Socratic Logic: A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles, Edition 3.1

Starts with the basics and gets more involved into math, which I'm no good at. But, Kreeft makes it understandable!

This book will help you understand why social media arguing is (often times) worthless. If you understand Socratic logic, you can dismantle bad ideas quickly and effectively without appealing to emotions over sound reason. Want to understand how to hold your ground beyond emotional reasons? This book is for you! Also, the answers in the back of the book allow you to learn on your own OR with others. Cannot say enough good things about this book.

I would have liked several simple examples, on the first page of the introduction, of the misapplication of symbolic logic, just so I could be clearer what commonsensical logic is. Just today on NPR's Science Friday radio program, I listened to a man discuss the human perception of musical notes and decibels. This man mentioned the fact that when multiple instruments each output, say, ten decibels, there is no additive effect to the human ear. If this fact were to be converted into a very simple general symbolic logic, it would be expressed as 10b+10b=10b, which makes utterly no sense in pure math! LOL :)The problem I have with this book is further complicated when, on page 26 (which is still the Introduction), Kreeft states:'All the terms' of an argument 'must be clear and unambiguous. If a term is ambiguous, it should be defined, to make it clear. Otherwise, the two parties to the argument may think they are talking about the same thing when they are not.'I object somewhat to that statement (though not necessarily to Kreeft's meaning, since I've not yet read every page of the book to be sure he didn't even qualify it).Firstly, natural language is inherently ambiguous, since most, if not all, human percepts are subject to refinement, and, thus, to sub-distinctation. For example, the taste experience of liquified soup, without ever having first tasted any of its constituents individually, results in the 'intuition' that that taste is unambiguously a single indivisible taste; and, then, when one constituent is tasted separately from the soup, this results in the 'intuition' (erroneously) that there are only two elements of the soup.Secondly, the act of defining a term to ensure both parties use that term for the same thing is an act which is, at once, a further abstraction and an ideational refinement.Symbolic, or mathematical, logic is merely an ultra-refined linguistic device for avoiding ambiguities in the first place by eliminating all extraneous content from the 'mechanics' of reasoning (it was only later found suitable for programming programmable computers). It's like a military person complying with the orders of a Commanding Officer, the former retaining only enough sense for the job so as to carry out the orders as intended by the CO.So, the relationship between mathematical logic and conversational (Socratic) logic is a paraconsistency, meaning that neither logic is the true owner of either bivalent (Socratic) or paraconsistent logic. In 'A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition' the entry on Paraconsistency states that 'we need not assume that the inconsistencies in' important theories 'are aberrations that must be removed before' these theories 'can be properly studied.'All of which means that attaining unambiguity (clarity of terms) is a continual, if lurching, process of negotiation between differing reasoning agents (or between differing modes of reasoning in one agent), regardless of their intelligence (see the Preface, the tenth sentence). As certain helicopter pilots say, 'The key to unpredictability is predictability', which is exactly how natural language goes: it's like a 'predictable helicopter pilot'.So, for someone like me, I would have preferred this book begin like a suspense novel: one that grabs you from the first---and narrative---sentence, and hangs onto you until you absolutely must look for a place to land. After all, a key problem of modern times, and which this book makes a major topic, is that too many people learn too much symbolic logic for the amount of real-world experience (including conversational logic) they have (as properly autonomous persons). Even terms like 'inference' and 'deduction' are too symbolic when you lose sight of the ideational ground---like when you're forced to rely on a refined dynamic understanding of the onboard instruments, or, short even of that, on luck, God, or 'subconscious knowledge' (compare "Chapter 15, Section 5. How to read a book Socratically", with a certain congruent other key problem of modern times: autism spectrum (dis)orders).

First, let me say that the author clearly knows how to teach Socratic (or 'old') logic, and his case for why 'old' logic is superior to 'new' symbolic logic is air tight. He does an excellent job explaining his subject, especially in a beginner-friendly way. That said, the author continually exposes his unwillingness to practice his own advice, all while highlighting his unfounded prejudices against certain groups. Let me explain.Early on in a footnote, the author addresses why he's chosen to use the pronoun "he" throughout the book, stating that he would probably have used the "politically intrusive, in-your-face, generic 'she'" if he were an "angry, politically intrusive, in-your-face woman". He then gives examples as to why he thinks the terms "they" and "he or she" are too confusing and cumbersome to use. Fair enough. But the author completely ignores what *every single other* modern author has done (and this book was published in 2008, so it is modern), which is to just alternate between "he" and "she" throughout the text. Worse yet, he fails to provide any logical explanation for why a woman must be both "angry" and "politically intrusive" to use the word "she" in a written text. Apparently, according to this author, women aren't allowed to use their own pronoun in writing because to do so indicates that they're just being emotional and aggressive. I'm not sure what else to call this except for antiquated and thoughtless misogyny. It also has to be asked--why not just use the male pronoun without making this bizarre, slanted, and loaded pronouncement? The vast majority of readers (myself included) are accustomed to seeing the male pronoun stand in for both genders and take no (or very little) offense.But that's just to start.Earlier in the book he also implies that homosexuality, masturbation, etc. are "unnatural" and bemoans that society no longer considers them so. He includes them in a list of sexual proclivities that include incest and bestiality. Talk about a loaded statement--is he not familiar with that very common logical fallacy? Perhaps this text is more "do as I say, and not as I do". Not to mention, this ignores the fact that homosexuality and masturbation are *regularly* seen in wildlife. So, what exactly is his definition of "natural"? I don't know, he didn't define his terms. Surprising, since he continually reminds his students to "define their terms", and that every logical argument must have "clear terms".These examples are just those that occurred before page 40, so I could go on.Normally, I would be happy to ignore an expert's repulsive personal beliefs to benefit from their knowledge, as long as they do a good and accurate job presenting their actual subject matter, which this author does. Unfortunately, he made it impossible for readers to ignore his personal prejudices by making them so glaringly obvious. He might as well have had a neon sign pointing to certain paragraphs, with "Women and gays are scary!" and "Sexuality is evil!" scrawled in neon pink and green. And all the while ignoring his own teachings--not giving a scrap of logical proof, and leaving logical fallacies trailing behind him like the cigarette butts of a chain smoker.In summary, the text does a good job teaching its primary subject matter--practical Socratic logic. But the author is very obviously limited in his ability to recognize his own prejudices and intellectual failings, making it a very frustrating read for independent critical thinkers. That said, if you do choose to buy this text to benefit from the actual subject matter, I recommend mentally bracing yourself and buying it used as to not financially support the publisher or the author.

Unbelievable book (in a good way). I think it should be known that the author is a fervent believer of Christianity, which is why some reviews of the book are not so friendly towards the author. However, I could care less about PC culture and instead would rather focus on the wisdom and knowledge contained in this book. I’m writing this review long after reading as I revisited the book to buy for a friend and saw some unpleasant reviews. I have read the book multiple times and was easily able to ignore the authors “Christian personal philosophy.”I think people have become so sensitive that a book full of great teachings with a couple of anti PC moments has mangled their experience with the entire book. I’d imagine you found this book to learn, it will absolutely help you do so. (Something the bad reviews even admit to themselves! 1 star because it’s not PC enough? Cmon now)

I really, really like this book. It's an easy-to-read but thoroughgoing presentation of syllogistic (or 'Aristotelian', or 'category', or 'term') logic, the logic devised by Aristotle and taught at universities till some time in the last century. Syllogistic logic shows how to combine pairs of premises, each of which is a 'categorical' subject-predicate proposition of one of four types -All S are PSome S is PNo S is PSome S is not P- so as to yield a valid conclusion, one that can't be false so long as the premises are true. Syllogistic logic has long been dropped from university courses in favour of predicate logic, a mathematised discipline that translates propositions into a completely symbolic language, so that a simple-looking syllogism such asAll men are mortal and Socrates is a man, so Socrates is mortalis transmogrified into something like∀x(Px → Qx), ∀x(Qx → Rx) : ∀x(Px → Rx)From the off and throughout Kreeft makes his case that syllogistic logic, though not as versatile as predicate logic, is more useful, since we're more likely to use it: the handful of types of proposition, and types of argument, it treats are easier to understand, to remember and to apply in real life than the upside-down As and backwards Es of its modern rival. And he's very persuasive: thinking in syllogisms comes more naturally than thinking in symbols, and in a real-life conversation the rules laid down by Aristotle spring to mind more readily than all the intricacies of quantifiers, variables, relations and whatnot. There's useful non-syllogistic stuff too: an in-depth chapter on informal fallacies, and a great section on the importance of defining terms with the Aristotelian tools of species and genus. There are memorable examples throughout.The book deals with all the basics of syllogistic logic that appear in (very) traditional textbooks: the square of opposition, the distinction between contrariety and contradiction, the immediate inferences (for example, from 'All As are B' we may without further ado infer 'All not-Bs are not-A'), such fallacies as illicit major, illicit minor and undistributed middle, and more exotic arguments such as sorites, epicheiremas and the rest. Students of modern propositional logic (which Kreeft conflates with predicate logic) will recognise its outlines in the chapter on compound syllogisms. There's a sensible treatment of the alleged problem of existential import, and a good chapter on inductive logic that runs through Mill's methods. I say the book's distinctive strength, however, is its blatant Catholicism. The Scholastics developed syllogistic logic to a very high degree, especially in uncovering its metaphysical foundations, and over the years seminaries and other institutions have preserved this inheritance. Kreeft - an unapologetic Catholic apologist - makes full use of it. He discusses and explains the three acts of the mind, Aristotle's categories, the predicables, and even the Tree of Porphyry - things that haven't appeared in a logic book for many years. He also gives a full-blooded defence of realism about universals, the correspondence theory of truth, and what he calls 'epistemological realism' - the view that we really can know things about the 'outside' world.I have a few low-level gripes. Malapropisms aren't the same as amphibolies. The Goclenian sorites is more complicated than Kreeft says. Also, despite being in its '3.1' edition, the book still has a fair few typos, and not much of an index. But none of this matters. If I could change one thing, I would greatly expand the section on the medieval 'Barbara Celarent' mnemonic for valid syllogisms. The intricacies of this mnemonic - how the vowels stand for types of proposition, and some of the consonants for the logical operations to transform one syllogism into another - are among the great beauties of syllogistic logic.I've gone on far too long. This is a great book, the best logic textbook I know, and I wish it had been written years before it was!

Most important book i've ever read. I cannot believe how much i have learnt from this piece of art by Peter and the boost in logical thinking and critical thinking is most welcome.

Excellent book. Excellent service.

Probably this author is a one of kind masters of our era to base this book on such extraordinary authors and books, you can se that he can clearly understand and master the subject, it also has some beautiful insights about general philosophy that make this book one of the best and TOP of the ones you can buy. God bless friends...

It took me 1-2 months to read through it completely. I find myself re-reading it just to get another appreciation for the details I might have missed. I will only say: difficult read at first but worth it. The rest is left to be discovered.