Category: YouTube

There’s deductive logic and then there’s inductive logic.

Recently, on my YouTube channel, I’ve uploaded a number of videos on the latter!

Anyone wanting to expand their thinking skills needs to learn both.

First, here’s a general overview of induction. . .

Second, I quickly review an excellent good book on the subject.

An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic by Ian Hacking is extremely accessible. I highly recommend it! To be sure, it’s more of a book on probability theory than inductive logic as a whole. This is NOT for you if you have no interest in studying probability.

Yet, please don’t dismiss it too fast! We often make logical inferences about probabilities. Generally speaking, logic helps us determine if a specific conclusion “follows from” given premises. Logic is about good vs. bad reasoning. And we often derive conclusions that are probabilistic.

A lot of people might not realize, for example, that the study of statistics really is a study of probability. Inductive logic partly concerns making inferences about a population-as-a-whole FROM a mere sample. That requires statistics and probability.

Third, I have a video that connects induction with the “hard” sciences.

Other things being equal, we should judge the likelihood that a theory is true by the Simplicity Criterion and the Coherence Criterion.

I also discuss Sir Isaac Newton’s thoughts on the subject, the Scientific Method, and give some basic guidelines about forming hypotheses.

Finally, I reference the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).

The PSR makes sense of our experiences! Things don’t just mysteriously pop in/out of existence. Indeed, if PSR is false, our experiences would make no sense; they would become totally inexplicable.

And if the PSR is false, we would have no reason to trust that the “hard” sciences provide any explanations about reality around us. In fact, while we might think physics gives us explanation X for why Y occurred, it could be that Y occurred for no reason at all (if the PSR is false).

Conclusion: we better accept the PSR!

Fourth, I present what everybody needs to know about induction.

At the heart of induction is what’s called “Partial Enumerative Induction” and “Abstractive Induction.” So, be sure to watch it!

Fifth, I cover an important logical fallacy in induction!

Ludwig von Mises, the great economist, has some excellent coverage of the Gambler’s Fallacy in his treatise Human Action. Probability theory is often counterintuitive, but Mises brilliantly explains a fallacy that many commit.

Anybody can learn the basics!
Subscribe to The Amateur Logician YouTube channel.

Wow! It’s been a while since the last blog post, right?

Excuses can be given, but are they good excuses?

Hey, I do have over 200 videos on my YouTube channel. It’s not like I haven’t been productive as “The Amateur Logician!” The playlist for the series on Basic Symbolic Logic has been completed with around 50 videos. Anyone wanting to learn the basics of Propositional Logic and Predicate Logic can avail themselves of it.

More is to come! I’m in the process of creating a Traditional Logic Course. A series on the philosophy of Rene Descartes is to come. Also, a series on David Gordon’s textbook on economics is in the works.

Please Consider Supporting My Work!

1. Easiest Book on Symbolic Logic
2. Symbolic Logic I: Sentences & Sentential Connectives
3. Symbolic Logic I: Form of Molecular Sentences
4. Symbolic Logic I: Symbolizing Sentences
5. Symbolic Logic I: Sentential Connectives & Symbols
6. Symbolic Logic I: Grouping & Parentheses
7. Symbolic Logic I: Elimination of Some Parentheses
8. Symbolic Logic II: Logical Inference
9. Symbolic Logic II: Rules of Inference (part a)
10. Symbolic Logic II: More Logical Inferences (part b)
11. Symbolic Logic II: “Real” Arguments and Proofs
12. Symbolic Logic II: More About Parentheses
13. Symbolic Logic II: Hypothetical Syllogism, Constructive Dilemma
14. Symbolic Logic II: Types of Inferences & De Morgan’s Laws
15. Symbolic Logic II: Biconditional Sentences w/ Many Proofs!
16. Chapter 3 of “First Course in Mathematical Logic”
17. Symbolic Logic III: Truth Values in Propositional Logic
18. Symbolic Logic III: Diagrams of Truth Value
19. Symbolic Logic III: Discovering Invalid Conclusions!
20. Symbolic Logic III: Conditional Proofs w/ “Real World” Examples
21. Symbolic Logic III: Inconsistent Premises Entail Contradictions!
22. Symbolic Logic III: Making Indirect Proofs (part a)
23. Symbolic Logic III: Reductio ad Absurdum Examples (part b)
24. STUDY & LEARN LOGIC – Continuing Symbolic Logic Series
25. Symbolic Logic IV: Truth Tables
26. Symbolic Logic IV: Tautologies
27. Symbolic Logic IV: Tautological Implications & Equivalence
28. Studying Symbolic Logic Continued. . .
29. Symbolic Logic V: Limitation of Propositional Logic
30. Symbolic Logic V: Intro to Predicate Logic
31. Symbolic Logic V: Basic Formulas in Predicate Logic
32. Symbolic Logic V: Quantifiers & Predicates
33. Symbolic Logic V: Predicate Logic Textbook Exam
34. Studying Predicate Logic with Textbook…
35. Symbolic Logic VI: Beginner Proofs!
36. Symbolic Logic VI: Universal Instantiation & Generalization
37. Symbolic Logic VI: Existential Instantiation & Generalization
38. Symbolic Logic VI: Change of Quantifier Rule
39. Symbolic Logic VI: Two(+) Universal Quantifiers
40. Symbolic Logic VI: Logical Arguments w/ Multiple Universal Quantifiers
41. Symbolic Logic VI: Careful Look @ Relational Predicate Logic
42. Symbolic Logic VI: Showing an Argument is INVALID
43. Symbolic Logic VI: Intro to Identity!
44. Symbolic Logic VI: Truths of Logic
45. Completing Logic Book; Future of Channel
46. Symbolic Logic VII: Simple Mathematical System; Commutative Axiom
47. Symbolic Logic VII: Become an Amateur Algebraist! Associative Axiom
48. Symbolic Logic VII: Be an Amateur Algebraist! Axioms for ZERO
49. Symbolic Logic VII: Amateur Algebraist w/ Simple Abelian Group
50. Symbolic Logic VIII: Finishing Suppes & Hill Textbook!
51. Update & Thank You
    
    

Sometimes you need to be “educated” to be this stupid.

Two viewers of the YouTube video “Language & Reality in the Liberal Arts” informed me that correct spelling and grammar is “elitist” and “oppressive.”

My initial reaction?

Kiel;w, bnpwl opie;a ie;’’a  b’io/ioehj.

Often, as I see it, individuals take a partial truth but then stretch it out of proportion turning it into an untruth. There’s no reason why cat absolutely must have the spelling “cat.” The sign “cat” is an English convention.

As the brilliant essayist Theodore Dalrymple writes in his book Life at the Bottom, throwing away the supposed “oppressive” forms of conventional language standards, based on an egalitarian worldview, will entrap a poor family into remaining poor: “Linguistic and educational relativism helps to transform a class into a caste – a caste, almost, of Untouchables.”

It’s difficult to think of a better way to destroy someone’s social, intellectual, and economic mobility. Isn’t it ironic?

Of course, language is not a static thing. It changes! And a good writer sometimes does play fast-and-lose with the standard rules.

Shakespeare’s English is not our English.

Grammar can be better or worse in a time and place, and that surely affects the quality of someone’s speech or writing. There’s a kind of underlying logic in simply understanding the subject-predicate relationship. We can definitely write incoherently!

While there are borderline disputes in “higher” grammar or spelling, there are traditional conventions that everyone accepts – and these conventions allow you and me to talk to each other.

Let’s stick with a traditional educator like Sister Miriam Joseph. Her book The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric will prevent us from being that stupid.

***

I’ve uploaded a few other YouTube videos that reference Sister Jospeh’s outstanding text:

A theme on The Amateur Logician YouTube channel deals with contrasting “objectivism” and “subjectivism.”

Roughly, the “subjective” is someone’s private individual realm of feelings and thoughts. That’s why we often claim that taste is “subjective.” I like ice cream, though you might hate it.

And, roughly, the “objective” is what is publicly true for all individuals. It is an “objective” truth that one plus one equals two. Nobody can change that truth; it is independent of my subjective thoughts and your subjective thoughts.

If humans didn’t exist, one plus one would still equal two. It’s also an objective fact that the Moon orbits the Earth. That’s true today and it was true before any human existed.

When trying to obtain truth, we should be “objective.”

We can think of having knowledge, at least as a general rule, as the merging between the “objective” and “subjective.”

Yet, in this above video, it is very briefly mentioned that we can, in some contexts, consider evidence from the subjective realm. What’s the evidence that I’m happy or sad?

For me, it is how I personally (subjectively) feel.

Someone else can, perhaps, figure out that I’m happy or sad by various signs or by trusting in me once I tell them what I feel.

But are there more areas where good evidence comes from the subjective realm? What about self-reflection on the nature of what it means to act and choose? Or what about self-evident propositions? Are some self-evident propositions true because it is “subjectively” obvious they are true (such as the Law of Contradiction)? Maybe we have innate knowledge?

Or consider spiritual experiences. If someone has one, he cannot just dismiss it. He has to ponder it. He has to consider if it truly means something or not. Maybe the experience was so strong that he thinks it provides him with evidence over the spiritual or theological realms. Could it be good evidence? Maybe, maybe not.

While I was going through the online resources for the textbook The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley and Debby Hutchins, it happened by happy coincidence that we got to work on a problem dealing with the Fallacy of Subjectivism.

You’ll see that fallacy in the above video.

I am presently in the process of releasing a video series on (basic!) propositional logic and predicate logic based on the 1964 textbook First Course in Mathematical Logic by Patrick Suppes and Shirley Hill.

It’s the easiest, simplest introduction to symbolic logic that I know of. It’s not only a mathematical textbook, it overlaps into the liberal arts with a strong focus on translating English propositions into the language of symbolic logic.

Watch YouTube Playlist!

Consider following me along.
We’ll work on logic exercises together!

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