Who teaches using the MP's Logic 1 & 2 books?

[Maria57]

Hi all - I'm new to Classical Ed and to logic and will be teaching 7th & 8th graders this fall. I've been going through the book on fallacies and the Traditional Logic books 1 & 2. I'm getting bogged down in book 2 because it's like Greek to me.... Anyone out there who actually teaches from these books who wouldn't mind being my go-to person/mentor this year.

I've been teaching French for 15 years in an independent school...so this is all new.

Maria Cochrane
Newport News, VA

[martin]

Maria,

If you have specific questions, I would be glad to try and answer them.

Martin

[Maria57]

Hi Martin,
Thanks for responding.
I'm reading/skimming/taking notes and looking at the exercises you propose.
I guess you have an answer key that shows how to rewrite the bible passages in exercise 18. They are hard and I got bogged down in just the first one...especially when you suggest contraposition. Then I turned the page and looked at exercise 19 (p. 46) Here's a Q.: Do I take the statements in Exercise 4, 8 and 15 and assume each could be the conclusion in a syllogism and then using those acronyms (disamis..etc) work backwards and come up with the 2 premises? and then I reduce them to the First Figure?......

And if this book is going to be used for 1st semester 8th grade, how well does your suggested writing/analysis assignment at bottom of page 46 work? I'm thinking of a short letter to the editor? and then we would pick out of the writer's conclusions and see if we can find his/her 2 premises? This sounds like a great, but super challenging exercise. What grades do you teach with your books?

By the way, I wrote a check for a book I purchased from you at the conference a few weeks ago and it hasn't cleared yet....

Maria

[Maria57]

Hi Martin - It's me again. Can you help me with a couple of the exercises on page 52 and let me know if I'm at least going in the right direction.

Take the 2nd one about the Constitution. Here's how I rewrote it and provided the missing major premise.

All documents which prohibit school prayer are documents which should be outlawed.
All docs like the Const. are docs which don't prohibit sch. prayer
Thus, all school prayer is a behavior which should not be prohibited.

I then said that was A,A,A or Barbara and therefore valid

The next one I tried before I gave up for the day was the one that starts, All proof must be convincing.

Here's what I did with that.

A - All effects of poverty on crime are inconclusive
A - All proof is argument that must be convincing
I - Thus, some proof for the link between poverty and crime is inconclusive.
and that is Darapti....and then I just ran out of steam and thought maybe I'm on the wrong path.

THIS IS HARD!!! and I'm worried since I'll have to teach it soon.

Sorry to complain...

maria

[martin]

Maria,

Hi Martin,
Thanks for responding.
I'm reading/skimming/taking notes and looking at the exercises you propose.
I guess you have an answer key that shows how to rewrite the bible passages in exercise 18. They are hard and I got bogged down in just the first one...especially when you suggest contraposition. Then I turned the page and looked at exercise 19 (p. 46) Here's a Q.: Do I take the statements in Exercise 4, 8 and 15 and assume each could be the conclusion in a syllogism and then using those acronyms (disamis..etc) work backwards and come up with the 2 premises? and then I reduce them to the First Figure?......

Yes. I have an extended section on how to do this in the DVD, but you're right on target.

And if this book is going to be used for 1st semester 8th grade, how well does your suggested writing/analysis assignment at bottom of page 46 work? I'm thinking of a short letter to the editor? and then we would pick out of the writer's conclusions and see if we can find his/her 2 premises? This sounds like a great, but super challenging exercise. What grades do you teach with your books?

We teach them in 9th and 10th grades at Highlands simply because we can do both Books I and II in a year--that just saves time in a pretty crowded curriculum. But taking Book II in a year in the 8th grade should be doable.

Also, the logic curriculum is really not a writing curriculum and the writing and research exercises are really just suggestions, but I like your suggestion of the letter to the editor. Maybe we'll include that in a later edition.

By the way, I wrote a check for a book I purchased from you at the conference a few weeks ago and it hasn't cleared yet....

Yes, I believe that was an ISI book. Those checks will be deposited next week.

Thanks.

[martin]

Maria,

Take the 2nd one about the Constitution. Here's how I rewrote it and provided the missing major premise.

All documents which prohibit school prayer are documents which should be outlawed.
All docs like the Const. are docs which don't prohibit sch. prayer
Thus, all school prayer is a behavior which should not be prohibited.

I then said that was A,A,A or Barbara and therefore valid

You still have too many terms here. The only way to rephrase this to be valid is as follows:

School prayer is not a thing that is prohibited by the Constitution.
All things that should be outlawed are things that are prohibited by the Constitution.
No thing that should be outlawed is school prayer.

But even then, it is not sound (nor is it particularly good English), since the 2nd premise is false.


The next one I tried before I gave up for the day was the one that starts, All proof must be convincing.

Here's what I did with that.

A - All effects of poverty on crime are inconclusive
A - All proof is argument that must be convincing
I - Thus, some proof for the link between poverty and crime is inconclusive.
and that is Darapti....and then I just ran out of steam and thought maybe I'm on the wrong path.

You need to remember that statements of the form "All S are not P" are really E statements (No S is P) in disguise. Your first premise is really a subtle E statement: No effect of poverty is convincing. Unless you have a structural reason to state them as an A statement, make them what they really are. That keeps your terms clear.

Also, you need to work with the statements that are given to you. Here's the original:

All proof must be convincing
Therefore, there is no proof that poverty causes crime.

I can see that my minor term is "proof", and my major term is "a thing that establishes that poverty causes crime". We see that the one premise given to us is the minor premise, since it contains the minor term. We also see that the minor premise is an A statement, and the conclusion an E statement. We also see that the term "a convincing thing" must be the middle term since the other term in the minor premise is the minor term. Therefore, this argument must be either a 2nd figure prae-prae, or a 1st figure sub-prae, since they are the only ones that have a middle term in the predicate of the minor premise.

So then we go to see if there are any arguments of the form _AE in the 1st or 2nd figures. We see that the only candidates are CELARENT in the first figure, or CESARE in the 2nd, since they are the only ones with an A minor premise and and E in the conclusion.

Let's try CELARENT 1st. If it is a CELARENT, then the middle term, "a convincing thing" must be the subject of the missing major premise, since CELARENT is 1st figure, and all 1st figures are sub-prae. And we know the predicate must be the major term "a thing that establishes that poverty causes crime". Furthermore, we know it should be an E statement. So here goes:

No convincing things are things that establish that poverty causes crime
All proof must be convincing
Therefore, there is no proof that poverty causes crime (or, alternatively, No proof is a thing that establishes that poverty causes crime)

There we go. It might work in CESARE too, but once we've found a valid form, we can go with it.

You just have to back into these knowing the rules for validity and and your mnemonic verse.

THIS IS HARD!!! and I'm worried since I'll have to teach it soon.


Yes, there are part that are hard, but they get easier the more you work with them. Just remember that if there is a particular exercise you don't understand, just skip it for this year. Next year, try it again, and will make more sense because you will know more. It's not like your students will complain that you are giving them less work!

You don't have to do every exercise in the book. If there is something you don't understand, just ask me, and if you still don't understand, skip it.

I hope that helps.

[Maria57]

Hi Martin - I'm going to go over everything you suggested, plus start back with book one and reread so this material will sink in.
I'm sure I'll be back to you with more questions.

Do your DVDs help and go into more detail? or are they you reading verbatim your book.

Thank you SO much.

Maria Cochrane