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From: pml@oasis.icl.co.uk (Patricia Lynch)
Subject: Re: On Going Beyond The Information Given & 'Cognition'
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Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 08:43:55 GMT
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Neil Rickert (rickert@cs.niu.edu) wrote:
: 
: >the possibility of teaching and practicing formal reasoning
: 
: Perhaps I am too much of a cynic, but I don't see any evidence that
: it is possible.  Children seem to learn their reasoning skills too
: early in life for the classroom to play a critical role.  I haven't
: come across any examples of people who went into a logic class unable
: to reason logically, and came out transformed into a logical
: thinker.  I suppose you could say that the parents teach reasoning,
: but they don't consciously teach it.
: 
: Of course my comment is about informal reasoning, and your question
: is about formal reasoning.  My suggestion is that you should never
: trust a human to do something as unnatural as formal reasoning.  Use
: a computer.  Human reasoning is always informal, although logicians
: and mathematicians sometimes attempt (with a limited degree of
: success) to simulate formal reasoning.
: 

I have been following this discussion with interest (and difficulty). I am
unqualified to comment on most of it, but do have personal experience in
this particular area. I took a logic class (as in was a pupil, not a teacher!)
in my first year at university, and have appreciated the benefits ever
since. I don't think I was "unable to reason logically" before attending the
class - I managed to pass GCSE A-Level Maths, chemistry and Physics, all
of which required reasoning from observation/description through 
application of method to results. The logic class helped me to appreciate
the logical errors which the uneducated reasoner makes unwittingly. I
would concur with the argument that common rules of good reasoning can
be taught, and that it would be useful to teach them. 

I will now drop back to observing and trying to understand more than half
of what the main parties are saying.

Regards, Tricia Lynch


