Richard Whately Quotes

Aristotle can be regarded as the father of logic. But his logic is too scholastic, full of subtleties, and fundamentally has not been of much value to the human understanding. It is a dialectic and an organon for the art of disputation.

Logic is the art of making truth prevail.

Logic is the art of convincing us some truth.

Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic.

Logic is an old subject, and since 1879 it has been a great one.

Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

We may either proceed from principles to facts, or recede from facts to principles.

Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge.

Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use.

The one [the logician] studies the science of drawing conclusions, the other [the mathematician] the science which draws necessary conclusions.

The skilful disputant well knows that he never has his enemy at more advantage than when, by allowing the premises, he shows him arguing wrong from his own principles.

The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.

The art of discovering the causes of phenomena, or true hypotheses, is like the art of deciphering, in which an ingenious conjecture often greatly shortens the road.

Logic is the science of the laws of thought, as thought,--that is of the necessary conditions to which thought considered in itself is a subject.

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.

The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.

I like science and mathematics. When I say mathematics, I don't mean algebra or math in that sense, but the mathematics of things.

If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, then it is science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively, then it is art.

Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.

Even things that are true can be proved.

It must be granted that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a petitio principii. When we say, All men are mortal Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal; it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the syllogistic theory, that the proposition, Socrates is mortal.

When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book.