Hannah Barrantes

LEGAL LOGIC AND TECHNIQUE

In general, the subject Legal Technique and logic has been helpful in determining the
right questions to be asked in examining and studying cases, as well as the relevance
of both the dissenting and concurring statements of judges in decisions. It made the
study, not only fluid, but have also shown the sense and rationale why lawyers should at
all times think on their feet.

Logic is not just mere philosophy, it also entails aspects mimicking other fields of
knowledge and organizing thoughts for greater studies or systems of thought. Below are
the different forms of logic, its aspects, and how necessarily it helped me reach the
conclusion of Law as a system, trial as a mean to interpret the law and show its different
perspectives, and its application to Legal Cases.

LOGIC AS SCIENCE

Some people are profoundly disturbed by the fact that reason alone can't generate
truths. When the use of mathematics and logic in science is explained to them they
respond, "If mathematics and logic can't produce absolute truths, then they produce
only untruths or partial truths, and are therefore worthless." This sentence is itself an
example of nonsense clothed in the appearance of logic.
It must be admitted at the outset that science is not in the business of finding absolute
truths. Science proceeds as if there are no absolute truths, or if there are such truths,

we can never know what they are; as the pre-Socratic skeptics observed: If we were to
stumble upon an absolute truth, we'd have no way to be certain it is an absolute truth.
The models and theories of science are approximations to naturenever perfect. But in
most cases we know rather well how good they are. We can state quantitatively the
limits of uncertainty of numeric results, and their range of applicability. Yet there's
always the possibility that we may find exceptions to one of our accepted laws, or may
even find alternative theories that do a better job than older ones.

Some critics of science attack this process of science, on the grounds that it cannot
produce absolute truths. Theirs is a black/white view of the scientific process. Never
mind that they have not proposed any other process that is capable of producing
anything near the power and comprehensiveness of present science. They say that
"Theory X" isn't perfect therefore it is "wrong".

The results and predictions of a theory, being well tested, will not crumble if the theory is
someday modified, drastically changed, or even replaced with another theory. The
results or predictions of a theory are not all suddenly rendered "wrong" when a theory is
modified or replaced. These results and predictions may be improved in precision or
scope. Sometimes the predictions of a new theory have greater scope than the old one,
predicting things the old one didn't (and things that we never had observed or tested
before). Very often a new theory is sought because the old one, while its predictions
were mostly correct, predicted a few things that just weren't confirmed by good
experiments. We'll need to say more about this later.

The fact that science claims no absolute truths is seized upon by people who hold
strong religious beliefs and who dislike those conclusions of science that run counter to
their emotional convictions. To them, if a thing is not absolutely and finally true, it is
false, and therefore the methods used to formulate it must be flawed.

The futility of searching for absolutes.

Though the philosophers of ancient Greece developed formal logic, and got a good start
toward mathematics, they realized the limitations of logic and the futility of seeking
absolutes. Here are a few comments about this dilemma.

Only one thing is certainthat is, nothing is certain. If this statement is true, it is also
false.
Ancient paradox
The gods did not reveal from the beginning
All things to us; but in the course of time
Through seeking, men found that which is better.
But as for certain truth, no man has known it,
Nor will he know it; neither of the gods,
Nor yet of all the things of which I speak.
And even if by chance he were to utter
The final truth, he would himself not know it;

For all is but a woven web of guesses.

Xenophanes (c. 570-c. 480 BCE) Greek philosopher.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.
Democritus, (c. 420 BCE) Greek philosopher.
None of us knows anything, not even whether we know or do not know, nor do we know
whether not knowing and knowing exist, nor in general whether there is anything or not.
Metrodorus of Chios (c. 4th century BCE) Greek philosopher
This only is certain, that there is nothing certain; and nothing more miserable and yet
more arrogant than man.
Pliny ("The Elder") (23-79) Roman naturalist. (Gaius Plinius Secundus).
All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) German cardinal, mathematician, philosopher. De Docta
Ignorantia (Learned Ignorance)

These folks who made these skeptical comments are not saying that "We can't know
anything, so why bother?" They are saying that we can't "know" in the absolute sense,
that we have no way to know if there are any absolute truths, and we wouldn't be able to
prove the absoluteness of an absolute truth if we accidentally stumbled on one. Today
we express it differently: "Science describes nature, it does not explain." Science
attempts to answer "how" questions, but not "why" questions.

Science has progressed by rejecting much of its past history, past practices and past
theory. Though the sciences arose from a muddled mix of mysticism, magic and
speculation, scientists eventually realized that those modes of thought were prone to
error and simply not productive. So chemists reject the theories of the alchemists,
astronomers reject the theory underlying astrology. Mathematicians reject the numbermysticism of the Pythagoreans. Physicists, when they bother to think about their
discipline's roots, acknowledge the pre-scientific contributions of the ancient Greeks in
mathematics, Democritus' view that nature is lawful, and also their attitude of seeking
knowledge for its own sake. But they are embarrassed by the Greek teachings about
physics, for most of these have all been consigned to the trash-heap of history.

Even those early ideas that happened to be in harmony with our present views seem
based upon faulty methodology or were simply speculation. Sometimes a few of those
guesses seemed surprisingly close to our modern views, at least superficially. But when
examined in detail the similarity breaks down. Democritus' atomic theory, for example,
was based on no hard evidence, had no historical connection with modern atomic
theory, and its details bore no resemblance to what we now know about atoms. Once in
a while, if you speculate wildly enough, you get lucky. Too many textbooks make a "big
deal" out of such accidental similarities.

Scientific method

So, how does science arrive at its results? Some people speak of the "scientific
method" as a set of "rules" for doing science. Too often such rules are presented in
schools as a "recipe" for doing science, and even have numbered steps! That's
misleading. At the other extreme, someone said that scientific method is "Doing one's
damndest with one's mind." I know many have said better things about it, but here's
some observations on scientific method.
How Science really works.

Even casual observation shows us that nature, as perceived by our senses, has reliable
regularities and patterns of behavior.
Through more precise and detailed study we found that many of these regularities can
be modeled, often with mathematical models of great precision.

Sometimes these models break down when extended (extrapolated) beyond their
original scope of validity. Sometimes extrapolation of a model beyond its original scope
actually works. This warns us that we had better rigorously test each model for validity,
and these tests should be capable of exposing any flaws in the modelflaws capable of
demonstrating that the model isn't true.

Even when a model survives such testing, we should only grant it "provisional"
acceptance, because cleverer people with more sophisticated measuring techniques
may in the future expose some other deficiencies of the model.

When models are found to be incomplete or deficient, we often fix them by tweaking
their details till they work well enough to agree with observations.

When rapid advances in experimental observations occur, a model may be found so

seriously inadequate to accommodate the new data that we may scrap a large part of it
and start over with a new model. Relativity and quantum mechanics are historical
examples. These situations are often called "scientific revolutions."

When such upheavals occur, and old models are replaced with new ones, that doesn't
mean the old ones were totally "wrong", nor does it mean their underlying concepts
were invalid. They still work within their scope of applicability. Newton's physics wasn't
suddenly wrong, nor were its predictions found unreliable or incorrect when we adopted
Einstein's relativity. Relativity had greater scope than Newtonian physics, but it also
rested on a different conceptual basis.

Past experience has shown that mathematical models of nature have tremendous
advantages over the earlier, more appealing, models which used analogies to familiar
everyday phenomena of our direct sensory experience. Mathematical models are less
burdened with emotional baggage, being "pure" and abstract. Mathematics provides
seemingly infinite adaptability and flexibility as a modeling structure. If a some natural
phenomena can't be modeled by known mathematics, we invent new forms of
mathematics to deal with them.

The history of science has been a process of finding successful descriptive models of
nature. First we found the easy ones. As science progressed, scientists were forced to
tackle the more subtle and difficult problems. So powerful are our models by now that
we often delude ourselves into thinking that we must be very clever to have been able
to figure out how nature "really" works. We may even imagine that we have achieved
"understanding". But on sober reflection we realize that we have simply devised a more
sophisticated and detailed description.

Whatever models or theories we use, they usually include some details or concepts that
do not relate directly to observed or measurable aspects of nature. If the theory is
successful we may think that these details are matched in nature, and are "real" even
though they are not experimentally verifiable. Their reality is supposed to be
demonstrated by the fact that the theory "works" to predict things we can verify and
continue to verify. This is not necessarily so. Scientists often speak of energy,
momentum, wave functions and force fields as if they were on the same status as
objects of everyday experience such as rocks, trees and water. In a practical sense (for
getting answers) this may not matter. But on another level, a change of scientific model
may do away with a force field as an conceptual entity, but it wouldn't do away with a
forest, mountain or lake.

Science progresses through trial and error, mostly error. Every new theory or law must
be skeptically and rigorously tested before acceptance. Most fail, and are swept under
the rug, even before publication. Others, like the luminiferous ether, flourish for a while,

then their inadequacies accumulate till they are intolerable, and are quietly abandoned
when something better comes along. Such mistakes will be found out. There's always
someone who will delight in exposing them. Science progresses by making mistakes,
correcting the mistakes, then moving on to other matters. If we stopped making
mistakes, scientific progress would stop.

What do scientists really think about 'reality'?

Scientists speak in a language that uses everyday colloquial words with specialized
(and often different) meanings. When a scientist says something has been found to be
'true', what is meant isn't any form of absolute truth. Likewise scientists' use of 'reality'
and 'belief' don't imply finality or dogmatism. But if we inquire whether a scientist
believes in an underlying reality behind our sense impressions, we are compounding
two tricky words into a philosophical question for which we have no way to arrive at a
testable answer. I'd be inclined to dismiss the entire question as meaningless, and not
waste time discussing it, or any other such questions. Yet a few scientists and
philosophers disagree, and wax eloquent in writing and speaking about such questions.

The notion that we can find absolute and final truths is naive, but still appealing to many
people, especially non-scientists. If there are any underlying "truths" of nature, our
models are at best only close approximations to themuseful descriptions that "work"
by correctly predicting nature's behavior. We are not in a position to answer the
philosophical question "Are there any absolute truths?" We can't determine whether

there is an underlying "reality" to be discovered. And, though our laws and models
(theories) become better and better, we have no reason to expect they will ever be
perfect. So we have no justification for absolute faith or belief in any of them. They may
be replaced someday by something quite different in concept. At least they will be
modified. But that won't make the old models "untrue". All this reservation and
qualification about truth, reality, and belief, doesn't matter. It isn't relevant to doing
science. We can do science quite well without 'answering' these questions, questions
that may not have any answers. Science limits itself to more finite questions for which
we can arrive at practical answers.

Also, we've learned that not all questions we can ask have answers that we can find.
Any question that is in principle or in practice untestable, is not considered a valid
scientific question. We like to think that scientists don't waste time on those, but they
seem to pop up in discussion and in books quite often. (Many people think
unanswerable questions are the most profound and important ones. Questions like
"What is the meaning of it all," or "What jump-started the universe?" I think that
scientists should set these aside for the philosophers to chew on, and get on with the
business of answering more accessible questions.) The First Philosopher, John
Holden

Scientists and a Law Student: THE IMPACT OF IT.

Scientists find it nave that there is an absolute truth, that is why like in Science, they
always tend to challenge the truth to systematic methods to which every step entails
new knowledge to achieve or overcome. In Legal studies, I always thought of the laws
language and how necessarily decisions differ from one another. Reviewing the
dissenting opinions of Justice Teehankee and our lesson about Logic is a Science, I
now conclude that laws, no matter how clear they were, may be viewed in a different
perspective through different procedures or system.

LOGIC OF CONCEPTS AND ANALOGICAL MEANING OF CONCEPTS

Logical theory begins with the concept of an argument. An argument, as the word is
used in logic and in intellectual contexts generally, is reasoning that has been put into
words. When you put your reasoning into words, you produce what logicians call an
argument. Simple enough, but for the purposes of logical theory, a more precise
definition is needed. Most logic textbooks include a more detailed definition, usually one
that sounds much like this:
An argument is one or more statements, called premises, offered as a reason to believe
that a further statement, called the conclusion, is true, that is, corresponds to reality.

It is true that in some contexts we use the word argument differently, to refer to people
angrily yelling at each other, or to people having a heated emotional dispute. But in
logic, and in academic and intellectual contexts generally, the word just means one or
more premises offered as reasons or as evidence for the truth of a conclusion.

When we listen to an argument, it is sometimes difficult to tell which statements are

premises and which statement is the conclusion. This is why the English language
contains what logicians call argument indicator words. To tell your audience that you
are drawing your conclusion, introduce your statement using a word or phrase such as
therefore, in conclusion, thus, consequently, and so on. To indicate a premise,
introduce a statement using words such as because, since, for the reason that, and
so on. Premise and conclusion indicator words help your audience follow the flow of
your reasoning.

Valid, Invalid, and Sound Deductive Arguments

A deductive argument that succeeds in showing that its conclusion must be true if its
premises all are true is called a valid deductive argument. A deductive argument that
fails to show that its conclusion must be true if its premises are true is called an invalid
deductive argument.
Thus a valid argument may be defined as a deductive argument in which it is the case
that if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. An invalid argument may
be defined as a deductive argument in which it is not the case that if the premises are
true the conclusion must be true.

Both of the following arguments are deductive, because each obviously aims to show
that its conclusion must be true if its premises all are true. However, only the first is
valid, the second is invalid:

All human beings are mammals.

All mammals are warm-blooded.
Therefore it must be that all human beings are warm-blooded.
All human beings are mammals.
All dogs are mammals.
Therefore it must be that all human beings are dogs.

Do you see the difference between these two arguments? Again: Not all reasoning is
equal. Some reasoning is better than other reasoning.

When logic students first learn the concept of validity, they almost always find one thing
extremely puzzling. An argument can be valid even though it has false premises and a
false conclusion. Consider the following deductive argument:

All students are millionaires.

All millionaires are Buddhists.
Therefore all students must be Buddhists.

Although the premises are false, and although the conclusion is false, the argument is
valid. It is valid simply because if the premises were to be true then the conclusion
would have to be true as well. The argument fits the definition of a valid argument. Does
this seem puzzling to you? The premises are false, and yet the argument is perfectly

valid! This shows that true premises are not required for validity. In logic, valid does
not mean true. An argument is valid as long as it is the case that if the premises are true
then the conclusion must be true. True premises are not required.

However, validity is not all we want in a deductive argument. We normally also want
truth. If an argument is valid, and in addition its premises are all true, then the argument
is called a sound argument. Thus, a sound argument has two characteristics:
All of its premises are true.
It is valid.
Since truthcorrespondence with realityis the ultimate goal of reasoning, soundness
is the ultimate goal of deductive argumentation, not mere validity. You know youve
made it if your deductive argument is sound as well as valid. The following argument is
both valid and sound:

All whales are mammals.

All mammals are animals.
Therefore it must be that all whales are animals.

The previous argument, about students and Buddhists, was valid, but unsound.

Strong, Weak, and Cogent Inductive Arguments

An inductive argument that succeeds in showing that its conclusion is probably (but not
certainly) true if its premises are true is called a strong inductive argument. An inductive
argument that fails to show that its conclusion is probably (but not certainly) true if its
premises are true is called a weak inductive argument.

Thus a strong argument may be defined as an inductive argument in which it is the case
that if the premises are true then the conclusion is probably true. A weak argument may
be defined as an inductive argument in which it is not the case that if the premises are
true then the conclusion is probably true.

Both of the following arguments are inductive, because each aims to show that its
conclusion is probably (but not certainly) true. However, the first is strong while the
second is weak:
In all of recorded history, it has never snowed 6 inches in Dallas in August.
Therefore, it probably will not snow 6 inches in Dallas next August.
Joe is a member of the Democratic Party.

Some known Communists have been members of the Democratic Party.

Therefore Joe is probably a Communist.

Again, not all reasoning is equal. Some acts of reasoning are better than others. Do you
agree?

Many logic students find this aspect of strength puzzling at first: An inductive argument
can be strong even though it has false premises and a false conclusion. Consider the
following inductive argument:

For the past six months it has been snowing every day in Dallas, it is below 30 degrees
in Dallas, and the sky in Dallas is full of snow clouds.
Therefore it will probably snow in Dallas today.

Although the premise is false, and although the conclusion is false, the argument is
strong. It is strong because if the premise were to be true then the conclusion would
probably be true as well: If the premise is true, then the conclusion is likely to be true
although not certain. The argument fits the definition of a strong argument!
But strength is not all we want in an inductive argument. We normally also want truth. If
an argument is strong, and in addition its premises are all true, then the argument is
called a cogent argument. Thus, a cogent inductive argument has two properties:
All of its premises are true.
It is strong.
Since truth is the ultimate goal of reasoning, cogency is the ultimate goal of inductive
argumentation. The following argument is both strong and cogent:

Most cars burn gasoline.

The Presidential Limousine is a car.
Therefore, the Presidential Limousine probably burns gasoline.

The earlier argument, about Dallas and snow, was strong but not cogent.

Consistency, Implication, and Equivalence

We have been using our faculty of reason to judge deductive arguments as valid or
invalid and to assess the strength of inductive arguments, but we also use reason when
we decide whether or not two of our beliefs stand in logical conflict and when we look
for certain logical relations among our beliefs. For this reason, logical theory also
studies the logical relationships that exist between declarative statements and the
logical properties of statements. Four terms are especially important: consistency,
inconsistency, implication, and equivalence. Here are the first two definitions:

Two statements are consistent if and only if it is possible both are true
Two statements are inconsistent if and only if it is not possible both are true.
For example, the following statements, given their standard meanings, are consistent:
Sue is 33 years old.
Sue is an accountant.
And the following statements, given their standard meanings, are inconsistent:
Sue is 33 years old.
Sue is a teenager.

Next:

One statement implies a second statement if and only if it is not possible that the first
statement is true and the second statement is false.
In other words, a statement P implies a statement Q when and only when it is the case
that if P is true then Q is true. For example, in the following case, the first sentence
implies the second:
Sam is 33 years old.
Sam is older than 21.

However, in the next case, the first sentence does not imply the second:

Sam is a Republican.
Sam is a millionaire.
Next:

Two statements P and Q are equivalent if and only if P implies Q and Q implies P.
In other words, two statements are equivalent when and only when it is not possible that
they differ as to truth and falsity: if one is true then the other is true and if one is false
then the other is false. In the following case, the two statements are logically
equivalent.
Ann is taller than Bob.
Bob is shorter than Ann.
But these two statements are not equivalent:
Ann is older than Bob.

Bob is 33 years old.

Necessity and Contingency

We also use our faculty of reason when we decide whether a statement is necessary or
contingent, and logic is concerned to define the relevant terminology so that our thinking
can be as clear as possible on this matter as well. Four additional terms are important:
necessary truth, necessary falsehood, contingent truth, contingent falsehood. Here are
the definitions:
A statement is necessarily true if it is true and it cannot possibly be false.

In other words, it is true in all possible circumstances, there are no possible

circumstances in which it would be false. For the purposes of logical theory, a possible
circumstance is defined as any circumstance whose description is not selfcontradictory. This is the broadest concept of possibility humanly and consistently
conceivable.

A statement is necessarily false if it is false and it cannot possibly be true.

In other words, it is false in all possible circumstances, there are no possible
circumstances in which it would be true.
For example, the following statements, given their standard meanings of course, are all
necessarily true:

All triangles have three sides.

The derivative of a constant is zero.
The number 3 is greater than the number 2.
Given their standard meanings, the following statements are necessarily false:
All triangles have 9 sides.
1 + 1 = 5.
The number 12 is less than the number 3.

Next:

A statement is contingently true if it is true but there are possible circumstances in which
it would be false.
In other words, it is true but it might have been false if circumstances had been
sufficiently different.
A statement is contingently false if it is false but there are possible circumstances in
which it would be true.
In other words, it is false but it might have been true if circumstances had been
sufficiently different.
Examples of contingent truth would include:

Crosby, Stills, and Nash performed at Woodstock in 1969.

It is sunny in Seattle on September 9, 2011.
And examples of contingent falsehoods would include:

Bob Dylan performed at Woodstock in 1969.

Richard Nixon was elected President in 1960.

What concept taught me

Knowing the meaning of concept and its distinction from reality and fantasy taught me to
identify sound deductive and inductive reasoning because of the stain of reality that
should be present especially in legal arguments.

LANGUAGE AS THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT

We should search for the ancestry of language not in prior systems of animal
communication but in prior representational systems.' (Bickerton, 1990:23 [emphasis
added, JRH])

This quotation makes a negative point and a positive point, given added emphasis
above. The idea that language, and by implication much of its current complex
structure, arose from pre-linguistic representational systems has attracted attention and
not much criticism. A goal of evolutionary linguistics is to explain the origins of the
structure found in language. It can be agreed that little of the distinctively complex
structure of modern languages can be attributed to ancestry in animal communication
systems1. But how much of the complex structure of modern languages can be

attributed to ancestry in pre-linguistic representational systems? Sampson (1997)

expressed a view opposed to Bickerton's.

` ... it is not plausible that our internal representation of statements, which we use in
order to reason and draw inferences in other modes, will map in a simple element-byelement fashion into the words with which we express those statements in speech. ...
Nobody really has the least idea what is physically going on in the head when we
reason, but I agree that whatever goes on is likely to relate in a fairly abstract way to the
words of spoken utterances, which are adapted to the necessary linearity of speech and
to the fact that speaker and hearer are working with separate models of reality.'
Sampson, 1997:100)

`It is occasionally suggested that language evolved as a medium of internal knowledge

representation for use in the computations underlying reasoning. But although there
may be a languagelike representational medium -- ``the language of thought,' or
``mentalese'' (Fodor 1975) -- it clearly cannot be English, Japanese, and so on. Natural
languages are hopeless for this function: They are needlessly serial, rife with ambiguity
(usually harmless in conversational contexts, but unsuited for long-term knowledge
representation), complicated by alternations that are relevant only to discourse (e.g.
topicalization), and cluttered with devices (such as phonology and much of morphology)
that make no contribution to reasoning.' (Pinker & Bloom, 1990:714)

Much of the structure of language has no role in a system for the internal representation
of thought.
Much of the structure of language has a role in systems for the external expression of
thought, which includes communication.
A corollary of these propositions, not pursued in detail here, is:

Pressure for effective expression of thought, including communication, may explain

much of the structure of language.
In the next section, to start this argument, independent characterizations of nonlinguistic mental representations and the structure of language are set out. The
following sections conduct a survey of the central layers of the structure of any
language, its phonology, morphology and syntax, arguing in all cases that the
structuring concerned plays no role in the representation of thought, but defines, or
constitutes, the mapping of thoughts onto linguistic expressions.

Mental Representation

In a polemic passage, Chomsky (1980:229-230) disparages the idea of communication

as the essential function of language, preferring to see language as enabling the
expression of thought. I will not quibble over the term `essential' here; I will use
`communication' and `expression of thought' interchangeably in this paper, but the latter
term has the virtue of highlighting a clear separation between language and thought.
Linguistic form, in this view, is something different from thought itself, which is

`expressed' in language. Thought which remains unexpressed does not take linguistic
form. Much of our thought is of this unexpressed kind, i.e. not in language. Yet
unexpressed thought is not formless or contentless, and so one can speak meaningfully
of it as a kind of representation.

It is assumed here that the existence of nonlinguistic representations is unproblematic,

contrary to the views of a few philosophers (e.g. Stich (1983), Judge (1985), Schiffer
(1989), Horst (1996)). Beyond the assumption of their existence, no particularly strong
further assumptions are made here about mental representations. For example, the
view of nonlinguistic representations taken here is compatible with, but not dependent
on, distributed connectionist views of how to code the input to the expression of thought.
But the argument pursued here will naturally emphasize dissimilarities between
language structure and the structure of nonlinguistic mental representation.

Nonlinguistic mental representations are possessed by animals and prelinguistic infants

for remembering and thinking about events in the world. They are derived from exteroand intero-perception, such as perceptions of light, heat, touch, sound, thirst and
hunger. Nonlinguistic mental representations are often referred to as constituting the
`language of thought' (as in Fodor, 1975) or `mentalese'. The language metaphor,
implicit in both Fodor's title and the `-ese' suffix, is attractive because it alludes implicitly
to the complex structure of thought. But the language metaphor is also misleading.
Fodor's Language of Thought clearly does not have much of the structure of a public
language, such as French or Swahili. Indeed, it is exactly the non-language-like features

of nonlinguistic mental representations that are at the core of my argument here. The
essential differences between an internal (cognitive) representation system and a
communication system are as follows.

A communication system maps external forms (such as speech sounds or manual

signs), via mental structures, to meanings (where many, if not all, meanings relate to
external objects, events or situations). A communication system is typically public,
shared by many individuals2.

A representation system lacks the mapping to external forms, and merely provides
mental structures which relate to, or denote, external situations. There would be no
practical advantage in having a representation system which was not in some way
related to the world outside the mind possessing it.

Thus a communication system properly includes a representation system. There are

elements in a communication system that are not part of the inherent representation
system. Analogously, there are elements in a computer system which relate only to
keyboard and screen functions and not to the core business of computation. Any
aspects of a communication system which pertain only to the mapping between external
forms (i.e. sounds or signs) and the internal cognitive representation system are not part
of the representation system per se.

Nonlinguistic mental representations are non-temporal; all parts of the representation of

a remembered event are simultaneously present to the mind. Nonlinguistic mental
representations are multi-dimensional; for example, they are often diagrammed on
paper as networks, with hierarchical relationships between the parts, and/or as
composed of features (which can be seen as dimensions). Nonlinguistic mental
representations do not exist in the same medium as the external forms to which they
are mapped by the structure of a language; specifically, they are non-acoustic and nonmanual. With nonlinguistic mental representations, no issue of ambiguity arises; they
are what they are (although mental representations may be vague or general).

By contrast, utterances are temporal. Utterances in spoken language are acoustic

events, and in sign language, manual events. The raw unprocessed speech signal
which reaches the eardrum is a complex sound wave, no more than a temporal
sequence of variations in air pressure. The variations are more or less strong surges
and declines in pressure, with periods of stillness. At any instant in time, the only
information immediately available in this signal is the relative strength of the change in
air-pressure, a single (positive or negative) number. At bottom, the whole rich linguistic
fabric of an utterance, from phonemic oppositions (e.g. what makes a `b' different from
an `s') through syllables, morphemes, words and phrases to clauses and sentences, is
signalled by this temporal sequence of air-pressure variations. Thus utterances are
linear or one-dimensional sequences of events; any perceived imposition of further
dimensions on the signal (e.g. by intonation) arises from knowledge of the mapping
between utterances and the nonlinguistic mental representations of their meanings. The

term `one-dimensional' emphasizes that the events or `landmarks' in the temporal

sequence are distinguished by their values on a single parameter, that of relative
pressure. (In sign language, admittedly, some degree of simultaneity is present in the
manual signals.) Utterances are frequently ambiguous; as computational linguists know
to their cost, ambiguity, especially local ambiguity, is rife in language. Ambiguity arises
at all levels of linguistic structure. For instance, the utterance `I'm coming to get you' is
ambiguous between a threat and a promise of help; the sentence Visiting relatives can
be boring can be understood as describing at least two different situations; the word list,
like many other English words, has many senses; phonetically, in English a plosive
where voicing commences simultaneously with release can be interpreted as either
`voiced', as in beer, or `voiceless', as in spear. These are examples contributing to the
many-to-one mapping between nonlinguistic representations and linguistic strings. (In
fact, given the existence of synonymy and paraphrase, the overall mapping is many-tomany.) The art of Language

Language in the Study of Law

This is one crucial part because it is now stressed that a lawyer should not just be
understood verbally but also through writing which entails a greater work. In
examinations, the usual type of questions is essay writing or legal argumentation. When
we talked about the Language of Concepts, I already knew after the session how
important conceptualization is, clear cut of what you want to prove, before adding

sentences to it. Language also has structure and it is important to be intricate in its most
basic unit which is the word more than anything else.

CHARACTERISTICS OF REASONING AND FALLACIES

Characteristics of Inductive Reasoning

Observation about what must be true. Inductive reasoning does not use syllogisms, but
series of observations, in order to reach a conclusion.

The most basic kind of inductive reasoning is called generalization. You generalize
whenever you make a general statement (all salesmen are pushy) based on
observations with specific members of that group (the last three salesmen who came to
my door were pushy). You also generalize when you make an observation about a
specific thing based on other specific things that belong to the same group (my
girlfriends cousin Ed is a salesman, so he will probably be pushy.) When you use
specific observations as the basis of a general conclusion, you are said to be making an
inductive leap.

The fallacy most often associated with generalization is hasty generalization, which you
commit when you make an inductive leap that is not based on sufficient information.
Look at the following five statements and try to determine when the line is crossed.
1) Microsoft is a sexist company. It has over 5,000 employees and not a single one of
them is female.

2) Microsoft is a sexist company. I know twenty people who applied for jobs there--ten
men and ten women. Though all of them were equally qualified, all of the men got jobs
there and none of the women did.

3) Microsoft is a sexist company. I have five female friends who have applied for jobs
there, and all of them lost out to less qualified men.

Characteristics of Deductive Reasoning

A deductive argument offers two or more assertions that lead automatically to a

conclusion. Though they are not always phrased in syllogistic form, deductive
arguments can usually be phrased as "syllogisms," or as brief, mathematical statements
in which the premises lead inexorably to the conclusion. The following is an example of
a sound deductive syllogism:

Premise: All dogs have four legs.

Premise: Rover is a dog,
Conclusion: Rover has four legs.

As long as the first two sentences in this argument are true, there can be no doubt that
the final statement is correct--it is a matter of mathematical certainty. Deductive
arguments are not spoken of as "true" or "false," but as "sound" or "unsound." A sound
argument is one in which the premises guarantee the conclusions, and an unsound

argument is one in which the premises do not guarantee the conclusions. A deduction
can be completely true, yet unsound. It can also be sound, yet demonstrably untrue.
Consider the following two arguments:

All Southern presidents in this century were Baptists.

Jimmy Carter was a Baptist.
Jimmy Carter was a Southern president in the 20th century. (True but unsound)

All Southern presidents in this century were Republicans.

Jimmy Carter was a Southern president in the 20th century.
Jimmy Carter was a Republican.
(Sound but untrue)

The classic syllogism:

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

Heres an example of the syllogism in an argument:

Laws making marijuana illegal should be repealed.

People should have the right to use any substance they wish
No laws should prevent citizens from exercising their rights.

Anything that promotes prosperity is good.

The free-enterprise system is something that promotes prosperity.
Therefore, the free-enterprise system is good.

Fallacies of Deductive Reasoning

Ad Hominem: an argument that attacks an individual's character or behavior rather than

the issue at hand. For example, if you argue against gun control because the second
amendment entitles US citizens the right to bear arms, and your opponent says that
most people who defend the second amendment are ignorant, backwoods fanatics,
which are an ad hominem fallacy. Aside from the irrelevance of the personal attack, this
example shows that the issue of the second amendment is a threatening premise to the
opposition.

Oversimplification: supplying neat and easy explanations for large and complicated
phenomena. No wonder drug abuse is out of control. Look at how the courts have
hobbled police officers.

Red Herring: an argument that contains an irrelevant premise in order to divert attention
from what is being argued. For example, if you are debating the fuel efficiency of
several different makes of car and your opposition introduces the importance of buying

domestic vehicles, that is a red herring. The new premise diverts attention away from
the issue of fuel efficiency.

Non-Sequitur: Literally translated to "It does not follow," this fallacy draws conclusions
from premises that do not necessarily apply. For example, "Guns should be outlawed.
My neighbor has a gun in his house and he is in favor of euthanasia." This would be a
non-sequitur. The two issues are unrelated enough that a conclusion about gun control
cannot be drawn from a premise on euthanasia.

False Dichotomy: Otherwise known as the "either/or fallacy," this is an argument that
makes the assumption that there are only two alternatives available when there may be
many more. For instance, "Do we want a defense policy that relies on nuclear
annihilation, or do we want one that is geared to reduce global tensions?" This is a false
dichotomy because other options may exist. Nevertheless, be wary of arguments in
which there really are only two alternatives.

Straw Man: an argument that misrepresents the opposition's view by putting it in terms
that makes it seem more vulnerable. For example, if someone says, "those people who
oppose rapid advances in technology want us to 'go back to the caves,'" it is a straw
man fallacy. Someone who opposes rapid advances in technology would not likely claim
such a premise.

Begging the Question: an argument containing a premise that is really a restatement of

the conclusion. If someone is arguing that marijuana should be legalized, and one of the

premises is that "naturally growing plants should not be restricted," that premise is
begging the question. These fallacies can be extremely subtle.

False Analogy: Arguments often employ analogies, the validity of which must be judged
by the analyst. A statement such as, "experimental drugs like the abortion pill should not
be distributed to the public; look what happened with Thalidomide" could be a false
analogy. The two are different in almost every way except for the inference that they are
labeled "experimental."

Hasty Generalization: Arguments can contain conclusions that are based on incomplete
evidence or unrepresentative samples. Arguments that employ surveys are at risk of
this fallacy. If an argument states, "based on a poll taken at the student union, most
students eat on campus," the sample may not be representing the students who do not
utilize the student union. Be wary of arguments that contain the words "always" or
"never."

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: Literally translated as "after this, therefore because of this,
this fallacy occurs when an argument assumes causation based on the succession of
time. For instance, someone might claim that since President Clinton entered the
Whitehouse, crime in the United States has tripled, implying causation. When analyzed,
however, it may be found that, while the statement is true, the two premises are entirely
unrelated.

False Analogy: the claim of persuasive likeness when no significant likeness exists.

Deductive Inferences

When an argument claims that the truth of its premises guarantees the truth of its
conclusion, it is said to involve a deductive inference. Deductive reasoning holds to a
very high standard of correctness. A deductive inference succeeds only if its premises
provide such absolute and complete support for its conclusion that it would be utterly
inconsistent to suppose that the premises are true but the conclusion false.

Notice that each argument either meets this standard or else it does not; there is no
middle ground.
Some deductive arguments are perfect, and if their premises are in fact true, then it
follows that their conclusions must also be true, no matter what else may happen to be
the case. All other deductive arguments are no good at alltheir conclusions may be
false even if their premises are true, and no amount of additional information can help
them in the least.

Inductive Inferences

When an argument claims merely that the truth of its premises make it likely or probable
that its conclusion is also true, it is said to involve an inductive inference. The standard
of correctness for inductive reasoning is much more flexible than that for deduction. An

inductive argument succeeds whenever its premises provide some legitimate evidence
or support for the truth of its conclusion.
Although it is therefore reasonable to accept the truth of that conclusion on these
grounds, it would not be completely inconsistent to withhold judgment or even to deny it
outright.

Inductive arguments, then, may meet their standard to a greater or to a lesser degree,
depending upon the amount of support they supply. No inductive argument is either
absolutely perfect or entirely useless, although one may be said to be relatively better or
worse than another in the sense that it recommends its conclusion with a higher or
lower degree of probability. In such cases, relevant additional information often affects
the reliability of an inductive argument by providing other evidence that changes our
estimation of the likelihood of the conclusion.

It should be possible to differentiate arguments of these two sorts with some accuracy
already.
Remember that deductive arguments claim to guarantee their conclusions, while
inductive arguments merely recommend theirs. Or ask yourself whether the introduction
of any additional informationshort of changing or denying any of the premisescould
make the conclusion seem more or less likely; if so, the pattern of reasoning is inductive
2010, PBworks

Fallacies and totality of logic in the persona of the laws

One thing I learned is that logic and fallacies cannot be separated. I have learned that
when answering legal conflicts, we should first argue in the logical level, finding fallacies
of every arguments or act through logic. After successfully arguing logically, that should
only be the time wherein laws will be in the picture.

CONCLUSION

Laws will always be written and are there, but there are different perspective through
which a judge tends to judge an act as violation or obedience of the law. Lawyers are
there to aid the courts in realigning justice in its most practical sense, and just
blabbering about the law is not enough. Systems and operation of Logic should play a
part. This is what my paper stands for. The explicit giving of examples and explanation
and its direct legal application in a law students life is what makes a logical argument
as a technique.