Which is First?

You are wrong.

Logic can more than you think.

I am not confusing anything.

And you are the only one who knows that a bacterium behaves according to its “bacterium logic”?

We are talking about logic and ethics here!

A bacterium logic is logic too - by definition.

Original (German) text:

„Wir hören auf zu denken, wenn wir es nicht in dem sprachlichen Zwange tun wollen, wir langen gerade noch bei dem Zweifel an, hier eine Grenze als Grenze zu sehn. Das vernünftige Denken ist ein Interpretieren nach einem Schema, welches wir nicht abwerfen können.“ - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, 522, S. 358.

Okay.

No. In order to have ethics logic is needed. The “herd morality” and “ethics” are concepts, created by language, by human language. Concepts must be defined, must be logical. So logic comes before ethics. Ethics depends on logic. There is no “herd morality” without logic, regardless how romantic (beautiful) the counter “arguments” are.

Am not.

Can not. Or maybe can too, but as you don’t elaborate, denying your statement suffices.

Do you even know what the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument is? A sound argument is necessarily valid, but a valid argument is not necessarily sound.

Can you give an example of logic establishing the truth or falsehood of a premiss?

Are too.

I never mentioned (a) bacterium logic. An a bacterium logic, if there is such a thing, is a logic by definition. Is is not logic simply, which then doesn’t exist.

Herd morality preceded the concept “herd morality”; it preceded human language as well.

“M. Rousseau, he [Maistre] says, tells us that he wants to know about the origins of language. Well, of course M. Condillac, who can answer all questions, can answer this question too. How was language constructed? Why, of course, by the division of labour. A lot of rationalist persons, seeking their own personal advantage, cosily gathered together and proceeded to invent language, says Maistre. The first generation of men, presumably, said BA and the next generation of men said BE. The Assyrians invented the nominative, and the Medes invented the genitive. This is how grammar was made.
This kind of bitter irony is very appropriate. Maistre was one of the first to perceive that the whole eighteenth-century notion that human institutions are constructed by rational men for limited and intelligible purposes is totally untrue to human nature. Herder had had some such ideas already, and of course the German romantics had them too. Maistre employed a particularly biting and mordant irony for the purpose of dismantling the rickety structures of eighteenth-century theories about the origins of society, especially their peculiarly unhistorical approach.” (Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and its Betrayal, “Maistre”.)

The word “Logic” only applies to language and its reasoning or argumentation. It does not apply to people, animals, bacterium nor reality itself. Reasoning can be logical. People and anything alive can be rational. The universe itself or reality has nothing to do with logic nor rationality. The universe can neither be illogical nor logical, rational nor irrational. Only a living creature’s reasoning and use of language can be logical. And only a living creature’s behavior can be rational.

Science can only tell you if you were wrong. It cannot tell you if you are right, nor what you know. In a sense, Science can only tell you that you don’t know something.

I think it’s good that you insist on precision in using these terms, but when is reasoning logical? When it happens in accordance with axioms that cannot be falsified by reason? “The axioms of logic” may only be the laws of human thought (and not even necessarily of all human beings–unless we define “human” by those laws).

Reasoning is logical when it is consistent and coherent. That is all that is required.

You were correct in saying that logic tells of validity, not necessarily soundness. But there are times when logic can establish soundness. Definitional Logic entails using, as the axioms, only declared definitions. Declared definitions cannot be false. Any proper logic based simply upon true definitions, is necessarily true.

Example:
Declared ontological definition: "To exist" is to have affect.

Within the ontology (the chosen language of thought), such a declaration cannot be disputed. It is a definition of a concept. It is true to the ontology by default. The declaration is saying that if there is anything that has no affect, we are going to call that item “nonexistent”. You might personally want to call such items by some other category. Anyone is free to choose their own ontology. Of course the ontology itself is only “true” when it matches reality. But if you say, “no, existence is … something else…”, you have erred. People can understand reality in differing ways, possibly each as true as the other. Just don’t go mixing ontologies. If you declare that “existence” means something incompatibly different, you must limit your use of the word to your different ontology.

Given the exampled ontological definition, it is logical to continue by saying, “if there is an affect happening, there is an existence present.” That conclusion is necessarily true. Science could never dispute the conclusion, and in fact, is dependent upon its truth (one cannot empirically demonstrate the existence of something that has no affect).

A great deal more can be logically derived from that indisputable beginning. As long as the logic is valid, every conclusion concerning existence will be necessarily true. The scientific method can only let you know if you make a mistake. Science could never verify that you are right, only that your logic was invalid, if and when it was invalid (a contradiction in your statements).

As it turned out, from that beginning, one can derive indisputable facts concerning every aspect of physics, even beyond what popular science claims to know.

mmmmmyeah. I didn’t say that Russell was the first to put logic first, but that he put logic first. Either way, no one read Frege until Russell told them to.

Reasoning doesn’t have to be “logical” because “reason” is a more general term.

BTW, “first” is left ambiguous because A) the OP is mostly for fun and B) cannot be answered definitively in either sense.

I think epistemology is, for instance, an archaic art, full of magic and religion. Others think it’s fundamental to philosophy. Mostly, no one thinks about any of the major fields of philosophy as being expendable. IIRC, that’s what i was getting at. FWIW.

This already requires more basic axioms, such as the law of non-contradiction. Otherwise, any negation of your definition may be equally “definitional” (axiomatic).

All ontologies may also be false. Then a statement that is false in any specific ontology may reflect reality more truly than a “true statement”.

(But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.)

That’s nifty. But what about religion? Revelation? That could still reflect reality better than any science or reason.

No, that is a rule of the logic. We are not talking about the rules of logic. We are talking about whether a proof concerning reality can be derived strictly from logic. Of course logic has its rules. Logic itself is not an axiom of logic, else it could be anything. Consistency of language (aka “logic”) includes non-contradiction (aka non-inconsistency) by default.

Currently all popular ontologies are.

False, by definition. Since being true means conforming to reality, and its converse is being “false”, a true statement cannot be false. Don’t confuse declared definitions (descriptions of concepts to be used) with “statements” of conclusion.

As I said, science can not tell you of truth, only that you weren’t (logically) proven wrong (via demonstrated contradiction).

A religion is merely another ontology and applied philosophy. As long as it is internally consistent, comprehensive, and relevant it is true. Of course it might help if they bothered to define significant words such as “God”, “spirit”, “soul”, and so on.

That’s not all I quoted from you, James. You said:

We were, or at least I was, talking about the rules of logic. Logic, by the rules of logic alone, cannot establish soundness. You’d have to give (arbitrary) definitions like your example to do so. But even then it’s not necessarily soundness in the sense that the premisses are true in the sense of matching reality, so it’s not necessarily soundness, period.

I’m not. And I said “false in any specific ontology”. It doesn’t matter if what I said is “false by definition”. Those are just your (arbitrary) definitions, used to specify some ontology or other. And you said:

The latter must–logically–have meant “necessarily true in the exampled ontology”. After all, you’d also said:

This is not necessarily the case, for the exampled ontology or any other. It may only be “true” because of your exampled ontological definition, and it’s certainly only necessarily “true” because of that.

In the sense of being internally consistent, comprehensive and relevant, yes; not necessarily in the sense of matching reality… “Revelation” in the context of religion means a revelation of reality, though.

Frege was already famous before Bertrand Russel was born. Back then, everyone of those Europeans who were interested in mathematics, logic, philosophy read Frege; even certain Americans (especially those who had studied in Germany) read Frege at that time.

@ Sauwelios.

We already had the discussion about valid and sound arguments. We do not need to repeat it. James and I also discussed that subject.

And I doubt that a bacterium does not need to behave according to logic. We (the humans) are the interpreters - in any case, thus also in the case that you mentioned (that a bacterium does not need to behave according to logic). But you have not given any proof or evidence for your statement.

We (the humans) can only do what we can - not more.

Basically, we are talking about language, especially about words and very especially about lexemes, log(ic)emes. This may also be called "interpretation“. Even non-linguistic experiences or non-linguistic observations - summed up as non-linguistic empirism - have to be interpreted.

Nietzsche said: „Das vernünftige Denken ist ein Interpretieren nach einem Schema, welches wir nicht abwerfen können.“ (Translated into English: "Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme that we cannot throw off.“) Wir können dieses Interpretieren nicht abwerfen! We cannot throw off this interpretation! We are the interpreters - in any case (see above).

When it comes to the "first-field-of-philosophy“-issue, I am arguing more historically or, more generally said, in a developmental way.

A young child can already argue logically before knowing anything about ethics or morality. This must have been the same during the early human evolution.

And during that early human evolution, there were no human "herds“ but merely human small groups, at least smaller than herds are per definitionem. Human herds occured a bit later.

That is just a statement. There are no proofs or evidence for it.

So I repeat and will always repeat my statement: Language and logic preceded the concept "herd morality“.

Exactly. That is what I am saying too. It is our - the human - language that also preceded e.g. the logical concept „herd morality“ and not the other way around, as Sauwelios is suggesting. The concept "herd morality“ is based on an interpretation, on language, on thinking, on logic. Wether there was a "herd morality“ before it was invented logically by using language logically (philosophically) or not is a matter of the interpretation and changes during the time; but I have good reasons for saying that language preceded e.g. the logical concept "herd morality“, and I have given evidence for that. Try to teach a child of a certain developmental age what ethics is by using logic, and you will be successful; but try to teach achild of a certain developmental age what logic is by using ethics, and you will be unsuccessful.

Great example.

I consider that language, if not spoken, then language of mind (thinking), had to come before that entire list. Language void of consistency in use, isn’t language. And since logic is merely the consistency of language, I would have to put logic as “First” on that list.

Studying anything on that list, including logic itself, requires logic to already be engaged, although perhaps poorly so.

Hi, James. It goes without saying, or should, that philosophy is impossible without language, and difficult with a poor grasp of language. Poor language skills haven’t stopped many philosophers, however, from trying.

Makes sense, greeting card?

I agree.

That may be, but did you show in any of those discussions that you understand the difference? If so, can you reproduce that part here?

I, too, doubt it, actually. But doubt is not an argument.

Nietzsche writes:

“On the origin of logic. The fundamental inclination to posit as equal, to see things as equal, is modified, held in check, by consideration of usefulness and harmfulness, by considerations of success: it adapts itself to a milder degree in which it can be satisfied without at the same time denying and endangering life. This whole process corresponds exactly to that external, mechanical process (which is its symbol) by which protoplasm makes what it appropriates equal to itself and fits it into its own forms and files.” (Will to Power 510 whole, Kaufmann trans.)

By “need not” I meant that there is no proof that bacteria behave according to logic. Asking me to prove that statement is therefore asking me to prove a negative.

No, this is nonsense. Logic is itself a form of ethics or morality. Consider Nietzsche’s early essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” (1873):

“Insofar as the individual wants to maintain himself against other individuals, he will under natural circumstances employ the intellect mainly for dissimulation. But at the same time, from boredom and necessity, man wishes to exist socially and with the herd; therefore, he needs to make peace and strives accordingly to banish from his world at least the most flagrant bellum omnium contra omnes [“war of all against all”]. This peace treaty brings in its wake something which appears to be the first step toward acquiring that puzzling truth drive: to wit, that which shall count as ‘truth’ from now on is established. That is to say, a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things, and this legislation of language likewise establishes the first laws of truth. [… T]o be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth. From the sense that one is obliged to designate one thing as ‘red’, another as ‘cold’, and a third as ‘mute’, there arises a moral impulse in regard to truth. The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a ‘rational’ being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions. First he universalizes all these impressions into less colorful, cooler concepts, so that he can entrust the guidance of his life and conduct to them. Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries–a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world. Whereas each perceptual metaphor is individual and without equals and is therefore able to elude all classification, the great edifice of concepts displays the rigid regularity of a Roman columbarium and exhales in logic that strength and coolness which is characteristic of mathematics. Anyone who has felt this cool breath [of logic] will hardly believe that even the concept–which is as bony, foursquare, and transposable as a die–is nevertheless merely the residue of a metaphor, and that the illusion which is involved in the artistic transference of a nerve stimulus into images is, if not the mother, then the grandmother of every single concept. But in this conceptual crap game ‘truth’ means using every die in the designated manner, counting its spots accurately, fashioning the right categories, and never violating the order of caste and class rank. Just as the Romans and Etruscans cut up the heavens with rigid mathematical lines and confined a god within each of the spaces thereby delimited, as within a templum, so every people has a similarly mathematically divided conceptual heaven above themselves and henceforth thinks that truth demands that each conceptual god be sought only within his own sphere. Here one may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders’ webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind. As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself. In this he is greatly to be admired, but not on account of his drive for truth or for pure knowledge of things. When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding ‘truth’ within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare ‘look, a mammal’ I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be ‘true in itself’ or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man. He strives to understand the world as something analogous to man, and at best he achieves by his struggles the feeling of assimilation. Similar to the way in which astrologers considered the stars to be in man’s service and connected with his happiness and sorrow, such an investigator considers the entire universe in connection with man: the entire universe as the infinitely fractured echo of one original sound–man–; the entire universe as the infinitely multiplied copy of one original picture–man. His method is to treat man as the measure of all things, but in doing so he again proceeds from the error of believing that he has these things [which he intends to measure] immediately before him as mere objects. He forgets that the original perceptual metaphors are metaphors and takes them to be the things themselves.” (http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_various/on_truth_and_lies.htm)

This distinction of yours between herds and “human small groups” assumes that herds cannot be small. “Small” is a relative term.

Sure there are. Nietzsche coined the term “herd morality” in the late 1800s to refer to something that already existed in prehistory.

The concept “herd morality” is not the same as that which that term refers to…

At most, language is coeval with herd morality. Language won’t emerge if there is no herd or group, no others for the individual to communicate with. The development of the rules of language, however, is of a kind with the development of the morality of custom. For the latter especially see Nietzsche’s Dawn.

That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting is that herd morality–not the logical concept “herd morality”–preceded human language (though not language in general, as bees also have language).

Wrong. You can teach a child to think logically by teaching it that it’s bad, not allowed, punishable to contradict oneself, for example. Indeed, this is how the development of logical thinking always works. At the very least one is punished with not being understood, being considered thick, mad, etc.

Here’s something for you to ponder. Was there a prehistory before the concept was “invented logically by using language logically”? The concept “prehistory” was invented in history; the term obviously defines it in relation to history. But “prehistory” refers to the period before history…

WHAT A NONSENSE !

If you you try to teach a child, as you said, “to think logically by teaching it that it’s bad, not allowed, punishable to contradict oneself”, then you are alraedy arguing logically, because in this case the child alraedy knows what “bad” means, what “not allowed” means, what “punishable” means, what “contradict oneself” means (otherwise you could not use those words in order to teach the child). So you should urgently rethink your example and search for another one. But I can guarantee you: you will never find one. Good luck! :slight_smile:

The ONLY “argument” you have is “Nietzsche”. But Nietzsche was not always right, as you should know.

Also: If you try to teach a child “to think logically by teaching it that it’s bad, not allowed, punishable to contradict oneself”, then the child will always ask “why?” (if not “what does that mean?” [see above]). So without referring to logic you will always (always!) be unsuccessful, because you will not be capable of giving an answer to the child without referring to logic.

We use language in order to teach, and we use just the logical part of language in order to teach. And even more so in the case of ethics, because ethics can only be taught by using logic.

What you are saying is always the same:

That is no argument.

Forget the last German romanticist, leave the 19th century and be welcomed in the 21st century, Sauwelios! :slight_smile: