Formal Logic

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>During the summer semester I plan to take Intro to Formal Logic. Can someone please describe to me the subject because I don’t understand why it falls under the Quantitative Methods category; I thought it would be a social science.</p>

2

<p>Formal logic can be viewed either as a branch of mathematics, or a branch of philosophy. Off the top of my head, I’d describe it as a set of tools for determining the truth value of one statement in relationship to the truth value of one or more other statements.</p>

<p>“All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.”</p>

<p>If the first sentence is true, and the second sentence is true, the third is also true. This is the classic syllogism.</p>

<p>“All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a man.”</p>

<p>If the first sentence is true, and the second sentence is true, can we prove whether the third sentence is true as a consequence of the first two?</p>

<p>Consider this your first homework assignment.</p>

3

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<p>You should change that to:</p>

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4

<p>No because Socrates could be a plant, an animal, or a woman. Unless of course the name Socrates is in the masculine form. Then again no, Socrates anything other than a human male.</p>

5

<p>would a formal logic class immensly help on the LSAT?</p>

6

<p>“No because Socrates could be a plant, an animal, or a woman. Unless of course the name Socrates is in the masculine form. Then again no, Socrates anything other than a human male.”</p>

<p>You might be getting at it…but the “formal” way of explaining it is that the set of mortals contains all men as well as other living beings. So yes, if Socrates is in the set of mortals, he is not necessarily in the set of men.</p>

7

<p>fatjoe-
Yes, a logic class will definitely help on the LSAT. My logic professor really gears parts of his class and book toward the LSAT. In fact, over 70% of the class last semester were pre-law kids.</p>