Category: Logica Utens
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Some Definitions of ‘Global Warming’ Examined
Just what is global warming anyway? On this page you will find a page of definitions. This post will examine some of them. This is important because one cannot intelligently discuss global warming, or anything else, until one knows exactly what one is talking about. Now one thing that should be obvious is that a genus…
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Conservative Activism, the Left’s Incomprehension, and the Genetic Fallacy
'Conservative activism' has an oxymoronic ring to it. Political activism does not come naturally to conservatives, as I point out in The Conservative Disadvantage. But the times they are a 'changin' and so I concluded that piece by saying that we now need to become active. "Not in the manner of the leftist who seeks…
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If Religions Contradict Each Other, Does it Follow that No Religion is True?
This from a piece in guardian.co.uk: According to the Pew survey, 85% of humanity is religious in some way, and that's probably a low estimate, since nobody knows the true figures about China. This doesn't mean that religion is true (it can't, because religions contradict each other), but that there are strong cognitive and motivational…
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On the Correct Usage of ‘Infers’ and ‘Implies’
Within the space of a few days, I caught two TV pundits and an otherwise competent writer misusing 'infer.' Why do people have such a difficult time with the distinction between inference and implication? I will try to explain the matter as simply as I can. The test to determine whether a use of 'infer' is…
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Does Zeno Affirm What He Denies?
Andrew Ushenko in a Mind article from 1946, "Zeno's Paradoxes," distinguishes five putative ways of refuting Zeno's paradoxes: logical, mathematical, mathematico-physical, physical, and philosophical. Ushenko points out that two logical refutations fail. This post examines one of them. This is of particular interest since a reader floated a similar suggestion. Ushenko states the objection and then…
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Questions: Their Raising and Their Begging
To raise a question is not to beg a question. 'Raise a question' and 'beg a question' ought not be used interchangeably on pain of occluding a distinction essential to clear thought. To raise a question is just to pose it, to bring it before one's mind or before one's audience for consideration. To beg…
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Against Terminological Mischief: ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Negative Nominalism’
This from the seemingly reputable site, Investigating Atheism: More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. I'm having a hard time seeing what point there could be in arguing that "atheism only denotes a lack of theistic…
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The Definition of ‘Atheist’ and the Burden of Proof
Some define atheism in terms of the absence of the belief that God exists. This won't do, obviously, since then we would have to count cabbages and sparkplugs as atheists given the absence in these humble entities of the belief that God exists. But the following could be proffered with some show of plausibility: An…
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Why Be Consistent? Three Types of Consistency
A reader inquires: This idea of the necessity to be consistent seems to be the logician's "absolute," as though being inconsistent was the most painful accusation one could endure. [. . .] What rule of life says that one must be absolutely consistent in how one evaluates truth? It is good to argue from first…
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The No True Scotsman or No True Atheist Fallacy
In logic, a fallacy is not a false belief but a pattern of reasoning that is both typical and in some way specious. Specious reasoning, by the very etymology of the term, appears correct but is not. Thus a fallacy is not just any old mistake in reasoning, but a recurrent mistake that is seductive.…
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Peikoff on the Supernatural
Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Meridian 1993, p. 31: "Supernatural," etymologically, means that which is above or beyond nature. "Nature," in turn denotes existence viewed friom a certain perspective. Nature is existence regarded as a system of interconnected entities governed by law; it is the universe of entities acting and interacting in…
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Would Schopenhauer Allow Comments?
If Schopenhauer were a blogger, would he allow comments on his weblog, The Scowl of Minerva? I say no, and adduce as evidence the following passage that concludes his Art of Controversy, a delightful essay found in his Nachlass, but left untitled by the master: As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual…