Quote:
Originally Posted by Rotaerk
Well, absolutes only exist when you have axioms. "Logic reliably produces absolute truths from the hypothetical absolute truth of another statement" is an axiom in and of itself. You can't know anything to be absolutely true *except* in hypothetical worlds. However, all knowledge exists within hypothetical worlds. Without any assumptions, there is no knowledge.
Given A and A->B are absolutely true, it is absolutely true that B is true, if and only if this logical axiom holds true: for all X and Y, X and X->Y are absolutely true implies that Y is absolutely true.
If that rule does not hold true in the world, then the logic is useless. Logical rules are, themselves, axioms.
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Formal logic was invented in Classical Greece and integrated into a `system' of thought by Aristotle. It was, for him, a tool for finding truth, but it didn't keep him from making the most profound errors of thought. Nearly every argument and conclusion he made about physical science was wrong and misguided. Any tool can be misused, and in these pre-scientific days logic was misused repeatedly.So what went wrong? Aristotle understood that logic can be used to deduce true consequences from true premises. His error was his failure to realize that we have no absolutely true premises, except ones we define to be true (such as 2+2=4).