Blog Response #3

"Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence."
Obviously logic gives a person confidence, whatever the message or argument. Because of how precisely Aristotle mapped out his version of logic, and the way it all fits together, if someone sets up an argument with his method, the logic should be flawless, and therefore at least half of the reasoning should be flawless. For teh most part, Aristotle's logic is generally accepted today as the model of good reasoning, and syllogisms are still studied in law school today. Aristotelian logic being wrong would uproot much of our present society. That isn't to say that there is no way Aristotelian logic is false, but I find that it makes sense, especially in the context of our present society.
However, even if one takes Aristotle's logic as The Truth, it is only as good as the premises used themselves. As can be seen from Euclid's geometry, some premises are too strange to be taken as true--like postulate five, which Lobachevsky and others have tried to disprove. If postulate five were wrong, most of what Euclid concluded would be wrong, and then many of the theorems we take for truth would also be wrong. Krutch would be right that Euclid was wrong--but so confidently wrong that the rest of us believe him.
So, logic can be the art of going wrong with confidence, but only with faulty premises. If a premise is accepted and "right", however, logic should deliver someone to a correct answer. So it is probably more suitable to say that incorrect premises are the art of going wrong with confidence.