How to judge right and wrong in logic anew

Author: Yin Haiguang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Yin Haiguang was one of the most influential intellectuals in Taiwan during the 1950s and 1960s and held an important position in the intellectual history of 20th-century China. He inherited the spirit and tradition of the May Fourth Movement and dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth. He called himself the "son of May Fourth" and was considered a "late May Fourth figure." During his 20 years in Taiwan, he resisted authoritarian rule, pursued democracy and freedom, and worked tirelessly for intellectual enlightenment, becoming a banner of the intellectual community at the time and a spiritual mentor for young Taiwanese students in the 1950s and 1960s. This book can be said to be partly a product of the author's experience in teaching logic. Over the years, general readers have found logic dull and uninteresting. To address this problem, 13 years ago, the author tried to write an introductory book on logic in a dialogic form. Compared to the sales figures of similar books, it has been proven that the author's approach of using a dialogic form to write such books meets the general needs. After coming to Taiwan, the author continued to teach this course, but the book had already gone out of print. To meet the needs of teaching, the author wrote another manual in a dialogic form, which was mimeographed by the school and had some improvements over the previous book. After the manual was printed, it was shelved for another four years, and the author did not use it again. In these four years, students repeatedly asked the author to recommend logic reading materials, and such facts made the author feel it was necessary to revise the manual into a book. However, when reviewing the manual last year, the author realized that many things that should have been included were not, and that many parts were simply outdated. So, the author undertook a major revision. To be serious, this book is the author's third attempt to write such a book in a dialogic form. According to British and American standards, this book contains all the topics that should be included in basic logic curricula in Britain and America, at least most of them. However, in the treatment of these topics, the author still made some different weightings. The author's weightings are based on the following conditions: 1. Emphasizing applications; 2. Emphasizing rigorous logical training; 3. Introducing new perspectives; 4. Correcting errors in traditional logic; 5. Highlighting the author's contributions when necessary. Based on these five conditions, in addition to the factors incorporated to suit the style and objectives of this book, the author has elaborated more on some existing logical topics and less on others in this book. For topics that some people consider logical but are not part of modern logic, the author does not cover them at all. Where the author believes it would be a waste of the reader's time, he is reluctant to write more; where he believes the reader should focus on, he is not afraid to spend more ink. In some places, there are still many logic textbooks that continue to repeat the grammatical, psychological, epistemological, and even some components of ethics and metaphysics that are mixed in traditional logic. How much help does this provide in improving the reader's reasoning ability? When selecting logic textbooks, we should not overlook the significant developments in logic in the West and America over the past few decades.
III. Since this book is based on the author's experience in teaching logic, almost every question and turn in the dialogue reflects common issues encountered by beginners in logic. In the learning process, if the problems that most people are likely to encounter are not too different, the author hopes this book will be helpful to those who wish to self-study logic, just as much as to those who are studying basic logic at university. Writing a logic book in this style is particularly challenging for the author. Of course, if one person finds it difficult while many others benefit from it, that is a worthwhile endeavor. However, what the author hopes for is that readers can train rigorous reasoning skills under relatively less effort, even reaching the grand hall of logic. Therefore, when effort is unavoidable, the reader must also put in the effort. To master any science, one must inevitably delve into the details, otherwise, we will always remain at the superficial level. After delving into the details, if we gain some intellectual insight, it means we have reached a point of progress. Yin Haiguang