Wesleyan University Philippines

Law School
Cabanatuan City

Assignment in
Legal Technique and Logic

Submitted by:
Jayson Paolo DM. Diaz

Submitted to:
Dr. Galo Estonilo

History of Logic
The history of logic is the study of the development of the science of
valid inference (logic). Formal logic was developed in ancient times
in China, India, and Greece. Greek logic, particularly Aristotelian logic,
found wide application and acceptance in science and mathematics.
Aristotle's
logic
was
further
developed
by Islamic and Christian philosophers in the Middle Ages, reaching a
high point in the mid-fourteenth century. The period between the
fourteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century was
largely one of decline and neglect, and is regarded as barren by at
least one historian of logic.
Logic was revived in the mid-nineteenth century, at the beginning of a
revolutionary period when the subject developed into a rigorous and
formalistic discipline whose exemplar was the exact method of proof
used in mathematics. The development of the modern "symbolic" or
"mathematical" logic during this period is the most significant in the
two-thousand-year history of logic, and is arguably one of the most
important and remarkable events in human intellectual history.
Progress in mathematical logic in the first few decades of the twentieth
century, particularly arising from the work of Gdel and Tarski, had a
significant impact on analytic philosophy and philosophical logic,
particularly from the 1950s onwards, in subjects such as modal
logic, temporal logic, deontic logic, and relevance logic.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_logic

Role of Logic in Law

The original use of logic in law was for representation of law in a clear
and unambiguous manner. In these approaches, reasoning was seen as
simply deduction
from the resulting formal representation. This conception, adopting a
narrow, Fregean, view of logic, sees reasoning as following from
representation: once the meaning of the concepts has been formalised,
the notion of valid inference follows automatically, so that the main
task is to develop sound and complete proof procedures. In other
words: representing the law comes first; the reasoning follows from it
and can be done within a traditional conception of logic.

Source : http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/introcorner.pdf

Induction and Deduction

Deduction: In the process of deduction, you begin with some
statements, called 'premises', that are assumed to be true, you then
determine what else would have to be true if the premises are true. For
example, you can begin by assuming that God exists, and is good, and
then determine what would logically follow from such an assumption.
You can begin by assuming that if you think, then you must exist, and
work from there. In mathematics, you can also start will a premise and
begin to prove other equations or other premises. With deduction you
can provide absolute proof of your conclusions, given that your
premises are correct. The premises themselves, however, remain
unproven and unprovable, they must be accepted on face value, or by
faith, or for the purpose of exploration.
Induction: In the process of induction, you begin with some data, and
then determine what general conclusion(s) can logically be derived
from those data. In other words, you determine what theory or theories
could explain the data. For example, you note that the probability of
becoming schizophrenic is greatly increased if at least one parent is
schizophrenic, and from that you conclude that schizophrenia may be
inherited. That is certainly a reasonable hypothesis given the data.
However, induction does not prove that the theory is correct. There are
often alternative theories that are also supported by the data. For
example, the behavior of the schizophrenic parent may cause the child
to be schizophrenic, not the genes. What is important in induction is
that the theory does indeed offer a logical explanation of the data. To
conclude that the parents have no effect on the schizophrenia of the
children is not supportable given the data, and would not be a logical
conclusion.
Source : http://ocw.usu.edu/English/introduction-to-writing-academicprose/inductive-and-deductive-reasoning.html

Propositions and Sentences

Ideas are expressed in words which we
way, judgments are
expressed
call propositions or statements.

call terms. In the same

in sentences we

Propositions are distinct from sentences. For one thing, proposition,

which
is
an
expression
of
judgment,
is
made
up
of concepts while sentence is made up ofwords. In a declarative
sentence, the proposition is not the sentence itself, but that which is
expressed or asserted, which is either true or false. In other words, a
sentence
is not the
bearer
of
truth
or
falsehood.
These
are properties of propositions.
Moreover, while all propositions necessarily contain assertion, not all
sentences convey judgment. Some sentences do not assert or deny
anything, hence can not be said to be either true or
false. Interrogative sentences, for instance, are used to ask questions.
Through imperative sentences, we issue commands. We express joy,
surprise,
or
some
other
emotions
through exclamatory sentences.Optative sentences express wishes or
desires. These types of sentences, plus those which take the form of
a request, proposal, prayer, greeting, etc. do not explicitly state that
something is or is not. Clearly then, all statements are sentences but
not all sentences are propositions.
There is only one kind of sentence that is of prime importance in Logic
because it is through this form that judgments are plainly expressed. It
is
calleddeclarative
sentence (e.g.
Libya
is
a
country).
Nonetheless, declarative sentence is still not synonymous with
proposition because proposition, technically speaking, refers to the
judgment expressed in a declarative sentence.
There
are
three
basic
types
of
propositions: categorical
propositions which declare something about two terms; hypothetical
propositions which express conditions; and modal propositions which
state the mode in which a term agrees or disagrees with another term.
Sources : http://ourhappyschool.com/philosophy/judgment-propositionand-sentence-lecture-logic

Arguments and Conclusions, Premises

Premises: Premises are assertions that, when joined together, will
lead the reader to the conclusion. The most important part of any
premise is that your audience will accept it as true. If your audience
rejects even one of your premises, they will likely also reject your
conclusion, and your entire argument will fall apart. When constructing
premises, it is essential to consider your audience. When you know

your audience, you also know which assertions they will accept and
which they will
question.
Conclusions: A conclusion can be any assertion that your readers will
not readily accept. A conclusion must have at least one premise
supporting it. The thesis of an argumentative paper will always contain
a conclusion, with the main points or body paragraphs acting as
premises that lead the reader to accept it.
Source
http://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Argumentation.pdf
an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or
give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_(disambiguation)

Definition of Philosophy
Philosophy is thinking really hard about the most important questions
and trying to bring analytic clarity both to the questions and the
answers. Marilyn Adams
Source : Philosophy Bites, Jan. 1, 2010, David Edmonds and Nigel
Warburton