🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov11.225953.231@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

   In article <BxGFw2.AJv@cck.coventry.ac.uk> esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington) writes:

   >Can I ask please, is syllogisms and the like what sci.logic is about,
   >or am I missing something fundamental.

   Syllogisms are what logicians were up to in the Middle Ages, and there's
   a lot of interesting stuff that has happened since.  (Actually logicians
   were already doing lots of other stuff in the Middle Ages.)  In the late
   1800's a study of the "foundations of mathematics" and logic began which
   led to a lot of spectacular results in this century, such as Goedel's
   theorems.  For a tour of logic you could do worse than to take a peek at
   the entries about logic in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  And you can
   read sci.logic to see what sorts of things people argue about.

Let's not put Will off of syllogistic logic, though, please.  There are
too many people graduating as it is without knowing the difference
between "All men are mortal/Socrates is a man -> Socrates is mortal" and
"All men are mortal/Socrates is mortal -> Socrates is a man".

And while they're at it, they could learn about the classical fallacies.
--
		Charles R. Martin/(Charlie)/martinc@cs.unc.edu
     Dept. of Computer Science/CB #3175 UNC-CH/Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175
	    3611 University Dr #13M/Durham, NC 27707/(919) 419 1754
     "Oh God, please help me be civil in tongue, pure in thought, and able
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