Continuing the Discussion of the False Sacrament: Truth and Logic

I want to start with a personal note and some housekeeping.  I hate editing and revising, mostly because I cringe when I read my own stuff.  I suppose it's only fair to assume that anyone else would, too.  If I come off as pretentious or stilted in my style, it's mostly because I lack either the ability or the courage to express myself in plain English.  As I've stated before, however, I'm currently prioritizing the fact of expression over its clarity, as silence has become burdensome.  I'm also a person quite responsive to social tone and feedback; if I ever receive comments on this blog, my style will probably shift to suit the taste of those initial readers.  Having an audience changes everything, and as of this writing, I have none.

This is also why there hasn't been a post in a while.  It's hard to write consistently without knowing someone will read it.  My own internal motivation is how crazy my thoughts are driving me, so if my life is going well, or busily enough to allow little time for introspection, I'm likely going to remain silent for a while.  But, I find myself at home, alone, in the quiet, so I might as well pick up from where I left off.

I wanted to return to an incident mentioned in my last post, where a debate opponent asserted that "Logic was a form of White Oppression."  The evidence he cited in favor of this point gave me no illumination as to how any sane person could come to that conclusion, and it's fair to say that I didn't handle it well at the time.  For a while, I just filed it under "crazy leftie nonsense" in my mind, one of the things I would surely never encounter again once I left the University Campus.

That has not proven to be the case.  While I haven't met anyone who expressed that to me IRL, this opinion, and others of its ilk, isn't hard to find on social media.  I don't want to speculate as to the sincerity of those who express it; whether they genuinely believe it, or just say it tactically to win an argument, doesn't seem to make all that much of a difference in the productivity of any conversation.

But one of the few positive legacies my time in formal competitive debate has left me is the mentality that comes with switching sides.  Since for every competitive season, teams had to take both Affirmative and Negative positions for the year's Topic/Resolution, it behooved debaters to be able to think how they themselves would argue an opponents point, since that which was used against you in one round could potentially be used by you in the next.

So, I asked myself, suppose I had to argue that Logic was best understood as a tool of power rather than a tool of Truth-finding.  Could I make a coherent case?  Surprisingly enough, yes.

First, the theoretical framework.  The General Purpose of a Thing is best defined by what every instance of that Thing is used for, as opposed to a Special Purpose, for which only a subset of Things is used for.  For example, Tongues.  Human beings use their tongues for speaking.  All creatures with tongues use them to detect flavors and poisons.  Because some tongues are not used for speaking, the General Purpose of Tongues is Not Speaking.

The sharper among you may recognize that I have informally stated a syllogism.  In more formal terms:
The General Purpose of a Thing is What Every Instance of a Thing is Used For.
Some Tongues are not used for Speaking.
Therefore, The General Purpose of Tongues is not Speaking.

Having given that syllogism, allow me to present another:
The General Purpose of a Thing is What Every Instance of a Thing is Used For.
Some Logic is not used to Find Truth.
Therefore, the General Purpose of Logic is Not to Find Truth.

Irony of using Logic to discredit Logic aside, while the syllogism is formally valid, is it true?  The disputable point is the second (minor) premise, but I would say that it has a substantial weight of evidence behind it.  In Plato's account of those he called the Sophists, he recounted a school of thought that used and refined formal logic, not for the pursuit of truth, but for the purposes of rhetoric and persuasion.  They would, according to Plato, offer to teach whatever citizen/politician would pay them how to make whatever points that citizen/politician would want to make.  Plato would then go on to make the point that he was appropriating their methods in the pursuit of Philosophy, just as human beings appropriated their poison-sensor for the purposes of speech.

Now, if there is any authority on the subject of Logic, surely it was the Classical Greeks.  Plato's account not only supports the minor premise of the Syllogism cited above, but also gives a clue as to what Logic's General Purpose is.  According to him, it originated as a tool of persuasion, and in a democratic or deliberative system of government, such as Classical Athens, to be able to persuade is to be able to wield power.  Thus, Logic originated as a rhetorical device for the pursuit of political power.

The idea that Logic is a Tool of Power allows us to strip the term of unwarranted high connotations, and to fully account for all instances of use.  Obviously, a liar can be logical, and it is to his benefit if his logic is sound.  Almost all instances of logic are used in context of one person communicating their ideas to another, with the hopes of implanting their ideas into the others head.  Logic functions as a method of transferal that allows the recipient to retain "face" during a concession, since they can claim that they are not submitting to their opponent, merely acknowledging the necessary conclusion from a given set of facts.  It is a subtle social game, but one can see its utility; it allows an "out" for a losing side in a discussion without either needing to resort to violence to confirm their victory, or prevent their defeat from being total.  As a social technology, its a marvel.   As a Sacrament of Truth, it is deceptive.