Real Life Application

[momothevine]

Mr. Cothran,

I am a homeschooling mom that is teaching a highschool Logic co-op class using your book Traditional Logic Book I. We are enjoying the brain exercise very much!

I would like to relate this material to some real life situations and was wondering if you had any suggestions? When, how, and why do we need to know the equivalent and opposite relationships of judgements, for example. I know logical processes are used in many areas - our legal system, our government, the scientific method, apologetics, debate, etc. - but I was looking for some concrete exercises I could assign to my students that would require them to use the information they are learning to solve some real-world problems.

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for writing this curriculum.

By His grace,
Beth Arnold

[momothevine]

Actually, I didn't intend to limit this conversation...if anyone has some ideas for practical application, I would love to hear them! :) Is anyone else leading a group of students? Have any great ideas to share? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Beth

[martin]

Beth,

I know it seems like mental gymnastics right now, but when you get to the 2nd book, you will have to review these chapters when you get into the process of manipulating syllogisms for purpose of reduction (a more advanced form of mental gymnastics) and backing in to the missing premises in shortened argument forms called enthymemes (very practical when you are in debate).

But, still, most of logic is mental gymnastics, simply because it is training your brain to move in certain patterns, patterns that will have be second nature when you find yourself in an argument.

It is a little like scales in music, or katas (forms) in martial arts, or calisthenics in athletics. If you want to play a real song, or engage in actual combat, or play the game, you need to take a look at rhetoric, where the rubber really meets the road.

[critch]

I think Martin is right about Traditional Logic being primarily formative, especially with most of the earlier material. As you get into the Judgment and Inference sections, however, more practical examples may start to jump out at you. Attached are some exercises I did with my students during the section on the laws of opposition that may be of interest. Most of the challenge comes from seeing strictly formal language embedded in ordinary speech. (The process of decoding ordinary language is covered in the second book, but I have already covered some it in an attempt to keep my students interested.)

Charlie Ritch
Westminster School
Birmingham, AL

[momothevine]

Mr. Cothran, thank you so much for your response. We are all certainly getting a brain workout! Looking forward to the next book - and now that we know the goal, we have hope!

And thank you, Mr. Ritch, for your class examples! I will definitely be using these ideas with my class. Any others you care to share would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and by the way, you don't happen to have an answer key you would wish to email to a certain bparnold@earthlink.net would you? ;)

Thanks again!
Beth

[critch]

Sorry, no answer key. I usually don't need one since I make the tests. But I do trip myself up from time to time. :)