Aristotle Showed Us the Way: How to Analyze an Argument, Logically
My Dad was an unusual guy. A farmer for much of his life, followed by being a quality engineer for the John Deere Waterloo tractor works, Dad may well have been the most well-read man I've ever known, and I read a lot myself. A self-styled country gentleman, Dad could intelligently discuss Greek philosophy, early-earth geology, human history, cosmology, and physics. He could have taught a college-level history course on the American Revolution and the American Civil War, an interest I share, and Dad and I spent many happy hours discussing and dissecting both of those quintessentially American conflicts.
When I was about, oh, 14, I was lounging around reading a magazine when Mom and Dad returned from a visit to the library. Dad handed me a book. "Read this," he said, his voice carrying the tone of command I was so familiar with, "...and when you're done, let's talk about it."
The book was Aristotle's "Organon," which is the collection of Aristotle's six primary works on logic and logical analysis. I read it. We talked about it. And, amazingly enough for a kid that age on a rural homestead in northeast Iowa in the '70s, I started thinking about it. Dad had the habit of nudging me to read things like this, and I'm richer for it, but Aristotle's works on logic and logical analysis had a profound effect, especially later, when I started pursuing an education in the sciences (Biology).
The most important aspects of Aristotle's work, the ones that I try to apply to every analysis of policy today, are his Laws of Thought. Those are:
- The Law of Contradiction
- The Law of the Excluded Middle
- The Principle of Identity
Britannica has a pretty cogent definition of the three laws:
The three laws can be stated symbolically as follows. (1) For all propositions p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be true, or: ∼(p · ∼p), in which ∼ means “not” and · means “and.” (2) Either p or ∼p must be true, there being no third or middle true proposition between them, or: p ∨ ∼p, in which ∨ means “or.” (3) If a propositional function F is true of an individual variable x, then F is true of x, or: F(x) ⊃ F(x), in which ⊃ means “formally implies.” Another formulation of the principle of identity asserts that a thing is identical with itself, or (∀x) (x = x), in which ∀ means “for every”; or simply that x is x.
That's rather turgid, so let's simplify them:
- Two assertions of fact cannot contradict each other and both be true.
- In any such assertion of fact, one or the other must be true, and the other, false; the truth cannot lie in between. Aristotle used as an example the statements "Man is mortal" and "Man is immortal."
- A is A. A thing is what it is, and cannot be anything else. Facts are facts, no matter how they make people feel.
The first two Aristotle describes as axioms:
...an indemonstrable first principle, rule, or maxim, that has found general acceptance or is thought worthy of common acceptance whether by virtue of a claim to intrinsic merit or on the basis of an appeal to self-evidence. An example would be: “Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.”
So, as an axiom, we have the Law of Contradiction applied in the very definition.
Why are these things important? What did Aristotle record here, in his Organon, that we can apply today?
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While we occasionally delve into other topics, here at RedState, we are primarily carrying on a political discussion. While there are many aspects to politics, in any discussion of policy and policy proposals, it's important to look at the facts. Too many people, in all candor, people on both sides of the American political spectrum, are prone to fall into emotional or agenda-driven arguments. This includes our elected officials, who we should be able to trust to carry out the business of the American people by making decisions based on logic, on facts. Granted, one side is better at this than the other; one political party is more inclined to logical argument than the other (although not perfectly so), and since you're here, at RedState, reading this, you have a pretty good idea which side that is.
In any such discussion, one can do a lot worse than to apply the laws of thought. What are the facts? Which claims are supported by evidence? Which things are true, and which, false?
This is elementary logic. This is how we should frame arguments. This is how science is supposed to work, and this should be how policy discussions work. It's not, always; it's not even most of the time. Emotional and polemic arguments too often carry the day, and that's not a good thing. There are places for emotional appeals, of course, but debates of policy are not among them.
It's a common enough notion to think that, just because we are enjoying much more advanced technologies than someone like Aristotle, who lived over 2,000 years ago, that we are somehow smarter than he was. That's just not true; a reading of any of Aristotle's work will show that very clearly. He formulated rules of logic that still hold value today. We should use them. We should apply them. And we should insist our elected representatives do likewise.
Photo credit: Nikolas Giakoumidis
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