Quote:An argument that is sound and valid is necessarily true, you can argue whether or not it is sound by demanding evidence for the premises but it is still easy enough to establish a necessary truth.
THERE'S the rub. I only did a year's philosophy at university,but I WAS taught by actual philosophers. I was taught that using the rules of inference, the inference may or may not be true.That in formal logic,the premise is always assumed to be true for the sake of argument.
That the logical form may be valid and the inference valid,but untrue. This is a common problem with syllogistic logic.
It is my understanding that the notion of truth through reason alone goes back to the neo Platonists,(starting with Plotinus) and was used for example by Ptolemy and his geocentric solar system and indeed heavily influenced Christian thinkers such as Augustine.
I demand logic AND evidence to accept something as true for all practical purposes,until new evidence is found.I have a problem getting my head around the idea of an absolute truth.
Have I misunderstood or are we perhaps simply talking on different levels?
