High level philosophy

[robvalue]

Okay. I don't know if I'm high level or not, but I'm a multiclass halfling fighter/philosopher. Hopefully you'll see both classes reflected in the arguments below.

I'm working on a new argument which concludes that logic is a subjective thing.

1. I don't know French. I speak common, thieves cant, halfling, and elvish.
2. Logic has evolved. It hasn't been intelligently designed.
3. Logic is a "value stream." (It values conclusions that follow over those that don't.)
4. There is no "out there" yard stick for measuring accurate logic (god or other).
5. There is no non-human representation of logical/illogical.
6. Logic requires a social context. For example, the Kalam argument represents perfect logic to some theists. Therefore we shouldn't call the Kalam argument out for faultiness because it depends on one's cultural/social context whether it works or not.
7. Logic is not a simplex system... it is duplex (and perhaps multiplex?) in that there are three pathways:
a) Sense data to premises.
b) Premises to conclusion.
c) And then reasoning is involved somewhere in there too. That's pretty complex. If it's complicated, it must be subjective. I don't think anyone disputes this.
8. People always call logical fallacies out merely to dismiss others' opinions when they disagree. Theists might not think their reasoning is fallacious because they are attached to the conclusion of their argument. We need to stop thinking that there is some "out there" agreed upon set of logical fallacies. If a post hoc argument works in your conception, that's your subjective opinion, and no one ought to be able to say "That reasoning doesn't follow." That's just their opinion.
9. I don't think there is any doubt that our capacity to use logic is the product of evolution. That (somehow) makes it subjective. It's pretty clear that our hominid ancestors lacked the capacity to use logic. And we evolved the capacity to employ it. Anything that is the product of evolution cannot be objective, of course.

I hope that atheists will take note of what I've said here, and stop calling theists out for "misuse of logic." You can't do that! That assumes some kind of objective component to logic. Logic is a cultural/subjective thing. Whether their logical arguments follow or not is a matter of opinion. Logical reasoning is merely an artifact of our evolutionary development. It helped communication in tribal social spheres and helped us figure out where food supplies were when we were hunter/gatherers. Cavemen used rudimentary logic. "I heard rustling in bushes. Therefore bunny that I'm hunting went into bushes."

There is no "out there" objective metric by which we can measure the accuracy of logical arguments. If humans disappeared from the face of the earth, so would logic.

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I agree. There are any number of potential logical systems that could be employed, so it’s a subjective choice as to which one a person decides to use in any given situation. Logic is just a tool we use to try and understand reality better.

Once the rules of logic that are being used are agreed upon in any given discussion, it is then valid to point out logical mistakes. The thing is, people tend to assume the kind of logic that is in place. So if I tell some guy that he made a logic boo-boo, he has several possible responses:

1) He agrees that he is using a logical system where the error does apply.

a) He ammends his argument accordingly.
b) He contests the fact that it is indeed an error in that system.
c) He doesn't care and proceeds regardless.

2) He says he’s actually using some other logical system, which he will hopefully describe.

Without some sort of response like this, no progress will be made I think. Examples are often given, to show that they probably wouldn’t use such logic in another situation, because of the poor results it would yield. But if people don’t care about results, there’s nothing to be done.