Re: a little logic for Spector

Syllogisms or Silly-ji....(oh, never mind :)  )



Randy  (Groves) --

Thanks for trying to teach us all a little logic. Surely you understand that
the "real world" precedes the "logical world".  There ARE no "x's" and "y's"
in the real world. They are constructs. Logic only has meaning in the
context of the "real world" (as best as we can understand it with all its
shifting characteristics and with our limited perspectives and biased
standpoints, of course.)


The logic does not pre-exist the world,  just as "universally true"
mathematical truths do not precede "the real world."  There is no "One plus
one equals Two" because in the "real world"  we can never even find two
"ones" that are exactly  equal/indentical. And furthermore, when real things
are "added together" we often get more than the "sum of their parts" because
of interactions, critical mass, (dare I say "negation of the negation?")
etc.

So,  simple logic can be helpful in evaluating arguments, but it can not
give answers. It doesn't PROVE anything.
--------------

As to the Nazi argument, perhaps you have it backwards.  When I implied that
both statements were true:

1) Some Nazis were bad.

2) All Nazis were bad.

                                             you assumed that my logic was
that "SINCE some Nazis are bad, THEREFORE all Nazis are bad" and chided me
for a logical fallacy based on substituting "X's" and "Y's" for Nazis.

Actually what I was saying was: "All Nazis are bad, and therefore, all Nazis
are bad."  And a subset of that statement is that "some Nazis are bad."

How did I come to the conclusion that "All Nazis are bad?"  One doesn't find
the answer to that in "X's" and "Y's".  One finds the answer by looking at
the "real world".

Official "sociobiology" is, at its core, a one dimensional, reductionist,
PSEUDO-scientific oversimplification of complex biological-environmental
processes. As are population control schemes that rely on genocidal
capitalist class groups to interpret and enforce whether or not there are
too many working class people in the world. And both those theories are
used, knowingly, by SOME interest groups to justify and therefore maintain
class stratification, including gender, "race", and ethnic stratification.

There can be people who use the language of "sociobiology" or who discuss
biological limits who don't subscribe to the extreme narrow view I critiqued
above, just as I reject nationalism but recognize that some people use the
language of "nationalism" and I might agree with them on some  points.  But
I don't want to rehash the sociobiology arguments. Just wanted to deal with
some of the abstract scholasticism posing as scientific method.

Alan Spector

===============================================================




-----Original Message-----
From: John_Groves@ferris.edu <John_Groves@ferris.edu>
To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 01, 2000 5:42 PM
Subject: a little logic for Spector


>In response to my complaints about fallacious reasoning, another is
>committed. Spector writes "Well, that MIGHT be a fallacy. But not always.
>After all, I can say that SOME people who call themselves Nazis have done
>bad things. Is it therefore a fallacy to label  ALL Nazis as bad?"
>
>Actually yes. Look at it: Some x are y.  Therefore All x are y. Let's try
>that out with a few examples.
>
>"Some apples are red. Therefore all apples are red." Or how about "Some
>people on WSN committ fallacies, therefore all people on WSN committ
>fallacies."
>
>What made your argument sound plausible is the fact that we all know all
>Nazis are bad. We don't know about all people who argue in favor of pop
>optimization.And even if we did, it still wouldn't affect the logic of the
>argument.
>
>
>Randy Groves
>