The Merits of Logic

Wednesday in class we discussed the benefits of being able to take a given piece of text, then diagram the argument in a way that the premises flow, in order, to the conclusion. Overall we determined the benefits of applying logic to issues outside of deductive formal proofs.

However, I have a different question to ask.

Is there a way to reap the benefits to organizing formal proofs in everyday, non-philosophy classroom discussion? Do the rules of logical inference, the structure of the arguments, and formal (as opposed to informal) fallacies benefit the rest of our studies in college? I'm not sure of an answer, but I'd love to hear what you all have to say.

Only Inductive Logic?

I really want to ask an open ended question that I really don't have an answer to myself, but here goes. Do you think that there may be some questions that cannot be answered deductively and can only be answered inductively? We briefly touched upon this in class, and what was said is that our knowledge may be limited, and therefore our arguments are only inductive under lack of sufficient evidence.


However, I have another example--the Judeo/Christian god. Some, such as Anselm and Aquinas would argue that the existence of God can be proved deductively. However, what if this isn't the case? If this god exists (and I'm not making the claim one way or the other) wouldn't the role of faith be important, and therefore the use of deductive logic would be moot since God would be unknowable without faith? I'm not sure as to an answer, but I find it interesting indeed.

Arguments for Latin American-US Differences

I'm currently the TA for a class on Latin America and United States relations. Since we're in the introductory stages of the class, we're looking at why the United States and the nations of Latin America have developed differently.

One of the arguments proposed is this: Since the Latin American populations were Catholic as opposed to Protestant like in America, and since Catholicism is authoritarian by nature, and democracy requires egalitarianism, the Latin American countries generally had authoritarian leaders because of their Catholicism while the United States had democratic ones.


Now, that's quite the mouthful of an argument, and I think considering the circumstances at hand, it makes a lot of sense. I chose this argument hoping to diagram it, but I'm not sure if I'm able to do it here. Lets see if I can tease it out.


I think our conclusion is 4)
   the Latin American countries generally had authoritarian leaders because of their Catholicism while      the United States had democratic ones.

But, how do we get there? I think that maybe we need to start with 2) Catholicism is authoritarian by nature and what follows from that is 1) the Latin American populations were Catholic as opposed to Protestant like in America

On the other side we have the statement as a stand alone which is 3) democracy requires egalitarianism.


Overall, we have 1) follows from 2) which, in conjunction with 3) comes to our conclusion 4)

Not sure if I structured this right, but give it a look!

The Real Meaning

I was having a conversation with Jondavid earlier today and we were discussing some pretty interesting issues, chiefly among them the idea of a religion and its figures as literature. As he said to me, and I'm paraphrasing, "If religion was really who has the best literary figure to follow, we'd see more Gandalfism than we do current." I think he has a point here; if religion is literature, albeit very powerful literature, what is its meaning?

I guess I'm still in the camp that it has no meaning if this is the case. As a Catholic I really believe that Jesus performed miracles, was crucified for our sins and was raised from the dead. Also, I actually believed he established a hierarchical Church here on Earth. This has no meaning if Jesus is only a strong literary figure. Rather, since I believe these to be true, metaphysical claims, it makes all the difference in the world. My faith is shaped by the implications of these truths not just here, but in all of reality.

I'm not convinced that as literature, Christianity has any of the meaning it does if it is literally true.

Religion and Duty

We've discussed in class several things relating to duty. Christians have a duty to follow Jesus' teachings and help attain the Kingdom of God, Confucius taught the duty related to human ritual and Muhammed taught a duty of submission to Allah.

Regardless of our own religious beliefs (or lack thereof) duty is something that we can all accept and implement into our lives. What, therefore, should be the duty we should have in a secular 21st century society?

The Three Faiths

I find it interesting that Isalm, Judaism, and Christianity all claim to come from the same source and often times use the same stories and people. However, at the end of the day they all believe radically different things. How does something like this happen? The Qur'an as well as the New Testament mention Jesus and the Virgin Mary, yet there are different beliefs in both religions.

More so, why do you think that in Christianity's sense first, then in Islam, the already-established stories were changed, yet accepted by large groups of people?

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this, but I find it interesting!

Common Culture

This blog is more of an open-ended question considering what we talked about in Tuesday's Class.

What do you think should be some of the factors of a common culture, if we were to have one in America? I'm pretty skeptical of the notion, as you heard me ranting about in class, so I'll spare you most of the argument. Basically, I'm just concerned that having a common culture will lead to the erosion of cultural practices of other groups. As a person who values language, religious identity and expression, and above all food, this worries me.

If something is taken from one culture and incorporated into the unified, then it loses its meaning for that culture. I'm just scared that people will lend things to the idea of a common culture that we'll never get back.

However, what benefits might this have overall?