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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Criterion of Validity in Reasoning' and 'System of Logic'

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7 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Only study logic if you think your own reasoning is deficient [Peirce]
     Full Idea: It is foolish to study logic unless one is persuaded that one's own reasonings are more or less bad.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Criterion of Validity in Reasoning [1903], II)
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 5. Modus Ponens
Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin]
     Full Idea: Modus ponens is just one of the five different inference rules identified by the Stoics.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2
     A reaction: Modus ponens strikes me as being more like a definition of implication than a 'rule'. Implication is what gets you from one truth to another. All the implications of a truth must also be true.
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38
     A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / d. and
Combining two distinct assertions does not necessarily lead to a single 'complex proposition' [Mill]
     Full Idea: In 'Caesar is dead, and Brutus is alive' ...there are here two distinct assertions; and we might as well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex proposition.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 1.04.3)
     A reaction: Arthur Prior, in his article on 'tonk', cites this to claim that the mere account of the and-introduction rule does not guarantee the existence of any conjunctive proposition that can result from it. Mill says you are adding a third proposition.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
All names are names of something, real or imaginary [Mill]
     Full Idea: All names are names of something, real or imaginary.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.32), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2
     A reaction: Mill's example of of being like a chalk mark on a door, but Sainsbury points out that names can be detached from bearers in a way that chalk marks can't.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / c. Names as referential
Mill says names have denotation but not connotation [Mill, by Kripke]
     Full Idea: It is a well known doctrine of Mill that names have denotation but not connotation.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1
     A reaction: A nice starting point for any discussion of the topic. The obvious response is that a name like 'Attila the Hun' seems to have a very vague denotation for most of us, but a rather powerful connotation.
Proper names are just labels for persons or objects, and the meaning is the object [Mill, by Lycan]
     Full Idea: Mill seemed to defend the view that proper names are merely labels for individual persons or objects, and contribute no more than those individuals themselves to the meanings of sentences in which they occur.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language
     A reaction: Identity statements can become trivial on this view ('Twain is Clemens'). Modern views have become more sympathetic to Mill, since externalism places meanings outside the head of the speaker.