Question Your Mind: A Review of a Philosophy Dept.'s Logic Colloquium

Last week, I attended a philosophy event featuring guest lecturer Shay Logan. Logan currently works as a postdoctoral teaching scholar at North Carolina State University for their Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies. Logan previously worked here at UConn as postdoctoral research scholar. This lecture was a part of the Logic Colloquium series taking place this semester. It took place in a small classroom where only half of those seats were filled for the lecture. As one of the two girls in the room, I was surrounded by men who were mostly comprised of senior citizens. I found the situation to be awkward with how obvious it was that everyone else seemed to know each other. I was in awe of the arguments being made when the audience was able to comment on the lecture. Logan's lecture was on the philosophy of logic. Philosophy of logic is the study of the fundamentals of accurate (or correct) reasoning. He addressed the way we use yes-or-no questions to make deductions. These questions in particular see yes-or-no as acceptance and rejection respectively. The presentation, which was entitled "Noes and Nots," starts with minimal background information on a growing number of philosophers of logic who have analyzed questioning as a method to stimulate effective reasoning. Logan explains that with yes-or-no questions, one is either accepting or rejecting the statement as being true in order to infer other truths. The presentation was a focused on the exploration of the work of Ian Rumfitt. This system of making deductions is effective in many real world situations. For example, if the police were investigating suspects of a crime, they would eliminate suspects with alibis as to their whereabouts. Rumfitt wrote, “we can readily comprehend – and evaluate the validity of – arguments whose premises and conclusions are yes-or-no questions with one or other of the expected answers attached. Thus: If the accused was in Berlin at the time of the murder, could he have committed it? No. Was the accused in Berlin at the time of the murder? Yes. So: Could he have committed the murder? No is a valid argument.” Logan utilizing symbolic logic really put me out of my comfort zone with comprehending philosophy. Symbolic logic is the method of representing logical expressions through the use of symbols and variables, rather than using words. The purpose of this is to erase ambiguity that can be seen with languages like English but for those unfamiliar with it, symbolic logic can be confusing. Using symbolic logic is helpful for people who are in STEM-oriented fields. As someone who prefers studying liberal arts, using symbols instead of words can appear to be lazy. In my opinion, one should be able to put their theories in actual words instead of relying on symbols to get a message across. Explaining philosophy in a formulaic manner isn't surprising considering Logan’s past as Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Smith College. Philosophy is something that has always fascinated me. In addition to taking classes, I've read multiple books from Plato to John Stuart Mill to Immanuel Kant. I'm more experienced with the philosophical study of social ethics. Social ethics are set of guidelines, based around ethical decisions and values (doing good or what is right). These rules are often unspoken and instead expected to be followed. Both the philosophical studies of social ethics and logic analyze the behavior and thoughts of people that is central to education focused on the humanities. In our learning community, we use reason to make judgments in decisions. During classroom debates, we decide which argument is not persuasive and is able to reason with us the most. This lecture gave an opportunity to explore how we get to these conclusions.