Good Essay About The Nature Of The Laws Of Logic

Logic of law is almost always derived from thought in a deductive and inductive principle. Most of the time it is categorized into four laws:

Sentences in the form "p and not p" are all false.

Every E sentence is equivalent to its own converse.
No valid syllogism can have an undistributed middle term.
The probability of a sentence is never less that of its conjunction with another sentence.
But let’s try to view these laws in line with four corresponding philosophical views, including their misleading and illuminating views.

Logical Laws as Inductive Generalizations

There are philosophers who try to view logic as an obvious truth, or a natural law.
In Barker’s book, he described it as that “we confirm these laws of logic by making observations of phenomena in the world and then generalizing inductively from what we observe.” One example in his book was all ravens are black, we do reason in just this way. We have observed many black ravens, and we have never observed any ravens that are not black, so we conclude inductively that probably all ravens are black. Another example is, all insects have six feet, so whenever we saw a small animal that has more than six feet we know that it is not an insect although it looks like one. Or we can say that all fish can swim.
According to this view that logical laws are inductive generalizations, things are based from past experiences. Evidence is needed for us to consider such thing is true. And this is where it becomes misleading, we accept something because we see it the way it is, and everybody sees it the same way as you do. We do not expect it to be contradicted by others because we all see the same thing, but we are aware that if there will be a discovery of the opposite of what we currently know, we will not feel bad, because there will be a new evidence to support such belief.
Going back to the sentence p and not p is false. Under this nature, Barker said that nothing that we could observe could ever confront us with a situation that we would need to recognize as counterexample to the proposed logical law. If I have a fish pet, it can never be drowning in its aquarium.
Given this nature, that logic is from observation, and then if observations cannot say that a logic law is wrong then no observation is needed to prove that no sentence in the form of p is not p is not true, and whatever the situation is, it will adapt to the law.
It will be like, if someone will say that law of logic is on the inductive generalization, if i will see a white raven, then it is not a raven, because all ravens are black.

Logical Laws as Metaphysical Facts

“Every E sentence is equivalent to its own converse.”
If a creature is a man, it cannot fail to be a man. If I am a fish, it is not possible that I cannot swim. Metaphysical facts are very general facts about the nature of the universe.

Its properties are:

1. An entity cannot fail to have its property. A fish can always swim it is impossible for a fish not to know how to swim;
2. When a sentence is said to be true, its negation is always false. Adding one hydrogen and two oxygen will make water, but adding 2 hydrogen to the equation will not make it water;
3. Any conjunction will be false if part of the sentence is false. An example of this is as follows: the spider is an insect because it has 8 feet.
The knowledge of logical law is like a nonsensory vision. Just the same with inductive generalization, it has an illuminating and misleading aspect.
If knowledge of logical law and generalizations will be compared, the former is a priori (deductive) while the latter is empirical (verifiable by experience rather than pure logic) it means that we can grasp or understand the truth of elementary logical laws by just putting in our mind about it.
The misleading part is that you can think about anything on it just by using your inner vision or by thinking about it. It means that if logical laws are metaphysical facts, just by putting in mind that sentence p is not p is false we will understand that it is really false.

Logical Laws as Psychological Generalizations

“No valid syllogism can have an undistributed middle term.”
According to this view, human’s minds are subject to a compulsion or strong desire of holding into a belief and not accepting contradiction. Study of logic means study of the capacity of mind to hold into a belief and refrain from believing the opposite of it.
Believers of this view are the ones who do not ask for why is this is the case. This view shows a difference between the laws of logic and psychology. If logic laws are limited to what the mind can believe, it is easier for human to not to believe that a view is contradiction rather than believing the same view as a contradiction.
For example, it's easier for some to not believe that man is from the line of monkeys rather than believing that the theory of evolution is not real. Psychology deals with how human minds think then behave whereas logic has nothing to do with mind because mental phenomena is not its subject. Its subjects are sentences and arguments about anything.
If we say that the sentence ostrich can fly as high as other birds can is false, it is not a judgment off what the mind can think of but of the sentence itself.
Logic is not a branch of psychology. As said before, Psychology is a study of human and animal behavior and thinking base on experience, very empirical and inductive while logic is the exact opposite - nonempirical and noninductive.
Another misleading aspect of logical law as a branch of psychology is same as we believe that "p and not p" is false because we cannot understand it. But, it is because it does not say that the reason why we cannot understand something is because it is false.
This leads us to the idea that somehow it could be possible that "p and not p" is true, we just don’t know yet, which is an absolute craziness at this time.

Logical Laws as Verbal Conventions

The last nature that we can view “p and not p” is false is by looking at its words, literally. The philosophy of verbal conventions suggests that, the popular sentence is false, not because of anything else but of “and” and “not”. This means that truth is not necessary to make the sentence true; it just needs correct words or language to be considered as logical, which is misleading in the sense that language itself has lot of barriers across the globe.
This concludes that no view can stand alone to defend or discuss what logic law really is, each one another contribute to why it is the we see logic now. If you will just look at one, it can be misleading or illuminating.

Works Cited:

Barker. The Philosophy of Logic. 235-241.