An Outline of the Necessary Laws of Thought (Thoemmes Press - Thoemmes Library of British Philosophers)

Author:

Publication Date and ISBN:

June 30, 2005 | 1843713233

Pages:

Amazon.com Editorial Review: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: soning powers may lay claim to the title, in so far as he reasons according to laws, ascertained by reflection upon the process of thinking. If, for example, we call Zeno of Elea the inventor of Dialectic or Logic in Greece, it is not in virtue of his marvellous ingenuity in arguing against the possibility of motion, because this might have been the result of natural acuteness ; but because his arguments, all constructed upon one type, that of forcing his antagonists into an absurd position by reasonings drawn from their own views, seem to indicate the possession of a logical rule, the same which now has the name of reductio ad absurdum. He had reflected upon those modes of argument which his position led him to adopt spontaneously, and had formed a general rule or plan which assisted him in forming like arguments in future. Logic then, like Philosophy, of which it is a part, arises from the reflection of the mind upon its own processes ; a logician is not one who thinks, but one who can declare how he thinks. This important distinction, which has been too often neglected, must govern all researches into the history of the science. § 3. Logic has been defined to be the science of the necessary laws of thought. But this definition, the correctness of which shall presently be examined more particularly, requires a few words of general explanation. Our thoughts are formed indeed bylaws ; and when we conceive, abstract, define, judge, and deduce, we put in practice so many ascertainable principles. But does Logic simply explain these laws in themselves, or contemplate them in their uses, as assisting and regulating our efforts in seeking after knowledge ? This distinction is analogous to that which is drawn between Anatomy and Physiology, the former of which simply examines what ar...