Symbolic logic- is it worthwhile?

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I think it’s worthwhile. During my college years I thought about entering a master’s program concentrating on Philosophy of the Mind when thinking of grad school, amongst other academic interests.

I noticed, after taking a two semesters of it the quality of my writing increased. (I’m not a good writer in the first place.)
 
Midwest88 said:
I think it’s worthwhile. During my college years I thought about entering a master’s program concentrating on Philosophy of the Mind when thinking of grad school, amongst other academic interests.

I noticed, after taking a two semesters of it the quality of my writing increased. (I’m not a good writer in the first place.)
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Which aspect of your writing skills increased the most?

Style? Content? Logic?

I’ve always found that reading and writing poetry did more to improve my style than anything else.

But studying logic of any kind (even the common fallacies and the syllogism) improves one’s concentration and the precision and thoroughness of one’s approach to any subject.

Even reading Plato can do that. Socrates exemplifies the requirement of humility in search for truth by the clarification of definitions. He obliged the people he interrogated to doubt their own cocksure convictions. He was into linguistics thousands of years before Wittgenstein. 😉
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Which aspect of your writing skills increased the most?

Style? Content? Logic?

I’ve always found that reading and writing poetry did more to improve my style than anything else.

But studying logic of any kind (even the common fallacies and the syllogism) improves one’s concentration and the precision and thoroughness of one’s approach to any subject.

Even reading Plato can do that. Socrates exemplifies the requirement of humility in search for truth by the clarification of definitions. He obliged the people he interrogated to doubt their own cocksure convictions. He was into linguistics thousands of years before Wittgenstein. 😉
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The logic and what’s in bold. Reading also helped my writing.
 
No need to be so uptight, Charlie. There’s no reason someone can’t study symbolic logic and read Plato. It’s not as if one has to take sides.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Tel me where I said you can’t do both.

And, once again, STOP the snarky remarks!
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I’m not sure how I was being snarky. Anyway, you keep insisting that other resources are better at sharpening one’s mind than symbolic logic. Even if that were the case, it isn’t relevant to the question “is symbolic logic worthwhile?” because these resources aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they probably complement each other nicely. Would you disagree with that?
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Symbolic logic is only going to be understood by people who understand symbolic logic.

So the masters of symbolic logic should prepare to have a very small audience of readers. 🤷
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Anyone who knows a symbolic logic notation would spot the fallacy in this immediately, for as soon as you start to abstract it:-

X is only going to be understood by people who understand X.

You see that the statement is circular. By substituting X:-

English is only going to be understood by people who understand English.

The CCC is only going to be understood by people who understand the CCC.

So it certainly doesn’t follow that the masters of { English, the CCC, symbolic logic, etc. } should prepare to have a very small audience of readers.

Glad to be of service. :tiphat:
 
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