Is all logic circular?

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Ben_Sinner

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For every statement/belief we make, someone could continue to ask "Why is that true?

We can give a reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason.”

We would give a reason for why it is the reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason that it is the reason?”

…and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

…until one runs out of reasons to prove their statement/belief without begging anymore questions…so they just say “Because it just is.”

For example, we could say “God existed forever.”

"Why?

“Because…he just did.”

Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?
 
Ben_Sinner said:
For every statement/belief we make, someone could continue to ask "Why is that true?

We can give a reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason.”

We would give a reason for why it is the reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason that it is the reason?”

…and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

…until one runs out of reasons to prove their statement/belief without begging anymore questions…so they just say “Because it just is.”

For example, we could say “God existed forever.”

"Why?

“Because…he just did.”

Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?
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Logic is a tool to help us better understand our thought processes. Like any tool it can be used responsibly and be helpful or it can be misused.

It is also a fun game to engage in. Many people enjoy the give and take of using logic to prove or disprove a point. This often only proves that one of the players is better at it that the other.

No human being will ever be able comprehend the mind and the logic of God no matter how many rules of logic they learn.
 
First man: All triangles are closed shapes with three straight sides.

Second man: Ha! But you can’t prove it.

First man: Of course I can, for if a shape is not closed or does not have three straight sides, it’s not a triangle.

This isn’t circular. Not everything requires an explanation from outside itself. Some things are grasped and can be known because it is essential to whatever we’re talking about. It is known about a thing through itself, intuitively.

As for God, theists don’t just say “because.” God’s existence is essential to him. God has no cause, but he does have a reason. For everything else, it’s possible “to be” or “not to be”. For God, there is no possibility not to be. Since his essence is the same as his existence and nothing less, he exists necessarily (given that other things exist and that existence is only accidental to them). This seems so basic as to be difficult to see the implications of it, or to accept it as anything more than semantics. But that is what it means for God’s essence to be his existence. Existence is essential to him, it is what he is. God’s reason for being is contained within his essence.

We have propositions that are known through themselves (per se), like the triangle example), and propositions that can only be known through something else (per aliud). We only beg the questions when one uses per aliud statements as per se, particularly in your starting point. We can have first principles. We can have things known through themselves intuitively by grasping what they are.
 
Wesrock said:
First man: All triangles are closed shapes with three straight sides.

Second man: Ha! But you can’t prove it.

First man: Of course I can, for if a shape is not closed or does not have three straight sides, it’s not a triangle.

This isn’t circular. Not everything requires an explanation from outside itself. Some things are grasped and can be known because it is essential to whatever we’re talking about. It is known about a thing through itself, intuitively.

As for God, theists don’t just say “because.” God’s existence is essential to him. God has no cause, but he does have a reason. For everything else, it’s possible “to be” or “not to be”. For God, there is no possibility not to be. Since his essence is the same as his existence and nothing less, he exists necessarily (given that other things exist and that existence is only accidental to them). This seems so basic as to be difficult to see the implications of it, or to accept it as anything more than semantics. But that is what it means for God’s essence to be his existence. Existence is essential to him, it is what he is. God’s reason for being is contained within his essence.

We have propositions that are known through themselves (per se), like the triangle example), and propositions that can only be known through something else (per aliud). We only beg the questions when one uses per aliud statements as per se, particularly in your starting point. We can have first principles. We can have things known through themselves intuitively by grasping what they are.
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Very good. You win. 🙂
 
Ben_Sinner said:
For example, we could say “God existed forever.”

"Why?

“Because…he just did.”

Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular?
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One would not say “because he just did.”

There is meat on that bone. God exists forever because he is a necessary being, not “because he just did.”

If God is not a necessary being there would have to have been a time when he was, like all other beings, a possible being. But if God at one time was only possible, and not necessary, he would never have come to exist because there would have been no other being to cause him and he certainly could not cause himself to come in to being.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
One would not say “because he just did.”

There is meat on that bone. God exists forever because he is a necessary being, not “because he just did.”

If God is not a necessary being there would have to have been a time when he was, like all other beings, a possible being. But if God at one time was only possible, and not necessary, he would never have come to exist because there would have been no other being to cause him and he certainly could not cause himself to come in to being.
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But what I’m trying to say is…

The skeptic troll would then ask “Why does God exist forever because he is a necessary being?”

I’m trying to find a way out of the infinite regress of question and answer without falling into a circular argument or assumption.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
For every statement/belief we make, someone could continue to ask "Why is that true?

We can give a reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason.”

We would give a reason for why it is the reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason that it is the reason?”

…and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

…until one runs out of reasons to prove their statement/belief without begging anymore questions…so they just say “Because it just is.”

For example, we could say “God existed forever.”

"Why?

“Because…he just did.”

Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?
Click to expand...
There is an important concept in the study of logic called cogency. A cogent argument logically follows from its premises.

Take the following syllogism:
  1. If A then B
  2. A
  3. Therefore B
This is a cogent expression because #3 necessarily follows from the premises given.

Let’s flesh that out with a particular example:
  1. If the Chiefs score more points than the Chargers, then they will win
  2. The Chiefs did score more points than the Chargers
  3. Therefore the Chiefs won
Given #1 and #2, #3 follows. That means it is cogent. Because #1 and #2 happen to be true, it is also true.

How about this one:
  1. If the Chargers lead the Chiefs 27-10 with 11 minutes left, then they will win
  2. The Chargers did lead the Chiefs 27-10 with 11 minutes left
  3. Therefore the Chargers won
This remains completely cogent. That means the logical structure is intact and that #3 did logically follow from #1-2. The problem here is that the PREMISES (or rather, just #1) are untrue. Untrue premises lead to untrue conclusions.

All of that brings us back to your final questions:
“Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?”

The answers are No and You Can’t.

Logic at its core has nothing to do with “truth”. Logic is a tool for the reasonableness or cogency of an argument. Truth must simply be postulated. We try to postulate as little as possible (famously Descartes tried to take the single postulate “I think therefore I am” and deduce an entire world view off that one postulate), but postulates must always be made. These postulates do not imply circular reasoning, however, they are simply a starting point for deduction.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
But what I’m trying to say is…

The skeptic troll would then ask “Why does God exist forever because he is a necessary being?”

I’m trying to find a way out of the infinite regress of question and answer without falling into a circular argument or assumption.
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It follows from what is establishd in other arguments about what must be excluded from his essence, such as contingency, change, not being, etc . . . At some point it’s a matter of grasping what eternal, immutable, simple, and other terms mean.

To keep insisting why is like continuing to ask for proof that all triangles have three sides. It’s just kind of absurd and I don’t know that the person is worth arguing with.
 
If logic is used correctly it will not be circular. Circular argument is an error, like division by zero in mathematics.

Which does not mean other errors won’t exist.

ICXC NIKA
 
Ben_Sinner said:
The skeptic troll would then ask “Why does God exist forever because he is a necessary being?”
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This would be tantamount to asking why a triangle has to have three sides.

It’s an irrational question.
 
Is the statement “This statement is not true” like a logical Möbius strip?
 
Ben_Sinner said:
For every statement/belief we make, someone could continue to ask "Why is that true?

We can give a reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason.”

We would give a reason for why it is the reason, then they would say “Why is that the reason that it is the reason?”

…and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

…until one runs out of reasons to prove their statement/belief without begging anymore questions…so they just say “Because it just is.”

For example, we could say “God existed forever.”

"Why?

“Because…he just did.”

Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?
Click to expand...
Logic is a process that leads you from true premises to true conclusions.

I have a hat on my head.
If I am wearing a hat then I am not bareheaded.
Therefore, I am not bareheaded.

~or~

h
h => ~b​

~b

There is no way for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true, but it doesn’t work the other way around. In most cases, there is no way to prove that the premises are true through logic. The two exceptions are when it is true by definition (There are three angles in a triangle,) or logically true (It’s either raining or it isn’t.)

Unless two people disagree on the definition of something, then they really won’t agree on whether any arguments about those things are sound. For instance, as an atheist, I obviously don’t accept that God is eternal. You think he always existed; I think he never existed. Logic isn’t really going to help us come to any common ground unless we can find shared definitions.
 
GEddie said:
If logic is used correctly it will not be circular. Circular argument is an error, like division by zero in mathematics.

Which does not mean other errors won’t exist.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
That’s not actually true. Tautologies are perfectly valid logical arguments.

It’s either raining or it’s not.
Therefore, either it’s not raining or it is.

It’s circular, but logically valid. In fact, it’s logically sound.
 
Aaron_I said:
There is an important concept in the study of logic called cogency. A cogent argument logically follows from its premises.

Take the following syllogism:
  1. If A then B
  2. A
  3. Therefore B
This is a cogent expression because #3 necessarily follows from the premises given.

Let’s flesh that out with a particular example:
  1. If the Chiefs score more points than the Chargers, then they will win
  2. The Chiefs did score more points than the Chargers
  3. Therefore the Chiefs won
Given #1 and #2, #3 follows. That means it is cogent. Because #1 and #2 happen to be true, it is also true.

How about this one:
  1. If the Chargers lead the Chiefs 27-10 with 11 minutes left, then they will win
  2. The Chargers did lead the Chiefs 27-10 with 11 minutes left
  3. Therefore the Chargers won
This remains completely cogent. That means the logical structure is intact and that #3 did logically follow from #1-2. The problem here is that the PREMISES (or rather, just #1) are untrue. Untrue premises lead to untrue conclusions.

All of that brings us back to your final questions:
“Would this mean that all logic at it’s core is circular? And how do we prove something without begging anymore questions?”

The answers are No and You Can’t.

Logic at its core has nothing to do with “truth”. Logic is a tool for the reasonableness or cogency of an argument. Truth must simply be postulated. We try to postulate as little as possible (famously Descartes tried to take the single postulate “I think therefore I am” and deduce an entire world view off that one postulate), but postulates must always be made. These postulates do not imply circular reasoning, however, they are simply a starting point for deduction.
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I should have read your answer before posting. You put it really well.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
This would be tantamount to asking why a triangle has to have three sides.

It’s an irrational question.
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I’m an atheist, and even I agree with you on this one.

I would disagree with the premise that God is necessary, but if God were necessary, then by definition he must be eternal.
 
No. If the statement all logic is circular were true then the statement all logic is circular would itself be circular. It’s similar to stating there is no objective truth, when such a statement itself claims to be an objective truth.
 
TheCuriousCat said:
I’m an atheist, and even I agree with you on this one.

I would disagree with the premise that God is necessary, but if God were necessary, then by definition he must be eternal.
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And St Thomas’ five ways demonstrate that God’s necessity is a logical conclusion, not a first principle.
 
davidv said:
And St Thomas’ five ways demonstrate that God’s necessity is a logical conclusion, not a first principle.
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If you accept all of his premises, and are willing to over look the fact that the God he describes doesn’t match the God people actually believe in, sure.

As you can probably guess, I don’t.
 
“Why?”
“Because there is”

That is circular.

Steven Wright: “Grandma used to say to me, ‘Steven, come over here’”
"I would answer, “What do you mean?”
She would then say, “You know, you are over there. Now, come over here”

That is linear.

(The rest of the joke)

Grandma would hand me $5 and say, “Don’t tell your mother I gave you this.”
I said to her, “It’s going to cost you more than that…”

That is extortionist, which may not be a type of logic.
 
Wesrock said:
First man: All triangles are closed shapes with three straight sides.

Second man: Ha! But you can’t prove it.

First man: Of course I can, for if a shape is not closed or does not have three straight sides, it’s not a triangle.

This isn’t circular.
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You’re right. It isn’t circular because the first man’'s second answer is literally the same as his first. He just stated the same proposition twice. See, his second answer is the contraposition of his first. An implication sentence and its contraposition are logically equivalent, and therefore express the same proposition.

I wouldn’t say all logic is circular. But all logic depends on certain things taken for granted not backed by aegument. Eventually there will have to be base premises that both sides agree on. Otherwise nobody will get anywhere. And the method of the logic used to analyze must be decided upon.

Remember, logic is merely a way to analyze arguments. It is a tool of language. Logic itself is a formal, stipulated language we use so we can control the syntax and semantics of language to get at the precise content of an argument and sentences.
 
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