Logician vs. Scientist

Until now, in the course and this chapter, we’ve been mainly concerned with knowing what logic entails and knowing what logicians concern themselves with. In this lesson, however, we’ll clarify the relationship between logic and science and how the charge gets passed from a logician to a scientist in the process of inquiry. In other words, what is it that the logicians don’t care about? But first, a brief review of what they’re deeply interested in.

Discovering forms of arguments

We’ve established that the main task of logicians is distinguishing between forms that make an argument valid or invalid. Let’s exemplify one valid form and an invalid one. They look so similar and yet are binary opposites when it comes to validity.

Example: Validity

This is an equivalent of transitivity in logic. If all X are Y and all Y are Z, it’s evident that all X must also be Z. But what’s important to know is that it doesn’t matter what terms eventually replace X, Y, and Z; the form of the argument remains valid.