Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
all philosophy is the contrived conjecture of individuals, there is no universal logic, it's just that some opinions seem to have more grounding than others...that's why I'm going to study it at uni
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by rupertj
If you find maths boring because you weren't that good at it or you couldn't appreciate mathematical reasoning in the same way that others do, or whatever, then that's your problem. You live in a world governed by mathematical and physical principles. Without mathematics (obviously the applied rather than the pure, although the applied often depends on the development of the pure), your life (materialistically speaking) would be very different. Have you ever thought that some people might enjoy or be good at things that you don't like?
I never said maths wasn't incredibly useful nor am I denying that others find it interesting. Personally I don't find it of interest.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
It was also the view that all Philosophical Schools were grown on the roots of Metaphysics. Such that Descartes thought that no other Philosophy should be studied or considered until you have a firm grasp on the Metaphysical.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Interesting topic! I couldn't bring myself to read the whole thread, but I imagine it to be fairly predictable. Anyways, formal logic does my head in; it mostly finds newer and less interesting ways to say the same things over and over, most of which didn't need to be said in the first place. (I'm pretty much pasting the next bit from something I recently wrote in another thread):
Rorty's a fascinating chap though, maybe people should read him; he uses the contingency of language (and language users) to show that the questions asked by analytic philosophers are only considered important due to accidents in the history of human language and thought. For example; he considered the role of epistemology as one of the main areas of philosophy to be traceable to mistakes made by Kant, when it doesn't necessarily need to exist at all. So according to Rorty analytic philosophers seek objective answers for contingent questions.
There's a lot more to him than that though. He's well worth a read if you get the chance.
"To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that languages are human creations. The suggestion that truth is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language his own."
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by tomheppy
Not every field uses deductive logic i.e. natural science. Also logic doesn't necessitate deductive logic.
Well, everything in the natural science could be traced back to physics. At the end of the day physics does use deductive reasoning (in the form of mathematics) and experiment.
Can you name an example of a branch of logic that doesn't use deductive reasoning?
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by Simplicity
Well, everything in the natural science could be traced back to physics. At the end of the day physics does use deductive reasoning (in the form of mathematics) and experiment.
Can you name an example of a branch of logic that doesn't use deductive reasoning?
Well inductive logic is a branch of logic. Science rests on such inductive logic. As you implied physics does not derive its knowledge from mathematics alone there needs to be data to work with. You can't prove the photoelectric effect by using maths though you can use it to elucidate the problem.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by tomheppy
Well inductive logic is a branch of logic. Science rests on such inductive logic. As you implied physics does not derive its knowledge from mathematics alone there needs to be data to work with. You can't prove the photoelectric effect by using maths though you can use it to elucidate the problem.
There aren't any really credible inductive logics that I'm aware of.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Philosophy does not rest on logic, really. Disputes arise because people mean different things by what they say, and because they are confused about what a word really means. Take the clichéd debate about freewill: Do we have freewill? It is acknowledged that this is really a debate about what "freewill" means. Those who say we do have freewill do so because they are operating on a different definition of the word to those who don't. Either someone is confused, or we mean different things.
Much of philosophy (e.g. ethics) goes out the window on this view.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by Simplicity
Philosophy is not founded on logic.
The only field that can be say is founded on logic is mathematics. But, in some ways its not.
No subject is "founded in logic". The Pythagoreans did not sit down and specify rules of inference before they started maths. Logic is something we have developed to model what is already in use.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Well, even if an argument is logically valid, the premises can be false, and I think this is often the issue. If one 'school' puts forward a perfectly valid argument, but another school disagrees with one of the premises (which in itself might be hard to prove by the same logic), then it's very hard to distinguish an objective right from wrong.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
Originally Posted by shamrock92
Philosophy does not rest on logic, really. Disputes arise because people mean different things by what they say, and because they are confused about what a word really means. Take the clichéd debate about freewill: Do we have freewill? It is acknowledged that this is really a debate about what "freewill" means. Those who say we do have freewill do so because they are operating on a different definition of the word to those who don't. Either someone is confused, or we mean different things.
Much of philosophy (e.g. ethics) goes out the window on this view.
Discuss the merits and deficiencies of political theories and philosophical questions.
Re: If Logic is Universal, Why Are There So Many Conflicting Schools of Philosophy?
