StSapphire
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To start, I'm going off of the assumption, which wasn't ever formally defined, but seems to be implied, that "High Context" means "meaning is required to be found by looking at the context it was used in" while "Low Context" means "meaning is self-contained and independent of its context".
If this is incorrect, please correct me and disregard the rest of my post until we're on the same page.
Could you go over again how "high context" leads to "concrete thinking" (at least as your defined it)? Also, before getting too far, could you also explain how you mesh this sort of thinking with non-physical sensations and things, such as gravity, atoms, magnetism and the internet?
Namely, you can't "see" any of these things, nor (for most) can you "feel" them, and the representations you can see are objectively false or extremely oversimplified. How do you know they're real? Or do you think they aren't?
What does logic have to do with context? If by that you mean that in formal logic you can make statements that are logical conclusions from other statements, I can somewhat see where you're going, but even in formal logic, the implication is that you certainly still need the context to assume that your starting premises that you're coming to conclusions on are actually valid and equal. (More on this later.)
Let's be careful here and keep in mind that a syllogism is defined as a self-contained set of statements in formal logic, and is not ever defined as being entirely universal.
You already missed an important part - "IF" "AND" and "THEN". These are part of the "context" of making a statement with formal logic. The correct formal statement would be "IF All men are mortal AND John is a man, THEN John is mortal".
Maybe, if they're stupid. But then that's true, regardless of how your thought processes work.
That's because of the context in which they are presented, namely a self-contained simplified universe only "created" to teach an introduction to logic. None of the statements made are intended to be fully-true statements about everything regarding reality, and the context of a formal logic class would indicate this without needing to explicitly define it as such.
They should start with the presupposition that they are taking an introduction to logic class, and have been presented with idealised statements in order to teach them an introductory lesson in logic. After all, it was also never defined what "Man", "Mortal", "Cat" and "Leg" mean.
For the words "men" and "mortal" to be defined, for one.
Also wrong. Going by the common sense definitions of "men" and "mortal" (namely, "humans" and "able to die"), you can still make a statement regarding "all men" simply by including that in your definition of what "men" or "humans" are. The ability to die can be included in that, which literally means that once someone is unable to die, they're no longer human, they're something else.
Exactly. They're hypotheticals. They produce truth regarding their hypothetical situations. Again, this is all context.
This is why introductory logic is taught. One of the first things you should be taught is that you can only come to a true conclusion given two important things - fully valid logic, and true premises. If you reject the premises, then of course you can reject the outcome, regardless of its veracity or not. That's why the initial statements are presented as 'givens'. Namely, you can make a valid conclusion if you start with the assumption that the givens are true.
Already addressed. You're attacking the 'givens' rather than the logical issue with the presented statements. Pretend that it is objectively true that there never is, was or will be a cat that has five legs. To make this so, any cat that develops five legs is from here on defined as a "cat+" and is no longer a "cat". Do you still see what the issue with the presented syllogism is?
Yeah, you missed the entire point that the logic class was trying to teach, namely the logical fallacy of linking a negation ("No cat") with a positive assertion ("has five legs"), as well as simply making contorted statements in order to seemingly come to nonsensical conclusions. This is akin to the math game where you start with "x = y" and then cancel each of them out and conclude "therefore 1 = 2". The point of the exercise isn't for you to pick at the wording, and you're missing the lesson (given the context) if you allow that to stop you.
You can't if you ignore the context of using 'givens'. You have to use your imagination to expand your learning a bit.
If you're attempting to convert this into some form of real-world exercise, rather than an idealized situation designed specifically to aid your understanding of a specific way of thinking, then maybe.
Already addressed. Unnecessary if you include, in the definition of "human being" something along the lines of "able to die". Of course, this would be highly redundant, due to the fact that there's never been an observed case of immortality, nor is there any physiologically possible way for that to happen.
Look into Laplace's Law of Succession, which does allow for you to make predictions of the future merely given past observations. Will the sun rise tomorrow? If you've observed the sun rise every single day without fail for the 5000 years, you technically cannot be 100% certain that it will rise tomorrow. But giving only the simple options of "it will rise" and "it will not rise", you can calculate that the odds of the sun rising tomorrow, based on past observations, is roughly 1,826,250:1.
And that's without invoking anything silly like "scientific knowledge" or "definitions", which is what is done with the "all men are mortal" statements.
Nope, you're just being obstinate by ignoring that the context is that of a logical statement and the statement you're dissecting isn't being suggested as a 100% factual statement about reality, but instead as an idealized situation that exists solely in your mind.
Also ignoring the context of "man"/"men" to mean "all people", rather than literally "men". However, as your professor told you, it's a hypothetical situation, meaning that John has literally been defined as "a man". You're talking about John at the current time, and at the current time he is defined as a man, so at the current time the logical statement holds as valid given the validity of the initial circumstances.
Proof of... what?
Something doesn't cut it, I'll grant you that...
If this is incorrect, please correct me and disregard the rest of my post until we're on the same page.
Could you go over again how "high context" leads to "concrete thinking" (at least as your defined it)? Also, before getting too far, could you also explain how you mesh this sort of thinking with non-physical sensations and things, such as gravity, atoms, magnetism and the internet?
Namely, you can't "see" any of these things, nor (for most) can you "feel" them, and the representations you can see are objectively false or extremely oversimplified. How do you know they're real? Or do you think they aren't?
What does logic have to do with context? If by that you mean that in formal logic you can make statements that are logical conclusions from other statements, I can somewhat see where you're going, but even in formal logic, the implication is that you certainly still need the context to assume that your starting premises that you're coming to conclusions on are actually valid and equal. (More on this later.)
Let's be careful here and keep in mind that a syllogism is defined as a self-contained set of statements in formal logic, and is not ever defined as being entirely universal.
You already missed an important part - "IF" "AND" and "THEN". These are part of the "context" of making a statement with formal logic. The correct formal statement would be "IF All men are mortal AND John is a man, THEN John is mortal".
Maybe, if they're stupid. But then that's true, regardless of how your thought processes work.
That's because of the context in which they are presented, namely a self-contained simplified universe only "created" to teach an introduction to logic. None of the statements made are intended to be fully-true statements about everything regarding reality, and the context of a formal logic class would indicate this without needing to explicitly define it as such.
They should start with the presupposition that they are taking an introduction to logic class, and have been presented with idealised statements in order to teach them an introductory lesson in logic. After all, it was also never defined what "Man", "Mortal", "Cat" and "Leg" mean.
For the words "men" and "mortal" to be defined, for one.
Also wrong. Going by the common sense definitions of "men" and "mortal" (namely, "humans" and "able to die"), you can still make a statement regarding "all men" simply by including that in your definition of what "men" or "humans" are. The ability to die can be included in that, which literally means that once someone is unable to die, they're no longer human, they're something else.
Exactly. They're hypotheticals. They produce truth regarding their hypothetical situations. Again, this is all context.
This is why introductory logic is taught. One of the first things you should be taught is that you can only come to a true conclusion given two important things - fully valid logic, and true premises. If you reject the premises, then of course you can reject the outcome, regardless of its veracity or not. That's why the initial statements are presented as 'givens'. Namely, you can make a valid conclusion if you start with the assumption that the givens are true.
Already addressed. You're attacking the 'givens' rather than the logical issue with the presented statements. Pretend that it is objectively true that there never is, was or will be a cat that has five legs. To make this so, any cat that develops five legs is from here on defined as a "cat+" and is no longer a "cat". Do you still see what the issue with the presented syllogism is?
Yeah, you missed the entire point that the logic class was trying to teach, namely the logical fallacy of linking a negation ("No cat") with a positive assertion ("has five legs"), as well as simply making contorted statements in order to seemingly come to nonsensical conclusions. This is akin to the math game where you start with "x = y" and then cancel each of them out and conclude "therefore 1 = 2". The point of the exercise isn't for you to pick at the wording, and you're missing the lesson (given the context) if you allow that to stop you.
You can't if you ignore the context of using 'givens'. You have to use your imagination to expand your learning a bit.
If you're attempting to convert this into some form of real-world exercise, rather than an idealized situation designed specifically to aid your understanding of a specific way of thinking, then maybe.
Already addressed. Unnecessary if you include, in the definition of "human being" something along the lines of "able to die". Of course, this would be highly redundant, due to the fact that there's never been an observed case of immortality, nor is there any physiologically possible way for that to happen.
Look into Laplace's Law of Succession, which does allow for you to make predictions of the future merely given past observations. Will the sun rise tomorrow? If you've observed the sun rise every single day without fail for the 5000 years, you technically cannot be 100% certain that it will rise tomorrow. But giving only the simple options of "it will rise" and "it will not rise", you can calculate that the odds of the sun rising tomorrow, based on past observations, is roughly 1,826,250:1.
And that's without invoking anything silly like "scientific knowledge" or "definitions", which is what is done with the "all men are mortal" statements.
Nope, you're just being obstinate by ignoring that the context is that of a logical statement and the statement you're dissecting isn't being suggested as a 100% factual statement about reality, but instead as an idealized situation that exists solely in your mind.
Also ignoring the context of "man"/"men" to mean "all people", rather than literally "men". However, as your professor told you, it's a hypothetical situation, meaning that John has literally been defined as "a man". You're talking about John at the current time, and at the current time he is defined as a man, so at the current time the logical statement holds as valid given the validity of the initial circumstances.
Proof of... what?
Something doesn't cut it, I'll grant you that...
I haven't even figured out which is the good one.
