LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY AND HUMAN

EXISTENCE BOOK SUMMARY

TERMINOLOGIES
 IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS IN BOOK
PHILOSOPHY: derived or originated from two ancient Greek words, “Philo and Sophia”, philo means love while Sophia means wisdom.
EPISTEMOLOGY: The term epistemology is from the Greek word “episteme” meaning knowledge and “logos” meaning theory or science.
From this, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with such question relating to the sources, scope or extent and
justification of knowledge.
Sources of Knowledge: There are some epistemological subjects such as the empiricist and rationalist debate on the question of sources of
knowledge. For the empiricist, sense experience is the sources of knowledge, and for the rationalist reason is the source of knowledge.
Scope of Knowledge: Knowledge is seen as Justified true belief. This account is the traditionally based. According to this account S knows that p
means that: (i) s believes that P, (ii) p is true, and (iii) s has reason to believe that p)
METAPHYSICS: comes from the Greek words “meta” (After or Beyond) and Physika(physics). In the literal sense, metaphysics can be
translated as “beyond the physical”. In the literal sense, metaphysics can be translated as beyond the physical. According to authors like Aristotle,
St Thomas Aquinas, Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Taylor and some other philosophers, it is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the
questions of the ultimate constituent and origin of the universe.
IDEALISM: The theory comes from “idea”. It states that idea, spirit, or non-matter provides the origin and ultimate constituent of the universe.
This means that physical, external world that we see is a product of and depends on the ideas conceived in the mind, in other words, the idealists
believed that the physical word exists but its reality and experience depend on the mind. This confirms the common adage that George Berkeley
says: “to be is to be perceived”
MATERIALISM: The materialists hold the position that matter is the basic substance of everything that is, the consistutent of the universe is
matter. The existent of things like Gods, Angels, Spirit must be explainable in terms of material terms.
UNIVERSALS AND PARTICULARS: Universals refer to concepts like Humanity, beauty, justice and goodness, etc. Particulars are the
individual things that exist in the universe e.g. Woman, Man, Blue Shirt, Blue Car, and so on. Universals are what the individual things share in
common. Particular things come into being and pass away, while woman given an instant of humanity, but no particular man or woman is
humanity itself. We also notice universals un particular objects or things that exhibit them.
ETHICS: historically, the term ethics is from the word “Ethos(costume). Ethics can be defined in both the loose or ordinary
sense and in the technical sense. In the ordinary sense, ethic is a set of principles guiding human behaviours, whereas in the
technical sense, it is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions of sources, scope and justification of morality. On the
basis of its concern with morality, ethics can also be referred to as moral philosophy. There are traditional branches of Ethics,
namely: Descriptive ethics, Prescriptive Ethics or Normative Ethics, Meta-Ethics or Critical Ethics and Applied Ethics.
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS: This is the branch of ethics that uses the descriptive method of science in describing the
phenomenon of morality. This approach can be by mere description or comparison. It may be described as morality across
time or culture.
PRESCRIPTIVE ETHICS OR NORMATIVE ETHICS: This is the branch of ethics that is concerned with setting the
criteria or standards of good moral conduct. The standards that people hold about what is good or bad, right or wrong and
beneficial or evil affects almost all other things, those moral standards are given by normative ethics in accordance with three
main approaches to moral theories: Teleological or Consequentialist theories, deontological theories and virtue ethics.
META ETHICS: META ETHICS IS THE ASPECT OF ETHICS WHICH EXAMINE THE MEANING AND NATURE
AND ORIGIN OF MORAL STANDARDS.
• APPLIED ETHICS: Applied ethics refers to branch of ethics which examines the moral status
of social issues. It does this through ethical theories
• MORALITY: Morality is popularly is seen as a set of principles meant to regulate human co-
existence. It is a set of principles with which the society moderates the excess of human
beings in the community of others.
• LOGIC: logic is not just a science of reasoning, but that of clear and adequate reasoning. The
fact of difference between logic and principles of psychology deals with process of thinking.
It is important for you to know that logic is either informal or formal. It is informal when it
uses ordinary language, and formal when it uses symbolic statements.
• LOGICAL PROCESS: simple apprehension, judgement, reasoning and argument constitute
what we call logical process.
• JUDGEMENT: in logic, judgement is known as the act by which the mind affirms or denies
something.
• Reasoning and Argument: Reasoning and argument constitutes the third and last stage of
any logical process.
• STATEMENT: It is a set of words expressing a statement, a question or a command.
• PROPOSITION: A STATEMENT OR SENTENCE THAT CAN BE EITHER TRUE OR
FALSE.
• PREMISE: premise is also one of the basic concepts in logic. It is known as
evidence or conclusion. Basically, a premise refers to that proposition or statement,
within an argument, which provides support for or grounds for asserting the
conclusion of that argument. In a valid argument, the premises imply the
conclusion. For example:
All men are mortal,
Abiola is a man,
therefore Abiola is a Mortal.
In the above example, the first two statement or proposition are the premises while the
last one is the conclusion.
• PREMISE INDICATORS: these are words and expression that indicate the premises within an
argument. The following are some of the premise indicator, “since, for, as, because, in as much, as, for the
reason that etc.
• CONCLUSION: In logic, conclusion is that proposition, within the argument, that is arrived at on the
strength or basis of the information provided by the premises. Simply put, conclusion means to come or
bring to an end. You should always remember that in any valid argument, the conclusion follows from the
premises.
• CONCLUSION INDICATORS: There are some expressions and words that function to indicate the conclusion
within a passage. These are generally called conclusion indicators. For example: hence, consequently,
therefore, we may conclude, infer, thus, so etc.
• INFERENCE: In logic, inference means to derive the conclusion of an argument from the premises of that
argument. For example: All Cameroonians are strong, Song is a Cameroonian, therefore Song is strong;
here we can see that the conclusion song is strong is derived from the first and second premises of the
argument.
• ARGUMENT: An argument is a group of propositions, one of which is called the conclusion, is affirmed
on the basis of the others, which are called the premises, this consists of at least two proposition or
statements, an argument can be inductive if it moves from the particular premises to general conclusion,
and it can be deductive if it moves from the general premises to particular conclusion.
• EXAMPLE OF DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT: 1. all metals when heated expand, object a is a metal,
object a is heated, object expands; 2. All humans are mortal, Socrates is a human, therefore Socrates is
mortal.
• EXAMPLE OF INDUCTIVE ARGUMENT: 1. Some metals when heated expand, 2. object a is a metal, 3.
therefore, object a expands.
• Valid argument: an argument is said to be valid when the conclusion of
the argument is derived from or follows from the premises.
• Invalid argument: an argument is said to be invalid, when the conclusion
of the argument is not derived from or does not follow from the premises.
• Example of valid argument: All Americans are proud, peter is an american,
therefore peter is proud.
• Example of invalid argument: Some Nigerians are bad, Ukwa is a Nigerian,
therefore ukwa is bad.
• FALLACIES: Fallacies is a type of argument that may seem to be correct,
but upon very close examination turns out not to be so. Some errors in
reasoning, which are formal and informal. Formal fallacies have to do with
the violation of certain rules of valid inferences, whereas informal fallacies
are errors in reasoning that we fall into either because of carelessness or
inattention, or because we want to trick others to our convictions, type of
these fallacies are: fallacies of relevance, ambiguity, and false presumption.
• SYLLOGISM: It is an argument which contains at least three propositions,
two of which are called the premises, and one which is the conclusion.
Traditional syllogism deals with categorical syllogism which deals with
three terms: Middle term (X), Subject term(S) and Predicate(P). This is
summarized as:
a. ALL S ARE P’S
b. M IS AN S
c. THEREFORE M IS A P