it says nothing on the real world, in contrast to the
socalled material logic of Aristotle and the scholastics (and I would say,
common logic).
Modern logic claims to have dismissed of the material intent, or the
semantics, to be detached from any ontological implications. If this were
true, one might wonder how logic can claim to posses anything like truth.
And (I am afraid this discussion takes on more and more issues) if we agree
on logic saying something on the truth of sentences, what kind of truth is
this? Knowing the origin of logic, I propose that the 'truth' of modern
logic is un-ambiguity per se, nothing more nothing less.
And, if we wish to tangle with the other kind of truth, the empirical
truth, the truth which has meaning, which has ontological (or less SOM -
metaphysical) implications, modern logic has no say on this.
It seems to me our everyday logic is bound up within a thingish categorical
structure, and, since this logic is the foundation of the rational language
we use, it is no surprise that it is extremely difficult to move beyond
this particular static intellectual pattern.
The thing I am not quite clear on, is whether rebuilding our structuring of
the world, as Pirsig does with his metaphysics of quality, has implications
for not only the logic we have inherited from Aristotle, but for modern
logic as well. But I think the implications are something like: modern
logic is fine as long as we are dealing with 'things with properties'. But
since this thingish view of the world is not complete, we shall not take
logic to be valid in saying something of the not clearly thingish. Or, put
another way, I think the thingish worldview is tacitly presumed in modern
logic.
I hope you get my drift. Comments anyone?
Hugo
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