What is logic?

Logic encompasses many different kinds of study, so that one might wonder what the common thread is. Some claim that logic is the study of truth, and is thus the most basic and fundamental science. While every science aims at truth, logic is the science of truth itself. It tries to discover the truth about truth. Logic studies truth in the same way that biology studies living things. Others say that logic is concerned with thought, and tries to discover the laws of thought. These laws do not describe the way people actually think, for that is the task of psychology. Rather, they prescribe the way people ought to think; they describe the way a perfect mind thinks. Logic is like ethics and morality, in that it separates right from wrong. Logic, one might say, is the ethics of thought and belief. Others say that logic is essentially concerned with language, in some way. Logic tries to understand the logical form of statements, and certain structural relations between sentences. It is certainly true that logicians spend a lot of time studying languages, especially the artificial languages that logicians themselves have devised. Much of this course will consist of learning how to use artificial languages. Logicians also study natural languages, such as English, French, Mandarin and so on. In my view, logic is concerned with all three of these, with thought, with language, and with truth. This is possible, since these three things are closely connected. But how? This is a controversial area in philosophy, which we shall explore a little.

Deduction and Induction

In logic, there are two distinct methods of reasoning namely the deductive and the inductive approaches.

Deductive Reasoning works from the "general" to the "specific". This is also called a "topdown" approach. The deductive reasoning works as follows: think of a theory about topic and then narrow it down to specific hypothesis (hypothesis that we test or can test). Narrow down further if we would like to collect observations for hypothesis (note that we collect observations to accept or reject hypothesis and the reason we do that is to confirm or refute our original theory). In a conclusion, when we use deduction we reason from general principles to specific cases, as in applying a mathematical theorem to a particular problem or in citing a law of physics to predict the outcome of an experiment. Theory Hypothesis Observation Confirmation Deduction Reasoning Theory Hypothesis Pattern Observation Induction Reasoning

An Inductive Reasoning works the other way around, it works from observation (or
observations) works toward generalizations and theories. This is also called a bottom-up approach. Inductive reason starts from specific observations (or measurement if you are mathematician or more precisely statistician), look for patterns (or no patterns), regularities (or irregularities), formulate hypothesis that we could work with and finally ended up developing general theories or drawing conclusion. Note that that is how Newton reached to "Law of Gravitation" from "apple and his head observation"). In a conclusion, when we use Induction we observe a number of specific instances and from them infer a general principle or law.

These two methods are sense very different in nature when use in conducting researches other than being top-down and bottom-up. Inductive reasoning is open-ended and exploratory especially at the beginning. On the other hand, deductive reasoning is narrow in nature and is concerned with testing or confirming hypothesis. You may already notice that we could merge these two approaches into one circular pattern from theory to observations and again form observation to theory. When we say some researcher (Einstein) develops a new theory (relativity) we usually mean that he observes some pattern in the data (light).

COMPARISON OF TWO REASONING

Properties of Deduction

In a valid deductive argument, all of the content of the conclusion is present, at least implicitly, in the premises. Deduction is nonampliative.

If the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Valid deduction is necessarily truth preserving.

If new premises are added to a valid deductive argument (and none of its premises are changed or deleted) the argument remains valid.

Deduction is erosion-proof. Deductive validity is an all-or-nothing matter; validity does not come in degrees. An argument is totally valid, or it is invalid.

Properties of Induction

Induction is ampliative. The conclusion of an inductive argument has content that goes beyond the content of its premises. A correct inductive argument may have true premises and a false conclusion. Induction is not necessarily truth preserving.

New premises may completely undermine a strong inductive argument. Induction is not erosion-proof.

Inductive arguments come in different degrees of strength. In some inductions, the premises support the conclusions more strongly than in others.