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From: petersja@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: LOGIC AND RELATED STUFF
Message-ID: <15772@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 28 Jun 91 20:47:39 GMT
References: <1991Jun26.173142.3060@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1991Jun27.005850.1176@news.media.mit.edu> <69@tdatirv.UUCP>
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In article <69@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>This kind of reasoning (modens ponens &c.) is simply alien to normal human
>thought patterns and must be 'forced' to be used at all.
>
>That is, human reasoning does not normally take the form of 'if X then Y',
>rather it takes the form of 'X is like Y, Y has property a, assume X
>has property a'.
>
>Now, the question becomes, can 'reasoning' based on free-association and
>analogy-based filtering be adequately captured in any formal system that
>can be reasonably called 'a logic'.  [Of course if *any* formal system is
>considered to be 'a logic', then we must ask whether asssociative reasoning
>is essentially formal (in this sense)].
>-- 

Isn't the real issue here whether formal reasoning can be captured by your
"free-association and analogy based filtering" and not the other way
round?  I don't mean to put this as a chicken and egg dilemma, but if,
as this thread suggests, the "natural" mode of reasoning is *not*
formal, then it seems that formal reasoning must be predicated upon
this inferential style of reasoning as, perhaps, a kind of specialization,
or abstraction.  If this is the case, namely that formal reasoning is
"built up" out of non-formal, "natural" reasoning, then it must be
possible to give an account of how the inferential form can give rise
to formal kinds of reasoning.  In the background, it seems to me that
such an account would also explain something of the nature of science
in general (as well as how such a thing as science is possible for
creatures such as us).

james sends.
-- 
james lee peterson				petersja@CS.ColoState.edu
dept. of computer science                       
colorado state university		"Some ignorance is invincible."
ft. collins, colorado  (voice:303/491-7137; fax:303/491-2293)