On the subject and method of formal logic

This lecture examines the widespread definition of formal logic as the science of forms and laws of thinking. The content of this definition is often misinterpreted, since thinking is understood as a psychological process, and forms and laws are understood as the normative basis for the application of subjective cognitive abilities. Logic, however, is not interesting in the subjective psychological process but is interesting in the objective characteristics of thinking as such. These characteristics are peculiar not only to members of the human species, but also to any process, such as artificial intelligence, which can be likened to thinking. In this respect, logic considers not thinking as subjective process, it considers the objective result of thinking, and knowledge in the broadest sense is such a result. Logic is interested in thinking insofar as thinking is objectified in knowledge. Any knowledge includes content (and content is understood as a set of heterogeneous information that distinguishes one knowledge from another) and form, which is the same for all knowledge. Form gives the content a systematic unity. The source of the content of knowledge is experience understood in the broadest sense, and the source of the forms of knowledge representation is the thinking process. We can say that thinking gives systematic unity to the content received from experience. Forms of knowledge representation through the method of formalization can be separated from the content and investigated in themselves. These forms are the objective side of thinking. They are the subject of formal logic and are independent from subjective peculiarities of thought processes. If we use a computer metaphor, we can say that logical forms express an objective computational procedure that allows us to derive other knowledge from existing knowledge. Such algorithmic procedures have their own normative base that is a set of laws of logic. The laws of logic are contentless and formal rather than factual (i.e., related to experience). By virtue of its formality the normative basis of logic is applicable to any knowledge irrespective to difference of contents. That is why logic is universal. We can say that logic prescribes how thinking should relate to itself. A normative framework of this kind establishes general rules for the distribution of truth values and general rules for logical inference.

thinking, knowledge, psychologism, objectivism, formal logic, logical form, logical law, normative basis of logic