Printable View
No argument there I was just questioning holding up the helenic greeks as a bastion of logic in compareison to modern western civilization. Then again I have allways had an inharent distrust of philosiphers, I lump them in the same catagory as politicions and televangilists.
Modern logic, as defined by Russell and Copi (the same logic still used today), is based on Greek logic. Aristotle was the one who defined syllogisms, premises, and all other terms still used today.
a -> b
b -> c
=> a -> c
are concepts by Aristotle. There is no discussion possible about syllogisms like this. They hold universal truth.
Ancient Greek logic was, and still is, a bastion of logic. It's pure math, and you can distrust it as much as you want, it'll still be valid ;)
This was the same guy who felt that there was a perfect chair somewhere in some magical cave.
If you are refering to the assumption that a cave can represent man's reality based on perception, it's brilliant.
That was Plato :p
But it shouldn't matter, bballad. The very basic things Aristotle defined back then, are still being used today.
Compare "If it rains, the streets get wet. It rains, so the streets are getting wet." to "If it rains, the streets get wet. The streets are wet, so it rains."
Both are syllogisms, and thanks to Aristotle we can proof that the first one is true and the second one is false. Logic isn't about the contents of the sentences being true (not all streets get wet when it rains), it's about the constructions being true. Pure math, very universal, and still in everyday use.
Ah, a memory jog. :)
I remember reading a paper recently of a conversation where Aristotle was demonstrating the cave, of course in this memeory jog, I remember thanks to Negative that he was Plato's student, I was wondering if bballads comment about magical caves was related since I have no clue what he's talking about. :)
yup it was related...although there is an some argument over which ideas where aristotals and which where plato who use the persona of aristotal to get his ideas out there...remember aristotal never wrote anything every idea of his we have is filtered through his students. I have no problem with the greek system of logic, my problem comes in whe nthe ygo past that point. HTe idea that somewhere there is a perfect chair and every chair we see is just a refelection of it.......the greek philosiphars where not prefect so lets try not to place them to highly on that pedistal
I still place them on a high pedestal. Heck Aristotle believed the universe was a series of crystalline layers and that objects rotated in these layers. VERY wrong, but not bad for objective and critical thinking some 2300 years ago. Some of his theories in science held for millennia, until corrected, mostly by Copernicus. (If my memory serves) One can definitely argue that he was wrong more than right. But give him some slack he lived in 300 BC. He's definitely on my pedestal. :)
I guess my main problem with the is his (or platos this one blures the line) beleif that phlosiphars should be the rulers of civilization wit hthe rest of us searving them.
Yes that was their general thinking back then, it was probably true for ancient man since education above kindergarten was extremely rare. At the same time Aristotle and others had a fair sense of justice for the time. They were the corruption of youth you know. A few were murdered (executed) for communicating thought.