A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles
Socratic Logic
Peter KreeftQuotes
We have said that terms express concepts, that concepts are universal, and that concepts refer to the essences or natures of things. Are these essences uni- versal, like the concepts we have of them?
If they are not, then it seems that our concepts of them are not accurate, for they do not correspond to their objects. And in that case, our concepts would dis- tort rather than reveal the true nature of things.
But are universals then real things‘? Is beauty real as well as beautiful things? Does humanity or human nature or the human species really exist in addition to the 6+ billion human beings that have the same essential human nature?
Sayfa 42
reject all “generalizations
Perhaps “boob tube hypnosis” is the reason why so many people today will immediately and thoughtlessly reject all “generalizations” like “men are more aggressive than women” as “stereotypes.” They are confusing comprehension andextension.Theyaremisinterpretingastatementaboutcomprehensionasif it were one about extension, and that is why they think that the fact that Mrs. X is more aggressive than Mr. X disproves the statement that “men are more aggressive than women.” They cannot or will not rise to the original statement’s level of abstraction and argue with it on its own level.
Sayfa 45
bir noktayı cihan yap o noktaya hakim ol
Though your body is unimaginably tiny compared with the universe, your concept of the universe is greater than the universe! For if you understood the word “universe,” your thought ‘surrounded’ the universe —the same universe that surrounds your body. You did that by having a concept of the universe.
Sayfa 37
The theory most totally opposed to Plato’s is called Nominalism. The l4th- century medieval philosopher William of Ockham is usually credited for invent- ing the theory, and modern philosophies such as Empiricism, Pragmatism, Marxism, and Positivism have embraced it and made it popular. Nominalism claims that universals are only names (nomini) that we use as a kind of short- hand. Instead of giving each individual tree a separate proper name, we group together, for our own convenience, under the one vague name “tree,” all those things that resemble each other in certain ways (e.g. having trunks and branch- es and leaves). But in reality, all trees are different, not the same; not one-in- many (“uni-versal”), but only many.
Sayfa 42
Concepts, terms, and words
A concept exists only privately, in an individual mind; a term is in the public domain. A term expresses objectively what is known subjectively in a concept; a concept is a person’s subjective knowledge of the meaning of a term.
A word (or group of words forming a phrase that is less than a complete sentence) is the linguistic expression of a term. The difference between a term and a word is the difference between what is common to all languages and what is different in different languages; for the same term, the same unit of meaning, is expressed in different words by different languages. Languages are man- made, conventional, and changeable. Terms are not. That is why it is possible to
translate between different languages: because the same stable term, or unit of meaning, anchors many different words in many different languages. E.g. “love,” “caritas,” “agape,” “lieb,” “amor,” and “amour” are the same term in six different words.
Sayfa 40
When a thing is known, it acquires a second existence, a mental existence; the thing becomes a thought. If familiarity did not dull us, we would find this utterly remarkable, unparalleled in all the Lmiverse. No galaxy, no physical energy, no cell, no animal can do this; only a mind can give a thing a second life.
Every language speaks of the human mind, or intellect, as doing something more than the (animal) senses do: as going “deeper” or “below the surface” or “penetrating” what is sensed, like an X-ray; as going beyond appearances to reality, beyond seeing to understanding.
Sayfa 38
Concepts have at least five characteristics that material things do not have. They are spiritual (or immaterial), abstract, universal, necessary, and unchanging.
1. Concepts are spiritual (immaterial, non-material).
2. Concepts are abstract.
3. Concepts are universal.
4. Relations between concepts are necessary.
5. Concepts are unchanging.
Sayfa 37