What is logic? A particular method of reasoning or argumentation: We were unable to follow his logic.

The system or principles of reasoning applicable to any branch of knowledge or study. Importance of logic. Generally, our decision making involves the mind (or the brain) sensory mechanism, perception, cognition and the expression of results. We often feel, perceive, think, remember and reason in an adaptive conscious and unconscious manner. In our daily lives, when we are faced with problems or just a situation which require a decision, we are often reminded to apply LOGIC and REASONING for the most desired results. Hence, this is a BASIC REASON why logic and reason are so essential in our lives. History of logic Indeed, the history of logic is interesting and profitable chiefly because it shows how the philosophical theories influence the method and the doctrine of the logician. The empiricism and sensism of the English school, descending from Hobbes through Locke, Hume, and the Associationists, could lead in logic to no other conclusion than that to which it does lead in Mill's rejection of the syllogism and of all necessary truth. On the other hand, Descartes's exaltation of deduction and Leibniz's adoption of the mathematical method have their origin in that doctrine of innatism which is the opposite of empiricism. Again, the domination of industrialism, and the insistence for recognition on the part of the social economist, have had in our own day the effect of pushing logic more and more towards the position of a purveyor of rules for scientific discovery and practical invention. The materialism of the last half of the nineteenth century demanded that logic prove its utility in a practical way. Hence the prominence given to induction. But, of all the crises through which logic has passed, the most interesting is that which is known as the "Storm and Stress of Scholasticism", in which mysticism on the one side rejected dialectic as "the devil's art", and maintained that "God did not choose logic as a means of saving his people", while rationalism on the other side set no bounds to the use of logic, going so far as to place it on a plane with Divine faith. Out of this conflict issued the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century, which gave due credit to the mystic contention in so far as that contention was sound, and at the same time acknowledged freely the claims of rationalism within the limits of orthodoxy and of reason. St. Thomas and his contemporaries looked upon logic as an instrument for the discovery and exposition of natural truth. They considered, moreover, that it is the instrument by which the theologian is enabled to expound, systematize, and defend revealed truth. This view of the theological use of logic is the basis for the charge of intellectualism which Modernist philosophers imbued with Kantism have made against the Scholastics. Modernism asserts that the logical nexus is "the weakest link" between the mind and spiritual truth. So that the contest waged in the twelfth century is renewed in slightly different terms in our own day, the application of logic to theology being now, as then, the principal point in dispute. Difference between traditional and symbolic Logic Traditional logic, as originated by Aristotle, obeys formal rules and is bivalent -- that is, it is about truth and falsehood with nothing in between. While Symbolic logis is a deductive logic using abstract symbols for various aspects of natural language. It draws on the concepts and techniques of mathematics.

Propositions are statements which constitute the basic element in reasoning. Their distinctive character is that they assert that something is the case or that something is not the case. Their assertion may be

true or false. Propositions are therefore statements that have a truth-value, that is, they have the property of being true or false. An argument therefore is not a mere collection of propositions but contains a premise-conclusion structure. The simplest kind of argument consists of just one premise and a conclusion. A simple proposition is a statement, with meaning, as to the presence of something in a subject or its absence, in the present, past, or future, according to the divisions of time. A compound proposition p logically implies a compound proposition q (denoted p ) q) if p ! q is a tautology. Two compound propositions p and q are logically equivalent (denoted p q, or p , q ) if p $ q is a tautology.