NOTE: The first installment of The Reasoning Railroad – namely, Chapter 1a: Mystery Train – originally went out on our Blog email list, but due to a programming error, the link did not appear on our front page or on our blog page. We have since posted the link on our blog page, and you can find it here https://triviumpursuit.com/the-reasoning-railroad-mystery-train/. Let’s hope this is  the last bug we find in our renovated website.

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Chapter 1[b]: Mystery Train (continued)

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• The three fundamental laws of thought – the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, and the law of non-contradiction – seem like “common sense.” Common sense may be defined as that innate (inborn) ability to make a sound judgment based on general knowledge aptly applied to a specific situation. We all develop this innate ability to make judgments, and this development of judgment is built on these three fundamental laws.

• These three laws work together because they actually imply each other. For this reason, we may have trouble identifying which law is expressed. Simply ask, “How far has the reasoning gone?

Level One: Identity – every proposition implies itself [A is A].

Level Two: Excluded Middle (requires Identity) – everything proposed must either be or not be [A is not non-A].

Level Three: Non-Contradiction (requires Excluded Middle, which requires Identity) – no statement can be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect [Either A or non-A].

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4. Here are some common expressions. Which of the three laws does each express?

1. “I am what I am and that’s all what I am.” Popeye the Sailor Man

2. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

3. Things being as they are…

4. A man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.

5. I can’t be in two places at the same time.

6. “Que Sera, Sera: What Will be, Will be.” Song title (written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 movie The Man Who Knew Too Much, and first sung by Doris Day)

7. Make up your mind: Either you’re in or you’re out.

8. Do you want to play or don’t you?

9. I wish I could go, but I’d miss baseball practice.

10. “I will give my process of thought … That process … starts upon the supposition that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier)

11. Do you have an alibi?

12. He thinks he can have it both ways.

13. I’m not sure that you’re all here.

14. Be that as it is.

15. “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Hamlet’s Soliloquy (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

16. It ain’t over ’til it’s over. (Yogi Berra, first player, then manager of the New York Yankees)

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1. Identity: “I am what I am …” Excluded Middle: “…and that’s all what I am.”

2. Non-Contradiction: You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

3. Identity: Things being as they are.

4. Excluded Middle: A man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.

5. Non-Contradiction: I can’t be in two places at the same time.

6. Excluded Middle: “Que Sera, Sera: What Will be, Will be.”

7. Excluded Middle: Make up your mind: Either you’re in or you’re out.

8. Excluded Middle: Do you want to play or don’t you?

9. Non-Contradiction: I wish I could go, but I’d miss baseball practice.

10. Non-Contradiction: “I will give my process of thought … That process … starts upon the supposition that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

11. Non-Contradiction: Do you have an alibi?

12. Non-Contradiction: He thinks he can have it both ways.

13. Non-Contradiction: I’m not sure that you’re all here. (That is, you’re being contradictory, not making sense, illogical, irrational.)

14. Identity: Be that as it is.

15. Excluded Middle: “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

16. Non-Contradiction: It ain’t over ’til it’s over. [It cannot both be over and not be over at the same time.]

“A man cannot step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

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TO BE CONTINUED …