Types of Logic Back to Top

Logic in general can be divided into Formal Logic, Informal Logic and Symbolic
Logic and Mathematical Logic:

 Formal Logic:
Formal Logic is what we think of as traditional logic or philosophical logic, namely the
study of inference with purely formal and explicit content (i.e. it can be expressed as
a particular application of a wholly abstract rule), such as the rules of formal logic that
have come down to us from Aristotle. (See the section on Deductive Logic below).
A formal system (also called a logical calculus) is used to derive one expression
(conclusion) from one or more other expressions (premises). These premises may
be axioms (a self-evident proposition, taken for granted) or theorems (derived using a
fixed set of inference rules and axioms, without any additional assumptions).
Formalism is the philosophical theory that formal statements (logical or mathematical)
have no intrinsic meaning but that its symbols (which are regarded as physical entities)
exhibit a form that has useful applications.
 Informal Logic:
Informal Logic is a recent discipline which studies natural languagearguments, and
attempts to develop a logic to assess, analyze and improve ordinary language (or
"everyday") reasoning. Natural language here means a language that
is spoken, written or signed by humans for general-purpose communication, as
distinguished from formal languages (such as computer-programming languages)
or constructed languages (such as Esperanto).
It focuses on the reasoning and argument one finds in personal exchange, advertising,
political debate, legal argument, and the social commentary that characterizes
newspapers, television, the Internet and other forms of mass media.
 Symbolic Logic:
Symbolic Logic is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of
logical inference. It deals with the relations of symbols to each other, often using
complex mathematical calculus, in an attempt to solve intractable problems traditional
formal logic is not able to address.
It is often divided into two sub-branches:
o Predicate Logic: a system in which formulae contain quantifiable variables. (See
the section on Predicate Logic below).
o Propositional Logic (or Sentential Logic): a system in which formulae
representing propositions can be formed by combining atomic propositions
using logical connectives, and a system of formal proof rules allows certain
formulae to be established as theorems. (See the section on Propositional
Logic below).
 Mathematical Logic:
Both the application of the techniques of formal logic to mathematics and mathematical
reasoning, and, conversely, the application of mathematical techniques to the
representation and analysis of formal logic.
 The earliest use of mathematics and geometry in relation to logic and philosophy goes
back to the Ancient Greeks such as Euclid, Plato and Aristotle.
Computer science emerged as a discipline in the 1940's with the work of Alan
Turing (1912 - 1954) on the Entscheidungsproblem, which followed from the theories
of Kurt Gödel (1906 - 1978), particularly his incompleteness theorems. In the 1950s and
1960s, researchers predicted that when human knowledge could be expressed using logic
with mathematical notation, it would be possible to create a machine that reasons
(or artificial intelligence), although this turned out to be more difficult than expected
because of the complexity of human reasoning. Mathematics-related doctrines include:
o Logicism: perhaps the boldest attempt to apply logic to mathematics, pioneered by
philosopher-logicians such as Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, especially the
application of mathematics to logic in the form of proof theory, model theory, set
theory and recursion theory.
o Intuitionism: the doctrine which holds that logic and mathematics does notconsist
of analytic activities wherein deep properties of existence are revealed and applied,
but merely the application of internally consistent methods to realize
more complex mental constructs.

Deductive Logic Back to Top

Deductive reasoning concerns what follows necessarily from given premises (i.e. from
a general premise to a particular one). An inference is deductively valid if (and only if) there
is no possible situation in which all the premises are true and the conclusion false. However, it
should be remembered that a false premise can possibly lead to a false conclusion.

Deductive reasoning was developed by Aristotle, Thales, Pythagoras and other Greek
philosophers of the Classical Period. At the core of deductive reasoning is the syllogism (also
known as term logic),usually attributed to Aristotle), where one proposition (the conclusion)
is inferred from two others (the premises), each of which has one term in common with the
conclusion. For example:

Major premise: All humans are mortal.

Minor premise: Socrates is human.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

An example of deduction is:

All apples are fruit.

All fruits grow on trees.
Therefore all apples grow on trees.

One might deny the initial premises, and therefore deny the conclusion. But anyone
who accepts the premises must accept the conclusion. Today, some academics claim that
Aristotle's system has little more than historical value, being made obsolete by the advent
of Predicate Logic and Propositional Logic (see the sections below).
Inductive Logic Back to Top

Inductive reasoning is the process of deriving a reliable generalization from observations (i.e.
from the particular to the general), so that the premises of an argument are believed to support
the conclusion, but do not necessarily ensure it. Inductive logic is not concerned
with validity or conclusiveness, but with the soundness of those inferences for which the
evidence is not conclusive.

Many philosophers, including David Hume, Karl Popper and David Miller, have disputed or
denied the logical admissibility of inductive reasoning. In particular, Hume argued that
it requires inductive reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning,
and therefore the justification for inductive reasoning is a circular argument.

An example of strong induction (an argument in which the truth of the premise would make the
truth of the conclusion probable but not definite) is:

All observed crows are black.

Therefore:

All crows are black.

An example of weak induction (an argument in which the link between the premise and the
conclusion is weak, and the conclusion is not even necessarily probable) is:

I always hang pictures on nails.

Therefore:

All pictures hang from nails.

Modal Logic Back to Top

Modal Logic is any system of formal logic that attempts to deal with modalities(expressions
associated with notions of possibility, probability and necessity). Modal Logic, therefore, deals
with terms such as "eventually", "formerly", "possibly", "can", "could", "might", "may", "must",
etc.

Modalities are ways in which propositions can be true or false. Types of modality include:

 Alethic Modalities: Includes possibility and necessity, as well as impossibility and

contingency. Some propositions are impossible (necessarily false), whereas others are
contingent (both possibly true and possibly false).
 Temporal Modalities: Historical and future truth or falsity. Some propositions were
true/false in the past and others will be true/false in the future.
  Deontic Modalities: Obligation and permissibility. Some propositions ought to be
true/false, while others are permissible.
 Epistemic Modalities: Knowledge and belief. Some propositions are known to be
true/false, and others are believed to be true/false.

Although Aristotle's logic is almost entirely concerned with categorical syllogisms, he did
anticipate modal logic to some extent, and its connection with potentiality and time. Modern
modal logic was founded by Gottlob Frege, although he initially doubted its viability, and it was
only later developed by Rudolph Carnap (1891 - 1970), Kurt Gödel (1906 - 1978), C.I.
Lewis (1883 - 1964) and then Saul Kripke (1940 - ) who established System K, the form of
Modal Logic that most scholars use today).

Propositional Logic Back to Top

Propositional Logic (or Sentential Logic) is concerned only with sentential

connectives and logical operators (such as "and", "or", "not", "if ... then ...", "because" and
"necessarily"), as opposed to Predicate Logic (see below), which also concerns itself with
the internal structure of atomic propositions.

Propositional Logic, then, studies ways of joining and/or modifying entire propositions,
statements or sentences to form more complex propositions, statements or sentences, as well as
the logical relationships and properties that are derived from these methods of combining or
altering statements. In propositional logic, the simplest statements are considered as indivisible
units.

The Stoic philosophers in the late 3rd century B.C. attempted to study such statement operators
as "and", "or" and "if ... then ...", and Chrysippus (c. 280-205 B.C.) advanced a kind of
propositional logic, by marking out a number of different ways of forming complex premises for
arguments. This system was also studied by Medieval logicians, although propositional logic did
not really come to fruition until the mid-19th Century, with the advent of Symbolic Logic in the
work of logicians such as Augustus DeMorgan (1806-1871), George Boole (1815-1864)
and Gottlob Frege.

Predicate Logic Back to Top

Predicate Logic allows sentences to be analyzed into subject and argument in several different
ways, unlike Aristotelian syllogistic logic, where the forms that the relevant part of the involved
judgments took must be specified and limited (see the section on Deductive Logic above).
Predicate Logic is also able to give an account of quantifiers general enough to express all
arguments occurring in natural language, thus allowing the solution of the problem of
multiple generality that had perplexed medieval logicians.

For instance, it is intuitively clear that if:

Some cat is feared by every mouse

then it follows logically that:

All mice are afraid of at least one cat

but because the sentences above each contain two quantifiers ('some' and 'every' in the first
sentence and 'all' and 'at least one' in the second sentence), they cannot be adequately represented
in traditional logic.

Predicate logic was designed as a form of mathematics, and as such is capable of all sorts
of mathematical reasoning beyond the powers of term or syllogistic logic. In first-order
logic (also known as first-order predicate calculus), a predicate can only refer to a single subject,
but predicate logic can also deal with second-order logic, higher-order logic, many-sorted
logic or infinitary logic. It is also capable of many commonsense inferences that elude term
logic, and (along with Propositional Logic - see below) has all but supplanted traditional term
logic in most philosophical circles.

Predicate Logic was initially developed by Gottlob Frege and Charles Peirce in the late 19th
Century, but it reached full fruition in the Logical Atomism of Whitehead and Russell in the
20th Century (developed out of earlier work by Ludwig Wittgenstein).

Fallacies Back to Top

A logical fallacy is any sort of mistake in reasoning or inference, or, essentially, anything that
causes an argument to go wrong. There are two main categories of fallacy, Fallacies of
Ambiguity and Contextual Fallacies:

 Fallacies of Ambiguity: a term is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning. There are
two main types:
o equivocation: where a single word can be used in two different senses.
o amphiboly: where the ambiguity arises due to sentence structure (often due
to dangling participles or the inexact use of negatives), rather than the meaning of
individual words.
 Contextual Fallacies: which depend on the context or circumstances in which sentences
are used. There are many different types, among the more common of which are:
o Fallacies of Significance: where it is unclear whether an assertion is significant or
not.
o Fallacies of Emphasis: the incorrect emphasis of words in a sentence.
o Fallacies of Quoting Out of Context: the manipulation of the context of a
quotation.
o Fallacies of Argumentum ad Hominem: a statement cannot be shown to be false
merely because the individual who makes it can be shown to be of defective
character.
o Fallacies of Arguing from Authority: truth or falsity cannot be proven merely
because the person saying it is considered an "authority" on the subject.
o Fallacies of Arguments which Appeal to Sentiments: reporting how people feel
about something in order to persuade rather than prove.
o Fallacies of Argument from Ignorance: a statement cannot be proved true just
because there is no evidence to disprove it.
o Fallacies of Begging the Question: a circular argument, where effectively the same
statement is used both as a premise and as a conclusion.
o Fallacies of Composition: the assumption that what is true of a part is also true of
the whole.
o Fallacies of Division: the converse assumption that what is true of a whole must be
also true of all of its parts.
o Fallacies of Irrelevant Conclusion: where the conclusion concerns something
other than what the argument was initially trying to prove.
o Fallacies of Non-Sequitur: an argumentative leap, where the conclusion does not
necessarily follow from the premises.
o Fallacies of Statistics: statistics can be manipulated and biased to "prove" many
different hypotheses.