PHI142 ASSIGNMENT

Que1. What is Logic? Is it beneficial for you to think in a

logically consistent manner?
Ans. Logic is the study of the principle of reasoning, specially
of the structure of propositions as distinguished from their
content and of method and validity in deductive reasoning.
Logic is the study of arguments . In other words logic is
concerned with the relation between the premises of an
argument and the conclusion. It is the branch of philosophy
concerned with analyzing the patterns of reasoning by which
a conclusion is properly drawn from a set of premises,
without refrence to meaning or context.
Yes ,it has been provided especially in thinking a logically
consistent manner, in some ways it depend to a large degree
how much one experience one has and whether or not
logical method is the best possible setuation of the given
situation and gives the best result every time it is applied.
Advantage of thinking in logically consistent manner also
decrese the time require to analyse something since it
proceeds in a well formulated manner. Further logic does not
discover only laws which are descriptive but formulates the
principles of correct reasoning . When one thinks in
consistent logical manner one considers all the aspects of a
particular things and without considering favours or any
special constraaints. Which usually occur in a person mind
andfinds the ideal solution to the given solution.
Que2. What if when . . . the basic laws of logic such as below
are not available to us? (a) Law of Identity: A is A
(b) Law of excluded middle: A or not A.
(c) Law of Non contradiction: A and not A both doesn’t follow
Ans. (a)In logic , the laws of identity is the first of there
classical laws of thought it states that “ each thing is the
same with itself and different from another”. As a matter of
fact , each thing has its own characteristics which are unique.
It is not possible for two different things to have same set of
characterstic features. If the law of identity is not available to
us, we cannot say a thing is unique, we cannot say it is
different from others. For example we cannot say dog is
different from cat. Violation of the law of identity introduces
ambiguity into discourse, increasing the difficulty og the
process to form an interpretation at specificity of desired
level.
(b) Law of excluded middle (A or not A): this states that for
any proposition, either that proposition is true or its negation is
true (p union negation p). This law ensures that if something is
false then chance of its negation being true is absolute. If this
law had not been true there we could not be able to prove
something is false. If it is not true that is binary value of a
reasoning statement would be lost and thus the reasoning we
know will go out of existence.
(C) ) Law of Non contradiction states that a statement and its
negation cannot be true at the same time. For example “this
is a bat” and “ this is not a bat” cannot be true at the same
time. Non availability of law of contradiction means we
cannot say negation of statement is false given the statement
is true.It would result in interminable value of the statements
and it will be impossible to evaluate or formulate logical
expressions.
Que3. Why Symbols are important in the domain of
mathematics and in the growth of scientific knowledge as a
whole?
Ans. Symbols are important since they transform a set of
lengthy statements into a concise information set. Instead of
using the same set of words again and again we can
symbolize them by a shorter version which is time saving as
well as effective making things simpler. Also since laws of
nature applies over a wide range of things it is easier to keep
there in symbolized form rather than in linguistic complexity.
If we wish to apply the law it is far better to bring the things
under application and relation between them into
symbolized form rather than analysing them otherwise. It
provides a simpler method of memorizing also. Also it
enables the mobility of argument of different language as
well, people who do not have knowledge of English but still
can understand these symbols and the message the arguer
wants to conveys as the definition of symbols is unique in
itself and a universal truth, these enabling everyone to abide
by the axioms of logic. These symbols also helps us in
distinguishing us in two expressions easily, like two different
arguments may sound very similar language but symbols
provide a clear method to easily distinguish them and hence
helps reduce the ambiguity in forming an explanation.
Que4. Is communication effective without the logical
connectives such as or, and, implies, not, if and only if ?
Justify with some examples
Ans. In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical
operator) is a symbol or word used to connect two or more
sentences (of either a formal or a natural language) in a
grammatically valid way, such that the sense of the compound
sentence produced depends only on the original sentences.
The most common logical connectives are binary connectives
which join two sentences which can be thought of as the
function’s operands. Also commonly negation is considered to
be a unary connective.
Reasoning about situations involves the repetitive use of
complex sentences, with the logical connectives of natural
language, such as ‘not’ and ‘or’ etc. They are not only
expressions that drive logical reasoning, but they do form the
simplest level that is the basic level. It provides relation
between natural language and logical symbols from linguistic
form or vice-versa. The effectiveness of communication gets
better with the help of logical connectives, since the notation is
well known and well closen. That is one of the reasons that
mathematics, logicians use formal notations to improve
understanding and faciliate communication. If these
connectives are not used, this statement of satisfication of this
fact would have not been created, as well as the whole
literature. It clarifies what the speaker specifies and provide
better means of adaptability to the listener and reader. These
connectives help create a routine link of propositions in a
readers mind that what follow from what. Sometime it leads to
ambiguity and thus is considered as inefficient but the quality
and correctness of the result if validated correctly compiles for
the time taken.
Que5. Why do we treat mathematical truths to be certain?
Why in logic, we emphasize more on “tautologies” 3 over the
contradictions?
Ans. We usually assume that we have an “intuitive
understanding about the truth of arithmetical statements. We
assume that there is some sort of ‘abstract structure ‘made of
number or we assume that ‘external reality’ posses some
properties which can be described by ‘number statements’ thus
we choose arithmetical axioms to be true ans deduce theorem
about number with sound laws of logic. To prove 2+3=5 and lot
of school children has been able to check if we take “two flower
and add three flower we end up with 5 flowers”. This is the
process to precise meaning of truth.
Mathematics is what logicians call an axiomatic system. By
definition the entirety of mathematics is based on statements
called axioms. Mathematical realism, like realism in general,
holds that mathematical entities exist independently of the
human mind. Thus humans do not invent mathematics, but
rather discover it and any other intelligent beings in universe
would presumly do so. We cannot cover all cases by
contradictions for example: it have to prove p implies q, then I
can prove it by contradiction ~q implies ~p. By proving that we
basically prove whenever p is true, q is true. We have no
information about other cases. It is hard to preserve trusts if we
start with falsehood. The concept of valid inference is one that
preserves designated value is ‘truth’ and so a valid inference is
one that preserves truth .How do you prove this ?? Well we
start from by assuming propositions to reason from and then
show that the related application of modes penens will never
take you so falsity.