Logic: The Building Block Tool of Philosophy

I'm starting this blog because I have discovered that I have thoughts on philosophy which aren't necessarily about one of the philosophers or topics that I'm researching or have blogs on. So even though I have an unmanageable amount of blogs, I'm going to add another one. And what better way to start this blog than a foundational building block for Philosophy, namely, Logic! 

I found 'The 10 Commandments of Logic' on Facebook and they make for a good constant reference as and when. It was posted by Philosophy Matters, 31st December 2016 and I reposted it pubicly as a 4 year memory end of last year because I had only posted it to Facebook 'friends' previously. So here they are!

"1 Thou shall not attack the person's character, but the argument. (Ad hominem)

2 Thou shall not misrepresent or exaggerate a person's argument in order to make them easier to attack. (Straw man fallacy)

3 Thou shall not use small numbers to represent the whole (Hasty generalization)

4 Thou shall not argue thy position by assuming one of its premises is true. (Begging the question)

5 Thou shall not claim that because something occurred before, it must be the cause. (Post Hoc / False cause)

6 Thou shall not reduce the argument down to two possibilities. (False dichotomy)

7 Thou shall not argue that because of our ignorance, (a) claim must be true or false. (Ad ignorantum)

8 Thou shall not lay the burden of proof onto him that is questioning the claim. (Burden of proof reversal)

9 Thou shall not assume "this" follows "that" when it has no logical connection. (Non sequitur)

10 Thou shall not claim that because a premise is popular, therefore it must be true. (Bandwagon fallacy)"



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm an Adherent of the Philosopher, Susan James

Image
Updated 19th April 2025:  NB: Clearly people have not understood this section below on mentorship. 🙄 So I'll explain it a bit further. Just as Sue and I are mutually in love with each other so we have a mutual mentorship model. Yes it's a thing. It's not unusual. And indeed any Professor of Leadership worth their salt will confirm that this model is a very good one and works splendidly. We use it and it works for us. We both have a lot to offer each other. In academia, there's what some male Professors call 'camps', other male researchers term 'factions'. These may be a group of people who adhere to a particular academic, or it may be an individual who adheres to one particular academic because that person can connect with that academic as a person and can identify with their Philosophy and so wish to advocate their philosophy as well as develop themselves along their lines.  I am, and always have only been, since early 2010, an academic adherent of Pr...
Read more

Madness in Philosophy!

Today I'm springing off from a strange article about psychiatry and the Philosophy of Madness, posted on TPM's Facebook....Long-winded too! You can read it  here .  Foucault is probably the best at discussing this subject matter. I'm reading an exciting book about him at the moment. I've already read one of Foucault's texts before looking at secondary literature. That way I can be more critical of any secondary literature I come across. I avoid reading secondary literature before reading the original text. My mother taught me that. She was taught at school to always read original texts before reading literary criticism. As for Philosophy of Psychiatry? Really? Philosophy of Psychology, yes, that came up at uni but I didn't take that option. I went for Politics, Ethics, & Aesthetics, as options. History of Philosophy and Ep and Met were compulsory final year level core modules, anyway. So they were never up as an option. Hence, I've stayed within the Hist...
Read more

Happy World Philosophy Day 2021

Celebrating World Philosophy Day!🎊🎉🎊🎉🍾🍸🍸🍸🍸🎂🍰🍫🍫🍫🍫☕🌈🤗😘🌈 Here's  the gif I posted on Facebook of Foucault🌈showing passion for philosophical discussion, with the following comment: As you can see, philosophy is a rigorous, rational, logical, analytic and passionate thought process that depends on reasoned arguments, counterarguments and counterexamples in order to test the truth within the philosophical argument. Opinions don't count as philosophy because they are inadequate ideas. Philosophy is an exhausting thinking and writing process which requires skills that you have to learn. They don't come naturally out of thin air. It is an extraordinarily difficult subject to do well!  Happy #WorldPhilosophyDay ! 🎉🍾🍸🍸🎂🍰💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Read more