Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Paul Helm, logic, and the necessity of making good distinctions

Here is an interesting article by Paul Helm on the importance of making good distinctions, which is something especially needed when studying, reading and thinking theology.

Helm first shows that there is a difference between consistency, inconsistency and entailment, such that each of these propositions are different.

  1. Propositions p and q are consistent.
  2. Propositions p and q (~p) are inconsistent because they are self-contradictory.
  3. Proposition p entails proposition q, such that if p is true, q must necessary be true

You can read more about it and other distinctions here.

[HT: Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds]

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2 comments:

  1. Joel Tay11/11/08 20:23

    That's an interesting post. You should have posted the whole post. I've bookmarked that blog.

    I find it hard to accept that a theological college would have an MDiv program without any modules on Logic... but apparently, it is the case in Singapore, and especially in TTC... for obvious reasons. Haha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Daniel C11/11/08 21:50

    Eh well, articles are by default copyrighted, so unless it is too short, I normally don't post the whole thing.

    ReplyDelete

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