Logic and Truth

A detailed Summary of Logic and Truth

Logic is the study of necessary truths and of systematic methods for clearly expressing and rigourously demonstrating such truths.

THERE can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.

My new way of viewing an argument is frequently called informal logic, suggesting a contrast with formal logic (the dominant type of logic in western intellectual tradition). But it could also be called communicative logic, or pragmatic logic perhaps, in that it is expressly directed to judging particular aspects of how an argument was used for some communicative purpose, well or badly, in a given case.

Davidson and others at UW-Madison are trying to elucidate how positive states of mind influence the body.

Ultimately, emotion concepts resist definition by way of dichotomous distinctions. Emotions are generally active and tend to generate action and cognition, but extreme fear may cause behavioral freezing and mental rigidity. Emotion can be explained on one level in terms of neurochemical processes and on another level in terms of phenomenology. Emotions are rational in the sense that they serve adaptive functions and make sense in terms of the individual's perception of the situation. They are nonrational in the sense that they can exist in the brain at the neurochemical level and in consciousness as unlabeled feelings that may be independent of cognitive-rational processes. Emotions are voluntary in that their expression in older children and adults is subject to considerable modification and control via cognition and action, and willful regulation of expression may result in regulation of emotion experience. Emotions are involuntary in that an effective stimulus elicits them automatically, without deliberation and conscious choice. Nowhere is this more evident than in infants and young children, who have little capacity to modulate or inhibit emotion by means of cognitive processes.

``We want to know what accounts for their resilience, what can we learn about their brain activity and how is their emotional resilience related to their physical health,'' Davidson said.

 Control of behavior: in the head

Wisconsin State Journal Jennifer A. Galloway Wisconsin State Journal; 04-14-1998

The separation of reason from motivation is fundamental to -- even constitutive of --human cognition.

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Approximate Word count = 1501
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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