Study at the Lyceum
Logic
Details on Logic courses offered at the Lyceum Institute—an integral part of our Trivium program, open to all members, and an essential study for any keen habits of mind.
The Art of Argumentation
The Order of Thinking
What is logic, and why should one study it? One must first and foremost recognize that logic—as traditionally conceived and taught—exists alongside and inseparably from the other arts of the Trivium, Grammar and Rhetoric. But where the other two arts concern themselves more explicitly with the external signs of thinking, logic concerns itself primarily with the rectitude of thinking itself. It has therefore been considered in two ways, historically: as both an art and as a science. If we are to use it successfully as an art—that is, as a kind of know-how for producing determinate results in accordance with a certain plan or understanding of our own constitution—we are greatly aided by study of it as a science.
For logic can be conceived as the study of how we obtain the λόγος, the logos: best understood as the intelligibility of the real: not as it resides in the intellect, but as transcending both the intellect by which it is grasped and the cognition-independent actuality from which it is grasped, and irreducible to either. In studying logic, then, we study how we can grasp the intelligible real, in thought and in the thing, in the mind and out in the world, and in the possible connections between the two.
Of course, this demands that we understand what thought is, and how it happens; and most principally, the role of inference in the progression of thought from term to proposition, from proposition to argument, and back again. Such will be at the core of our study, which is available to all Lyceum Institute members.
Art of Logic I
Basics of Argumentation
The first course, Basics of Argumentation, will focus on terms, propositions, and basic forms of categorical and hypothetical syllogisms. Here our principal goal is to establish the habits of discerning logical structure, principally as it appears in real prose argumentation. While logic often is taught as though one could strip away all the nuance of natural language, the approach taken here emphasizes the practice of questioning and discerning the true significance of usual patterns of speech. Though artificial methods of symbolization and analysis of operations have a utility (and a place, even, to a small extent, in this course), as an integral part of the Trivium we treat logic as concerned with the full breadth of human language.
Method and Approach
The Art of Logic I: Basics of Argumentation course is intended to take 10 weeks of study, with one brief recorded lecture and one assignment of praxis each week. Each lecture is structured around a reading from Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric & Reasoning by R.E. Houser. The praxis assignments—constituted primarily by problem sets included in the primary reading for each week—allow one to bring concrete habituation to the study of these abstract concepts.
Readings
There is one primary text for the Art of Logic I: Basics of Argumentation course: Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric & Reasoning, by R.E. Houser (Catholic University of America Press, 2020). Secondary recommended texts include but are not limited to: I.M. Bochenski’s History of Formal Logic; Scott Sullivan’s Introduction to Traditional Logic; Jacques Maritain’s Formal Logic; John of St. Thomas’ Outlines of Formal Logic.
Art of Logic II
Advanced Argumentation
The second course, Advanced Argumentation turns its attention to more complex relations of propositions (including modality), enthymemes and epicheiremas, extended argumentation of both categorical and hypothetical kinds, and the different modes of inference. Here, we focus primarily on deep improvements to the dexterity of our logical analysis and prepare ourselves for examining and producing more complicated arguments ourselves. By producing habits of clear thinking, we enable ourselves to dissect falsehoods and articulate complex truths to produce logical conviction in ourselves and in others.
Method and Approach
Continued focus is placed in this course on praxis: working through complex argumentations presented in Houser’s Logic as a Liberal Art by procedures of analysis, structured thinking, evaluation, and inference. Additionally, this course adds dimensions of historical development and philosophical inquiry.
Readings
We retain the same primary text for the Art of Logic II: Advanced Argumentation course: Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric & Reasoning, by R.E. Houser (Catholic University of America Press, 2020). Secondary readings from John Poinsot and other figures will be provided by the instructor in PDF. Secondary recommended texts include but are not limited to: the Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, John Poinsot’s Outlines of Formal Logic, Jacques Maritain’s Introduction to Formal Logic, the works of C.S. Peirce, and The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages.
Excerpt from Logic as a Liberal Art
“A Note to the Student”
[The approach this book takes] is to study logic in its “natural” setting, much as a scientist might study tropic plants or polar bears in their natural habitats. The natural habitat of logic is the verbal and written language of ordinary human discourse, including the high-level verbal discourse that occurs in university courses. The man who invented this approach to logic was Aristotle, who write the first textbooks in logic in the fourth century B.C. The main reason why this approach is preferable for most people is that it avoids the two problems that have plagued the teaching of symbolic logic during its heyday and up to the present. First, the verbal approach is clearly preferable for those who have math phobia. The problems used in the verbal approach are all set out in ordinary language, language that often contains clues that help us to understand the logic of verbal discourse. Such clues, of course, are missing from the mathematical symbols used in symbolic logic. Second, the very study of logic has the advantage of avoiding the problem of needing to translate back and forth between abstract logical symbols and the more concrete verbal symbols we call words. While mathematical symbols do on occasion help us see logical relations, and we will employ some elementary symbols from time to time in this book, by using ordinary or “natural” language to study logic we can avoid the large headache of translating form the language of symbols to ordinary language, and then back again. So we content ourselves with the smaller but real headaches involved in searching out the logic contained within verbal or “natural” language.
The verbal approach to logic has yet another advantage, one not very often admitted even by its proponents. We can see this one by looking at history. The verbal approach to logic and the discipline of rhetoric were invented by the Greeks, those early masters of the spoken and written word. In fact, rhetoric was invented slightly before Aristotle invented logic. Aristotle conceived of rhetoric and logic as correlative, noting that “rhetoric is the analogue of dialectic,” a subfield of logic… If you don’t pursue the verbal form of logic, then you probably won’t see the importance of rhetoric, dialectic’s twin.
