ilLogicaLinguistics

This is a quick-vent and a diagram of a problem I am seeing a lot in my travels. The problem is that people do not have a decent understanding of logic or how it works. This has come into play countless times in the past few years and is very hard to help people with.

I think the issue can be understood better by looking at language, any language. While it is true that people can learn to speak language by being around a language in use any person can recognize that their are many tiers within any language. Those who are uneducated in a language do not have as vast a vocabulary and do not understand what constitutes correct sentence structure. Those who study and practice the language will certainly have a better ability to apply the rules of grammar and will also know a larger vocabulary. This is how logic works as well...

What frustrates me is that people 'realize' that language is learned in tiers and yet not mastered by living within it, but they can't seem to understand how logic functions in the same way. I suppose that the answer is simple enough; they do not yet have the logical where-with-all to understand the logical contradiction itself. Instead an assumption is made in place of logic that what a person picks up along life’s journeys is what true logic is. Like a person with no type of real training in their chosen language might think that they speak properly and understand al that is necessary in that language.

Perhaps then, because of the circular nature of the problem, their poor logic is almost always followed by application of further poor logic; one overlapping the next. I can't count the number of times I've been accused of committing logical fallacies by people who are incapable of recognizing their own logic mistakes. On average the conversation dies because they don't understand what I am saying about logic or why it is important. Half the time they never conclude, even with help, that a fallacy has been committed on their part.

*If we were talking about Football or Pizza Shop or Cartoons logic wouldn't be as important, but in talking about the big questions it is of the utmost importance if one wants to find the truth.