Practical Logic

By

Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., M.B.A., Phd.

Practical Logic is really a form of Logical Positivism, where, logical

positivism is defined as “experience and logical reasoning therefrom.”

Experience often means sense experience, but not always. Experience can involve

the internal experience of feelings, intuition, and imagination. Practical Logic

involves Symbolic Logic which reasons from facts. The facts that a person

reasons from are required to be reasonably factual. So, for example, I might

engage in a logical analysis of the “facts” presented in a newspaper story, or an

internet story, or a written report or article. Following Lonergan, the way to make

a probable or reasonable judgment of fact, is to start with experience, the go to

understanding, and then reasonable or intuitive judgment and reflection. Now, let

us define some of the terms used above.

Logic is defined as that which is not illogical. That which is illogical is

defined as that which does not involve a logical contradiction, such as attempting

to assert that A and not can exist in the same time and the same place. This, is of

course impossible. An (A)pple and not (A)pple cannot exist or be in the same

time and the same place, such as a person’s left hand. Thus, a proof, a syllogism,

an argument, a brief, a judicial opinion, a legislative statute, a memorandum, etc.,

cannot contain within it a logical contradiction, such as, attempting to asssert that

money is both good and bad, as such, in the same argument. Where a logical

contradiction is asserted as valid, this is called immoral, unethical, illegal,

sophistry. Some types of sophistry include, the fallacy of shifting ground, the

fallacy of hypocrisy, the fallacy of lying, the fallacy of attempting to prove the

antecedent by asserting the consequent, the fallacy of appealing to a conventional

authority.

Reason is defined as a composite of logic, love, and intuition. Logic has

already been defined above. Love is defined as a positive feeling flowing

outward. Intuition is defined as a cognitive faculty of the human mind which uses

high speed preconscious and unconscious analogical thought processes to produce

insights which might not have been developed with ordinary analytic thought

processes.

In applying Practical Logic, we can consider a number of different examples.

First, let us imagine that there is a legislative bill which provides in the preamble

to the legislation that its purpose is to promote safe driving. But then, in the text

of the legislation it states that each county can decide on its own whether to have

everyone drive on the left side of the road or the right side of the road. Factually,

it is reasonable to assume that people will drive from county to county and that

they are likely to drive the same way regardless of each county that they are in. It
is probable that this will result in a large number of car accidents. Since the

purpose of the statute is to promote safe driving, it is a logical contradiction to

have legislation which promotes more car accidents, rather than less.