Logicians are funny people. Many have Ph.D.'s in mathematics, and this both serves them well in some ways, and harms them in others. Some have dual degrees, perhaps one of them taken in the sciences. It is interesting to note -- and a man named Thomas Kuhn DID note this about scientists (and I will extrapolate his claims to include logicians) -- that the kind of logic they prefer, and the way they go about critiquing the works of others, depends a great deal on the formal training they have received.
I say this not because it is something brand new to say, but because it carries a truth so important that it bears repeating. Learning logic is learning the systems of logic so far produced. And these vary one from another in their most basic axiom sets or assumptions about what kind of world this is, how we know what we know, and how we should live our lives. Logicians, believe it or not, even have political views -- some vote democrat.
This means that when you learn logic, one must take care to watch just what he is learning and ask, "That's nice Gottlob, but is your system of mathematical logic BIBLICAL?" How many students today think that a system of logic developed by pagans will -- by valid inferences --imply all the truths of the Bible -- raise your hand please? NO hands? So far so good.
Logic can tell you which conclusions follow from which beginnings by logical necessity. It cannot tell you what sorts of things to believe in the beginning. The Bible can. Only by beginning with the whole of the Bible as a set of ONLY and ALL true premisses, can one reason in a way that has valid and SOUND conclusions only.
A sound argument has only true premisses and its conclusions follow in a "straight line" (called "validity") from its premisses. An argument may be valid, but not sound. In any theoretical or logical system (for that matter any ideology), one cannot validly deduce MORE propositional content than that which already exists in the premisses or axioms to begin with.
This is Van Til 101 applied to the study of Logic.
This means, "Go ahead and learn the subject of logic, but keep one eye open the entire time, and with your learning retain a healthy measure of skepticism about the axioms chosen at the outset, not only for what textbooks include, but also what they leave out. Keep your eye on the Bible, because there is a whole lot of ax grinding going on in any textbook written by those with no respect for the Word of God.
Questions For Today:
1. How might the political views of logicians affect the way they think about logic?
[one possible answer: The material a logician chooses to critique as an example might come from a political argument offered from a political position he does not like. While fewer critiqued examples may come from the party he particularly likes. Rarely will a man take potshots at his own team. This will -- as much by omission as not -- leave students with the impression that **his** political party has the better platform. Go team.]
2. What is logic, and what does it have to do with the Bible?
[One possible answer: Whatever the Bible suggests (implies) is true is as much the Word of God as what it says outright (explicitly). This is why Christians believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. There is no ONE passage which commands us to believe this doctrine. We infer it from many and various passages scattered throughout the Bible.
This means God expects men and women to reason from His Word, and to reach only valid and sound conclusions. Jesus and the apostles did this often. And we must follow their example.]
3. Are the axioms logicians choose to start off their systems of reasoning chosen from the Bible carefully? How does this affect their own views? What does it SHOW about their outlook on life?
Answer: Not on your life. Most logicians, like most other professors in the academic arena show a marked dislike of what the Bible teaches. Some textbooks even purport to show errors in the Bible itself. This means that they choose axioms without the least concern of whether or not these mesh with what the Word of God says, or else enjoy showing students how to rebel against its teachings.
4. If a logician chooses a passage from the Bible and critiques it, finding some fault with it, what does this tell you about the logician's own reasoning?
Answer: his reasoning is hostile in principle to the Word of God. This means he will necessarily be incorrect at various points in his arguments, no matter how intelligent he may be. It also means students must be on the guard to critique from the word all they are told to the best of their (developing) abilities. On this blog, I will occasionally offer the challenges of logicians and others to the Word and give them a significant dose of their own medicine.
5. Logicians are trained using textbooks not written by Christians. How will this affect the axioms they pick to start off the reasoning process?
Answer: Thomas Kuhn -- I'll be mentioning him later in a separate post (if the Lord wills) -- has answered this one for us. One's academic training sets the pace for, not only the value system that blossoming scholars tend to adopt, but for their picture of the world as well. Their textbooks will tend to bias them against the Word of God over time, as they get more consistent -- as logicians are wont to do -- with their non-Christian textbooks and counter-biblical axioms (or even simply non-biblical axioms).
The Bible construes what is not warranted by the Bible as the same as that which is hostile to the Bible in principle, though perhaps not in attitude or tone. Jesus said "Whoever is not for me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." This means neutrality in matters of covenants -- and I will later show (if the Lord wills) that logic is clearly a covenantal matter -- is not only undesirable -- it is impossible.
God is gracious and does not require us to know it all at once, but gives us time to work out from his Word what are our duties and privileges so that we can glorify him by learning what the Bible implies over time. Logic is necessary for working out your salvation with fear, trembling and consistency. For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
A Word About Economics For Christians And Cranberry Sauce
I am persuaded that Cranberry sauce must have been discovered by accident. Somewhere a JELL-O factory exploded next to a fruit stand. The spiderman story is better, but so far as I know, there is nothing radioactive about cranberry sauce. You will have noticed that it shimmers in a dullish-red (and quite "unnatural" hue). I have yet to discern its exact purpose, but I think it has something to do with food fights.
It bounces around alot when you try to move it, and doesn't have either a particularly attractive or else unsightly appearance. So it isn't decorative. Also, I have noticed that it looks suspiciously like the main character of that one-time scary movie called "The Blob." I suspect the inventor probably intended it as a food fight starter-kit in a can. Whatever the reason, people buy and sell this stuff. This brings me to today's topic of choice -- economics.
What is economics? Well, first it might help to take a look at its root, which is in Greek "oikonomia." This means something very much like "household." This field of inquiry therefore attempts to study the causes, effects and flow of money in a given geographical area. Economics is, in brief, a study of the way people manage money and other assets -- or may best manage money and assets -- within a particular sphere: the home, the state, the nation, or even the world (the global economy).
Big-picture -- national or international -- economics carries the label MACRO-economics, since "Makros" is Greek for "Big" or "large". The smaller scale version is called -- you guessed it -- microeconomics (since mikros means "small" or "little" in Greek). If you are going to track the money flow of any person or group, you will need a way to measure what is important about making and exchanging it. Now to do this, you must -- MUST -- know something about cranberry sauce. And I'll tell you what it is.
Cranberry sauce is one of the many basic products of what makes up the "gross national product" of the economy in which you work and live. The "GNP" as they call it -- one of the most basic indicators of the health of an economy -- has nothing to do with whether the things made in your country look like cranberry sauce. Here, "gross" means total or the "whole" of the money earned from the goods and services within a given economy. Somewhat oddly, this even includes all the illegal (called "Black Market") stuff that crosses your borders. If it brings money or income to the national economy, its part of the GNP. This means that it also includes the income that derives from the international buying and selling of a country's residents (as when a U.S. citizen buys stock on the Mexican exchange).
Please note a simple exception to the rule not mentioned in economic textbooks: barter. Items exchanged for something other than money -- say a swap of cake for ice cream (smart move, I would maneuver for the cherry garcia ice cream, and talk them down) -- cannot be measured if there are no receipts or other reports of the exchange. Economists have no way of reporting these. So bartering creates a margin for error in the numbers given as both the GNP and GDP of any given economy. This is also true for some gifts originating outside the economy presented to someone within it (long-distance gifts), and conversely, could be the case also with anything found (one might discover gold on his property) or made which makes it's way out of the economy (unreported exports), exports with no record of trade or bill of sale.
Suppose a man buys land in the U.S. and finds valuable semi-precious stones on it. He might then simply take this on a plane and sell it to buyers in Malaysia "under-the-table." This money would return with the seller on the plane and go unreported if the owner chooses to do this -- or he may simply set up an offshore account with the money outside the U.S. This is not a recommendation for anyone to do anything illegal or unethical, but merely highlights gaps in economic assessments, of which the reader has the right to know.
The bottom line is that not all transactions -- monied or bartered -- can be tracked. Such transactions will not be represented in an economy's GNP or GDP -- or in any other statistical guide. This also applies (one last example) to people who simply do not pay any taxes or misrepresent their incomes in ways not detected by governmental agencies (pay less taxes than the government indicates they should).
Some estimates indicate that a large percent of Americans, for instance, simply do not pay (and do not bother to report) taxes or taxable incomes. The reasons for this dissension vary from matters of principle -- some feel that taxation should be voluntary (income tax was voluntary in the U.S. prior to 1918), to simple laziness or the mere desire to retain earned profits. Still others do not mind paying taxes ("underpayers"), but feel paying more than they do at present would amount to excessive taxation. Some affirm that certain kinds of taxes are lawful, but not others (selective taxpayers). In an unfair tax system, generally, the poor don't pay; the middle classes underpay; and the wealthy end up paying more than their fair share, since they are the only ones who can afford to pay such taxes. The rich can counteract this by paying to find tax loopholes others cannot afford.
So what? Good question, I thought of this one too. Well, economists use the as a number to measure how well your country's economy is getting on, for a similar reason a doctor might take your pulse. When the economy grows, the number representing its GNP goes up. More money from (and for) your economy is good. This means more people do business and work here.
The Bible actually uses the idea of the GNP on a personal level when discussing the tithe. In commanding the giving of a tenth of what one earns, the Bible specifies that one should give a tenth of the INCREASE of the harvest in any given year. This would amount to 10 percent of the difference between the total market value of the assets you owned LAST YEAR and the total market value of your present assets (one year from the last time you paid the tithe).
Of course, you don't have to pay the tithe only annually, but back in the day that was the best way to do it. If you had to run your caravans of camels back and forth to bring tons of grapes and grain from, say, Galilee to Jerusalem every month, you'd have your camel veteranarian staff working time and a half.
Your "increase" is thus everything you (meaning you are your household) made THIS YEAR -- your household's "GNP," as it were.
The next indicator that needs a little shop talk is the gross DOMESTIC product. This number is a bit simpler, including the total amount of goods and services produced IN AND BY your national economy. One can measure this number in any number of ways, in terms of U.S. Dollars or in the currency of any other economy. For instance, the U.S. GDP right now is around nine trillion dollars. A trillion is one thousand billion (where "billion" is a thousand million, and a million is one thousand thousands). These numbers run large, and at first one might find them just a tad intimidating. After a while of trafficking in them however, they seem more commonplace and manageable.
Today's final part of the introdcution to economics for christians considers the question, "What is money?" And "Why do we even need money?" We'll take these in reverse order. First, we need money so we can swap goods and services more efficiently. Think about asking the question, "How many carrots is a slice of cheese worth?" This is the problem people face when bartering -- which is often a great idea by the way. But it is not always easy to specify these relative prices in ways customers will find acceptable. Haggling is hard work, and most people in western countries simply want to be told the price in dollars (not carrots or wheat). If you don't give customers what they want or expect, they will tend to buy from someone else.
So money helps "standardize" a way of measuring how much one thing is worth (say in dollars) to compare its economic value against what another thing is worth (in dollars as well). If a piece of cheese is worth .60 and a carrot is worth .30, then a piece of cheese is worth exactly two carrots (unless they go on sale that week).
Ultimately, any one item is worth what someone in that market is willing to pay for it, but this economic value the customer places on the item still has to be measured in something -- dollars or carrots, etc. So money -- here in dollars -- renders the idea of comparing "values" much easier. It does this by converting the economic values of each good into the same economic "yardstick," or currency.
In the Bible, money is to be made of gold or silver, or at the very least, it must be "backed by" (redeemable for) gold or silver. Paper money 0f the kind familiar to us is actually a fairly recent invention. It was at one time very controversial. But we can talk of this later.
If you didn't know much economics before today, you now have a good idea of what "money" is, what the GNP of an economy is, and what its GDP is -- and why people care. Think of it as your "economics birthday." Happy birthday.
Today's project. Pull out a one dollar bill and ask them (hold it high in front of them):
1. What happens when we use this to buy groceries? (what does money DO?)
2. Why will people give us so many groceries for just paper (cool green looking paper?)
3. What is a nation's "Gross National Product" and can you think of instances where the Bible reports on the income or wealth of a nation?
(Notes for teachers: The Bible tells exactly the income from gold that Solomon earned each year; it also discusses principles of buying and selling (just weights and measures) in its laws, and God even mentions exactly how much cattle (120,000) belonged to the capital of the Assyrian empire -- Nineveh (see Jonah). Ancient empires and nations of the Bible -- except for Israel -- did not have coinage for the most part (none had minted coins like we do, until Greece and Rome. These were later empires in the Bible). So the Book of Jonah reports on the "money" most commonly used -- just say "Mooo" to bovine currency.
4. Why do economists care how much a nation produces or receives in income? What do they use this information for?
(Answer: they use this information to try to: 1. evaluate a nation's TOTAL economy 2. find ways to make an economy more efficient and productive. They are looking for ways to make better use of the assets of an economy (or state, or household or what have you).
5. How is a Gross Domestic Product different than a Gross National Product? Answer: The GDP considers only how much the economy produces (in goods and services) in a given year. The GNP adds to this number (sometimes it actually deletes the GDP from its calculations -- but it says so when it does) the international trading -- buying and selling -- activities of a given nation's residents. This means what they produce or earn abroad gets added to the GNP in most cases.
6. Extra Credit. This part will require some real thinking. Since the value of a U.S. dollar changes from day to day (when compared to other currencies), how does this affect the actual value of a nation's GNP or GDP?
Answer: Their value in terms of what a dollar can buy (called "purchasing power" -- this names how much stuff you can get for a buck) changes from day-to-day too. This means that representing a nation's GDP or GNP as a single number not in flux is actually a kind of useful fiction. And since inflation shrinks the U.S. Dollar a little every year, comparing this years GDP to last years -- if you are looking for progress -- has to have an adjustment made to it.
If you compare last year's dollars this year's, they will be different in two important ways. First, each dollar will buy a little less amount of stuff in the U.S. (maybe by 3% inflation). And second, each dollar will buy more or less of FOREIGN stuff (imports), depending on whether a given foreign currency rose or fell in value (in the past year) against the U.S. dollar.
Remember the cheese-carrot problem? It's the same with the Dollar and Yen, or the Dollar and the British Pound, or Swiss Franc. Hint: the way to standard cheese and carrots, we saw was with currency, but what is supposed to keep one currency stable and standardized against another? So they don't bounce around like yo-yos on steroids (wreaking havoc with economies)?
The Bible has the answer: Gold and Silver.
The Word of the Living God is altogether perfect, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times (Psalm 12:6). Put that in your economic textbooks.
It bounces around alot when you try to move it, and doesn't have either a particularly attractive or else unsightly appearance. So it isn't decorative. Also, I have noticed that it looks suspiciously like the main character of that one-time scary movie called "The Blob." I suspect the inventor probably intended it as a food fight starter-kit in a can. Whatever the reason, people buy and sell this stuff. This brings me to today's topic of choice -- economics.
What is economics? Well, first it might help to take a look at its root, which is in Greek "oikonomia." This means something very much like "household." This field of inquiry therefore attempts to study the causes, effects and flow of money in a given geographical area. Economics is, in brief, a study of the way people manage money and other assets -- or may best manage money and assets -- within a particular sphere: the home, the state, the nation, or even the world (the global economy).
Big-picture -- national or international -- economics carries the label MACRO-economics, since "Makros" is Greek for "Big" or "large". The smaller scale version is called -- you guessed it -- microeconomics (since mikros means "small" or "little" in Greek). If you are going to track the money flow of any person or group, you will need a way to measure what is important about making and exchanging it. Now to do this, you must -- MUST -- know something about cranberry sauce. And I'll tell you what it is.
Cranberry sauce is one of the many basic products of what makes up the "gross national product" of the economy in which you work and live. The "GNP" as they call it -- one of the most basic indicators of the health of an economy -- has nothing to do with whether the things made in your country look like cranberry sauce. Here, "gross" means total or the "whole" of the money earned from the goods and services within a given economy. Somewhat oddly, this even includes all the illegal (called "Black Market") stuff that crosses your borders. If it brings money or income to the national economy, its part of the GNP. This means that it also includes the income that derives from the international buying and selling of a country's residents (as when a U.S. citizen buys stock on the Mexican exchange).
Please note a simple exception to the rule not mentioned in economic textbooks: barter. Items exchanged for something other than money -- say a swap of cake for ice cream (smart move, I would maneuver for the cherry garcia ice cream, and talk them down) -- cannot be measured if there are no receipts or other reports of the exchange. Economists have no way of reporting these. So bartering creates a margin for error in the numbers given as both the GNP and GDP of any given economy. This is also true for some gifts originating outside the economy presented to someone within it (long-distance gifts), and conversely, could be the case also with anything found (one might discover gold on his property) or made which makes it's way out of the economy (unreported exports), exports with no record of trade or bill of sale.
Suppose a man buys land in the U.S. and finds valuable semi-precious stones on it. He might then simply take this on a plane and sell it to buyers in Malaysia "under-the-table." This money would return with the seller on the plane and go unreported if the owner chooses to do this -- or he may simply set up an offshore account with the money outside the U.S. This is not a recommendation for anyone to do anything illegal or unethical, but merely highlights gaps in economic assessments, of which the reader has the right to know.
The bottom line is that not all transactions -- monied or bartered -- can be tracked. Such transactions will not be represented in an economy's GNP or GDP -- or in any other statistical guide. This also applies (one last example) to people who simply do not pay any taxes or misrepresent their incomes in ways not detected by governmental agencies (pay less taxes than the government indicates they should).
Some estimates indicate that a large percent of Americans, for instance, simply do not pay (and do not bother to report) taxes or taxable incomes. The reasons for this dissension vary from matters of principle -- some feel that taxation should be voluntary (income tax was voluntary in the U.S. prior to 1918), to simple laziness or the mere desire to retain earned profits. Still others do not mind paying taxes ("underpayers"), but feel paying more than they do at present would amount to excessive taxation. Some affirm that certain kinds of taxes are lawful, but not others (selective taxpayers). In an unfair tax system, generally, the poor don't pay; the middle classes underpay; and the wealthy end up paying more than their fair share, since they are the only ones who can afford to pay such taxes. The rich can counteract this by paying to find tax loopholes others cannot afford.
So what? Good question, I thought of this one too. Well, economists use the as a number to measure how well your country's economy is getting on, for a similar reason a doctor might take your pulse. When the economy grows, the number representing its GNP goes up. More money from (and for) your economy is good. This means more people do business and work here.
The Bible actually uses the idea of the GNP on a personal level when discussing the tithe. In commanding the giving of a tenth of what one earns, the Bible specifies that one should give a tenth of the INCREASE of the harvest in any given year. This would amount to 10 percent of the difference between the total market value of the assets you owned LAST YEAR and the total market value of your present assets (one year from the last time you paid the tithe).
Of course, you don't have to pay the tithe only annually, but back in the day that was the best way to do it. If you had to run your caravans of camels back and forth to bring tons of grapes and grain from, say, Galilee to Jerusalem every month, you'd have your camel veteranarian staff working time and a half.
Your "increase" is thus everything you (meaning you are your household) made THIS YEAR -- your household's "GNP," as it were.
The next indicator that needs a little shop talk is the gross DOMESTIC product. This number is a bit simpler, including the total amount of goods and services produced IN AND BY your national economy. One can measure this number in any number of ways, in terms of U.S. Dollars or in the currency of any other economy. For instance, the U.S. GDP right now is around nine trillion dollars. A trillion is one thousand billion (where "billion" is a thousand million, and a million is one thousand thousands). These numbers run large, and at first one might find them just a tad intimidating. After a while of trafficking in them however, they seem more commonplace and manageable.
Today's final part of the introdcution to economics for christians considers the question, "What is money?" And "Why do we even need money?" We'll take these in reverse order. First, we need money so we can swap goods and services more efficiently. Think about asking the question, "How many carrots is a slice of cheese worth?" This is the problem people face when bartering -- which is often a great idea by the way. But it is not always easy to specify these relative prices in ways customers will find acceptable. Haggling is hard work, and most people in western countries simply want to be told the price in dollars (not carrots or wheat). If you don't give customers what they want or expect, they will tend to buy from someone else.
So money helps "standardize" a way of measuring how much one thing is worth (say in dollars) to compare its economic value against what another thing is worth (in dollars as well). If a piece of cheese is worth .60 and a carrot is worth .30, then a piece of cheese is worth exactly two carrots (unless they go on sale that week).
Ultimately, any one item is worth what someone in that market is willing to pay for it, but this economic value the customer places on the item still has to be measured in something -- dollars or carrots, etc. So money -- here in dollars -- renders the idea of comparing "values" much easier. It does this by converting the economic values of each good into the same economic "yardstick," or currency.
In the Bible, money is to be made of gold or silver, or at the very least, it must be "backed by" (redeemable for) gold or silver. Paper money 0f the kind familiar to us is actually a fairly recent invention. It was at one time very controversial. But we can talk of this later.
If you didn't know much economics before today, you now have a good idea of what "money" is, what the GNP of an economy is, and what its GDP is -- and why people care. Think of it as your "economics birthday." Happy birthday.
Today's project. Pull out a one dollar bill and ask them (hold it high in front of them):
1. What happens when we use this to buy groceries? (what does money DO?)
2. Why will people give us so many groceries for just paper (cool green looking paper?)
3. What is a nation's "Gross National Product" and can you think of instances where the Bible reports on the income or wealth of a nation?
(Notes for teachers: The Bible tells exactly the income from gold that Solomon earned each year; it also discusses principles of buying and selling (just weights and measures) in its laws, and God even mentions exactly how much cattle (120,000) belonged to the capital of the Assyrian empire -- Nineveh (see Jonah). Ancient empires and nations of the Bible -- except for Israel -- did not have coinage for the most part (none had minted coins like we do, until Greece and Rome. These were later empires in the Bible). So the Book of Jonah reports on the "money" most commonly used -- just say "Mooo" to bovine currency.
4. Why do economists care how much a nation produces or receives in income? What do they use this information for?
(Answer: they use this information to try to: 1. evaluate a nation's TOTAL economy 2. find ways to make an economy more efficient and productive. They are looking for ways to make better use of the assets of an economy (or state, or household or what have you).
5. How is a Gross Domestic Product different than a Gross National Product? Answer: The GDP considers only how much the economy produces (in goods and services) in a given year. The GNP adds to this number (sometimes it actually deletes the GDP from its calculations -- but it says so when it does) the international trading -- buying and selling -- activities of a given nation's residents. This means what they produce or earn abroad gets added to the GNP in most cases.
6. Extra Credit. This part will require some real thinking. Since the value of a U.S. dollar changes from day to day (when compared to other currencies), how does this affect the actual value of a nation's GNP or GDP?
Answer: Their value in terms of what a dollar can buy (called "purchasing power" -- this names how much stuff you can get for a buck) changes from day-to-day too. This means that representing a nation's GDP or GNP as a single number not in flux is actually a kind of useful fiction. And since inflation shrinks the U.S. Dollar a little every year, comparing this years GDP to last years -- if you are looking for progress -- has to have an adjustment made to it.
If you compare last year's dollars this year's, they will be different in two important ways. First, each dollar will buy a little less amount of stuff in the U.S. (maybe by 3% inflation). And second, each dollar will buy more or less of FOREIGN stuff (imports), depending on whether a given foreign currency rose or fell in value (in the past year) against the U.S. dollar.
Remember the cheese-carrot problem? It's the same with the Dollar and Yen, or the Dollar and the British Pound, or Swiss Franc. Hint: the way to standard cheese and carrots, we saw was with currency, but what is supposed to keep one currency stable and standardized against another? So they don't bounce around like yo-yos on steroids (wreaking havoc with economies)?
The Bible has the answer: Gold and Silver.
The Word of the Living God is altogether perfect, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times (Psalm 12:6). Put that in your economic textbooks.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
What Is Logic? And Why Should You Care?
Great question. Logic is the art and science of correct thinking, in which one may deduce truths which are unknown from ones we already do know by following the steps of implication from stated premisses.
There are by now many different kinds of logic. These go by impressive sounding names like informal logic, and formal, predicate, mathematical, sentential, symbolic, modal and others. The list runs fairly long. The reason for this stems from the fact that the Greeks were doing logic self-consciously since Aristotle and before. This makes for more than 2,300 years of logic-doing.
If you simply pick out a book on symbolic logic from the outset, you will get very intimidated. Don't do this. If you flop open the book to just any page (ignoring my good advice), you will see an alphabet soup of Greek letters strung together connected by functions and operators -- which look just as weird.
It's pretty much "Greeks gone wild" at first glance. Later, just as when you learn any new language (logical systems are better described as "language games" for the record, but that's techie stuff. For now we will use the metaphor or analogue of language. Only practice and learning makes the unintelligible more sensible, and this takes time and effort like anything else. But it can be done.
Start first with informal logic. This is crazy enough because you learn how to reason well by studying fallacies (the substance of informal logic texts) -- which show you how NOT to reason well. This would be like teaching a guy to swim by showing him how people can drown in a dozen different settings. This shows that even logicians suffer from the Adamic fall. It goes straight to the head, so it's called the noetic effect of sin ("nous" is Greek for mind, which corresponds to "mentis" in Latin). On occasion, I'll toss in the Greek and Latin tidbits to help build a better vocabulary along the way. Vocabulary building is in itself a great reason to learn logic.
Nevertheless, even though the teaching methods and heuristic devices employed by informal logic need serious reformation, the material does in fact aid one in identifying errors and what they look like so you know the pitfalls to avoid and can spot them when others commit them, so you don't get easily sold a false view. Error detection -- which is really what informal logic amounts to -- has very important uses for the Christian. Christians are to expose error for what it is, and this is a great place to begin learning just how to go about this.
For my first exercise, I am recommending that teachers here ask their students to scour what they know of the Bible in their minds, and come up with 5 good reasons for what good use a Christian may make of identifying errors in reasoning.
I'll start you off with number one. Logic has a direct relationship to the TRUTH, which is of ultimate concern -- this is not the art and science of fanciful thinking (that's called "evolution"); this is the art and science of correct thinking. By identifying errors one may better understand the nature of the truth, by eliminating some candidates from the ring of "possibly true" ideas. This narrows the field by deduction and helps one learn the "good and necessary" consequences of this or that proposition.
Okay, now it's your turn boys and girls. Four more. Have fun.
There are by now many different kinds of logic. These go by impressive sounding names like informal logic, and formal, predicate, mathematical, sentential, symbolic, modal and others. The list runs fairly long. The reason for this stems from the fact that the Greeks were doing logic self-consciously since Aristotle and before. This makes for more than 2,300 years of logic-doing.
If you simply pick out a book on symbolic logic from the outset, you will get very intimidated. Don't do this. If you flop open the book to just any page (ignoring my good advice), you will see an alphabet soup of Greek letters strung together connected by functions and operators -- which look just as weird.
It's pretty much "Greeks gone wild" at first glance. Later, just as when you learn any new language (logical systems are better described as "language games" for the record, but that's techie stuff. For now we will use the metaphor or analogue of language. Only practice and learning makes the unintelligible more sensible, and this takes time and effort like anything else. But it can be done.
Start first with informal logic. This is crazy enough because you learn how to reason well by studying fallacies (the substance of informal logic texts) -- which show you how NOT to reason well. This would be like teaching a guy to swim by showing him how people can drown in a dozen different settings. This shows that even logicians suffer from the Adamic fall. It goes straight to the head, so it's called the noetic effect of sin ("nous" is Greek for mind, which corresponds to "mentis" in Latin). On occasion, I'll toss in the Greek and Latin tidbits to help build a better vocabulary along the way. Vocabulary building is in itself a great reason to learn logic.
Nevertheless, even though the teaching methods and heuristic devices employed by informal logic need serious reformation, the material does in fact aid one in identifying errors and what they look like so you know the pitfalls to avoid and can spot them when others commit them, so you don't get easily sold a false view. Error detection -- which is really what informal logic amounts to -- has very important uses for the Christian. Christians are to expose error for what it is, and this is a great place to begin learning just how to go about this.
For my first exercise, I am recommending that teachers here ask their students to scour what they know of the Bible in their minds, and come up with 5 good reasons for what good use a Christian may make of identifying errors in reasoning.
I'll start you off with number one. Logic has a direct relationship to the TRUTH, which is of ultimate concern -- this is not the art and science of fanciful thinking (that's called "evolution"); this is the art and science of correct thinking. By identifying errors one may better understand the nature of the truth, by eliminating some candidates from the ring of "possibly true" ideas. This narrows the field by deduction and helps one learn the "good and necessary" consequences of this or that proposition.
Okay, now it's your turn boys and girls. Four more. Have fun.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Get To The Point Already: What's This Blog Doing Here
What's it about?
This blog occupies so much cyberspace in order to help Christians homeschool their children, and to see to it that schools can get many really cool edu-freebies for children and adults. The materials will here range from short funny quips to philosophical analysis and a wide range of academic studies in brief. I try (the Lord knows), oh how I try -- to keep it short so people do not get hit by the boredom truck while reading.
This is a no holds barred website for thinkers of all ages, and people with better than average imaginative ability. Seatbelts are required. Here we study everything. Humor studies are on the list, as are economics, finance, history, the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, yada, yada, yada) and maybe even sociology now and again because you can learn really interesting things by studying statistical cross sections of different societies to learn about people (though most of what passes for sociology is only so much voodoo -- you cannot mathematize people. The fact that I even have to say this shows how far afield some "scientific" ideas wander. And yes, we will do politics. I politick. I also like the pet sciences -- the study of bugs and animals. I dislike the word "entomology" and will not be using it much. Just say "bugs," or "creepy crawlers."
Please keep in mind that this website is new, and will be updated from time to time, as the html makeover will continue for some time -- along with the new posts.
Todays small help comes from a comedic illustration about ethics (biblical ethics). In the bible, God commands men to do justly -- sometimes what it call (here comes the "R" word) -- righteousness. People today only mention this word in a cynical tone for the most part (excluding Christians). This in itself is a very powerful commentary on our society. Deliberate omissions and words used to mean their opposites speak volumes.
Nevertheless, onto the point. In the bible, to do a good deed, one must have the proper: 1. Goal 2. Motive and 3. Standard
The only acceptable motive in the Bible is faith expressing itself through love (Christian charity). The only acceptable Goal in the Bible is the glory of God and the benefit of men (meaning people). This sums up the two greatest commandments. The only acceptable standard is all and only the Word of God and whatever is thereby warranted.
A warrant from Scripture may be either by explicit command (i.e. You must pay tithes), explicit permission (i.e. you may buy and eat any food you like, even cranberry sauce), implicit command or permission (what is implied by the bible's commands or allowances from several bible passages put together), and the good and necessary implicates of any other standard warranted by Scripture (i.e. if the Bible teaches that you can trust what your eyes tell you, and your taste buds tell you that chinese food is delicious, then it is justified to say so).
By way of example, Christians know their lawn is green not because the Bible says "Alex's lawn is green today," but because it warrants the general reliability of the human senses, and these (your vision) can tell you that your lawn is green. The Bible says "The seeing eye and the hearing ear, the Lord has made them both." Genesis tells us that God made all things "very good" originally and even after the fall the Bible calls them (the creation) "good." So if your eyes are working okay, and they tell you your lawn is green, then your claim "my lawn is green" is in fact justified.
Now, back to ethics. Knowledge claims and their justifications usually get labeled "epistemology." (your Greek word for today is "Epistemai" -- say "ep - ISS - tuh -my" -- it means "I know.") If one has the right goal, but not the right motive, he has not done a "good deed" on the biblical view of ethics.
An example might be the comedian who said:
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." Here, his hypothetical actions (alleged vegetarianism) are certainly permitted in the Bible (though they are not required), and they may indeed help him live longer. But he seems to have the wrong idea about vegetation generally, and probably enjoys mowing his lawn far too much.
So today's lesson encourages people to ask, "Am I doing this for the right reason (motive)? Is it biblical? (right standard). And, "Does it glorify God?" I have started here because men smarter than I am started here, and I am following their lead.
They asked, "What is the chief end of man?" right out the gate. Smart people don't waste time. And a fine start of things they made indeed. Much of life consists in asking the right questions. So go ahead, ask. This is where education begins.
So this blog is about educating people, to help them glorify God. And that's the point today.
Fun questions for homeschoolers:
1. What is the branch of philosophy called that investigates how we know the things we know?
2. To do a good deed what three things does the Bible require of your actions?
3. What is a vegetarian?
4. How can a claim be "warranted" or justified according to the Bible?
5. What is "entomology" and how is this related to education? (Does the Bible say you can learn from bugs?)
This blog occupies so much cyberspace in order to help Christians homeschool their children, and to see to it that schools can get many really cool edu-freebies for children and adults. The materials will here range from short funny quips to philosophical analysis and a wide range of academic studies in brief. I try (the Lord knows), oh how I try -- to keep it short so people do not get hit by the boredom truck while reading.
This is a no holds barred website for thinkers of all ages, and people with better than average imaginative ability. Seatbelts are required. Here we study everything. Humor studies are on the list, as are economics, finance, history, the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, yada, yada, yada) and maybe even sociology now and again because you can learn really interesting things by studying statistical cross sections of different societies to learn about people (though most of what passes for sociology is only so much voodoo -- you cannot mathematize people. The fact that I even have to say this shows how far afield some "scientific" ideas wander. And yes, we will do politics. I politick. I also like the pet sciences -- the study of bugs and animals. I dislike the word "entomology" and will not be using it much. Just say "bugs," or "creepy crawlers."
Please keep in mind that this website is new, and will be updated from time to time, as the html makeover will continue for some time -- along with the new posts.
Todays small help comes from a comedic illustration about ethics (biblical ethics). In the bible, God commands men to do justly -- sometimes what it call (here comes the "R" word) -- righteousness. People today only mention this word in a cynical tone for the most part (excluding Christians). This in itself is a very powerful commentary on our society. Deliberate omissions and words used to mean their opposites speak volumes.
Nevertheless, onto the point. In the bible, to do a good deed, one must have the proper: 1. Goal 2. Motive and 3. Standard
The only acceptable motive in the Bible is faith expressing itself through love (Christian charity). The only acceptable Goal in the Bible is the glory of God and the benefit of men (meaning people). This sums up the two greatest commandments. The only acceptable standard is all and only the Word of God and whatever is thereby warranted.
A warrant from Scripture may be either by explicit command (i.e. You must pay tithes), explicit permission (i.e. you may buy and eat any food you like, even cranberry sauce), implicit command or permission (what is implied by the bible's commands or allowances from several bible passages put together), and the good and necessary implicates of any other standard warranted by Scripture (i.e. if the Bible teaches that you can trust what your eyes tell you, and your taste buds tell you that chinese food is delicious, then it is justified to say so).
By way of example, Christians know their lawn is green not because the Bible says "Alex's lawn is green today," but because it warrants the general reliability of the human senses, and these (your vision) can tell you that your lawn is green. The Bible says "The seeing eye and the hearing ear, the Lord has made them both." Genesis tells us that God made all things "very good" originally and even after the fall the Bible calls them (the creation) "good." So if your eyes are working okay, and they tell you your lawn is green, then your claim "my lawn is green" is in fact justified.
Now, back to ethics. Knowledge claims and their justifications usually get labeled "epistemology." (your Greek word for today is "Epistemai" -- say "ep - ISS - tuh -my" -- it means "I know.") If one has the right goal, but not the right motive, he has not done a "good deed" on the biblical view of ethics.
An example might be the comedian who said:
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." Here, his hypothetical actions (alleged vegetarianism) are certainly permitted in the Bible (though they are not required), and they may indeed help him live longer. But he seems to have the wrong idea about vegetation generally, and probably enjoys mowing his lawn far too much.
So today's lesson encourages people to ask, "Am I doing this for the right reason (motive)? Is it biblical? (right standard). And, "Does it glorify God?" I have started here because men smarter than I am started here, and I am following their lead.
They asked, "What is the chief end of man?" right out the gate. Smart people don't waste time. And a fine start of things they made indeed. Much of life consists in asking the right questions. So go ahead, ask. This is where education begins.
So this blog is about educating people, to help them glorify God. And that's the point today.
Fun questions for homeschoolers:
1. What is the branch of philosophy called that investigates how we know the things we know?
2. To do a good deed what three things does the Bible require of your actions?
3. What is a vegetarian?
4. How can a claim be "warranted" or justified according to the Bible?
5. What is "entomology" and how is this related to education? (Does the Bible say you can learn from bugs?)
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