Logic assignment

Laws of thought

Submitted to:
Miss Fozia Akram

Submitted by:
Mashhad Javaid
 Law of thought
The laws of thought are fundamental logical
rules, with a long tradition in the history of
philosophy, which collectively prescribe how a
rational mind must think. To break any of the
laws of t hought (for example, to contradict
oneself) is to be irrational.
 LAW OF THOUGHT
Different person gave different ideas about this…
According to Plato:
Socrates, in a Platonic dialogue, described three
principles derived from introspection. He asserted that these
three axioms contradict each other. First , that nothing can
become greater or less, either in number or magnitude, while
remaining equal to itself … Secondly, that without addition or
subtraction there is no increase or diminution of anything, but
only equality … Thirdly, that what was not before cannot be
afterwards, without becoming and having become.
According to Aristotle:
The three classic laws of thought are
attributed to Aristotle and were foundational in scholastic logic.
They are:
1) law of identity
2) law of non-contradiction
3) law of excluded middle
 law of identity
In logic, the law of identity states that an object is
always the same as itself (A ≡ A). Any reflexive relation
upholds the law of identity; when discussing equality,
the fact that "A is A" is a tautology.
In philosophy, the law is often attributed to Aristotle,
although it I s also claimed that Aristotle never gave this
law. However, Aristotle did write, "Now 'why a thing is
itself' is a meaningless inquiry (for -- to give meaning
to the question 'why' – the fac t or the existence of the
thing must already be evident-e . g. that the moon is
eclipsed- but the fact that a thing is itself is the single
reason and the single cause to be given in answer to
all such questions as why the man is man, or the
musician musical', unless one were to answer 'because
each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one
just meant this ' this, however, is common to all things
and is a short and easy way with the question.
law of non-contradiction
In logic , the law of non-contradiction (also called the law of
contradiction) states, in the words of Aristotle, that "one cannot
say of something that it is and that it is not in the same
respect and at the same time".
According to Allan Bloom, "the earliest-known explicit
statement of the principle of contradiction – the premise of
philosophy and the foundation of rational discourse" – is given
in Plato's Politeia (The Republic) where the character Socrates
states, "It's plain that the same thing won't be willing at the
same time to do or suffer opposites with respect to the same
part and in relation to the same thing.
According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, this is a
fundamental principle of thought, which can only be proved by
showing the opponents of the principle to be themselves
committed to it. Thus, Aristotle considers the case of someone
who denies the principle in the strong way – holding that
every proposition is both true and false – and asks why such a
person goes on the Megara road to get to Megara from
Athens, since on such a person's view it is just as true that
any other road would get him to Megara.
 Law of excluded middle
In logic, the law of the excluded middle states that the
formula "P ∨ ¬P" ("P or not-P") can be deduced from the
calculus under investigation. It is one of the defining
properties of classical systems of logic. However, some systems
of logic have different but analogous laws, while others reject
the law of excluded middle entirely.
The law of excluded middle is
related to the principle of bivalence, which is a semantic
principle instead of a law that can be deduced from the
calculus.
For some finite n-valued logics, there is an analogous law
called the law of excluded n+1th. If negation is cyclic and '∨'
is a "max operator", then the law can be expressed in the
object language by (P ∨ ~P ∨ ~~P ∨ ... ∨ ~...~P), where '~...~'
represents n-1 negation signs and '∨ ... ∨' n-1 disjunction signs.
It is easy to check that the sentence must receive at least
one of the n truth values (and not a value that is not one of
the n).In rhetoric, the law of excluded middle is readily
misapplied, leading to the formal fallacy of the excluded
middle, also known as a false dilemma.
 According to Leibniz
Leibniz formulated two additional principles,
either or both of which may sometimes be
counted as a law of thought.
1) Principle of sufficient reason
2) Identity of indiscernible
Principle of sufficient reason
The principle of sufficient reason
states that anything that
happens does so for a definite
reason. It is usually attributed
to Gottfried Leibniz..
Identity of indiscernibles
The identity of indiscernibles is an ontological principle
which states that two or more objects or entities are
identical (are one and the same entity), if and only if
they have all their properties in common. That is,
entities x and y are identical if and only if any
predicate possessed by x is also possessed by y and
vice versa.
The principle is also known as Leibniz's law since a
form of it is attributed to the German philosopher
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. I t is one of his two great
metaphysical principles, the other being the principle of
sufficient reason. Both are famously used in his
arguments with Newton and Clarke in the Leibniz-
Clarke correspondence.
Associated with this principle is also the question as
to whether it is a logical principle, or merely an
empirical principle.