WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY LOGIC?

A. The Retreat of Baby Logic

 The title of this essay looks forward to a time 
when teachers of critical thinking, engaged in 
pedagogical rumination over their morning cups of tea, 
may ask themselves why elementary formal logic is no 
longer included in the content of their courses.  In 
many parts of North America, this scenario is already 
enacted.  Formal approaches to critical thinking, 
however, still hold sway in isolated pockets of the 
philosophical academic community.  This polemic is 
directed primarily at those pockets, though it may be of 
interest to those who have already made the leap to 
informal logic and beyond, but are interested in 
exploring the pedagogical motivations for this leap. 
 "Baby logic" is the somewhat deprecatory name given 
by philosophers to the courses they teach in 
introductory formal logic.  Though these often contain 
an informal component, they typically focus on the 
propositional calculus and first-order predicate 
calculus.  Standard content would be translations of 
English sentences into symbolism, differences between 
the logical connectives and their English colleagues 
(including the paradoxes of material implication), the 
notion of an axiomatic system, axioms and theorems, 
derivations (often by a natural deduction system), and 
such semantic tools as truth-tables and truth-trees.  
Some courses go as far as completeness and consistency 
proofs for propositional calculus, though such 
metalogical excursions are rare.  Modal logic is also 
unusual in this context. 
 Baby logic, of course, has its uses.  Firstly, it 
is needed as a part of philosophical training, certainly 
as an introduction to the study of logic proper, but 
also as a way of grounding an interest in many of the 
standard problems.  The history of philosophy cannot be 
understood without some formal training.  Although I am 
of the opinion that logic is of little relevance to the 
successful treatment of philosophical problems, this 
opinion is controversial, so that logic is required as 
an aid to understanding contemporary positions too.
 Secondly, it is helpful to students who go on to 
study not philosophy, but mathematics or computing 
science, and sometimes other disciplines such as 
theoretical physics or even economics which might 
incorporate mathematics or computer science.
 Thirdly, it is helpful in ways aside from its 
content to students who would benefit from sheer 
brainwork of a rigorous and analytical kind.  It is 
difficult to prove the generalizability of formal logic 
skills to other areas where there is no overlap of 
conceptual content, but I concede to the logicians that 
it exists.
 My dissatisfaction with baby logic arises only in a 
certain context, that of introductory courses in 
critical thinking.  As these are rapidly becoming the 
bread-and-butter of philosophy departments all over 
North America, it is well to ask whether they provide 
what the rest of the academic community believes them to 
provide.

B. Why is Critical Thinking so Popular?

 There are, I think, three reasons for the 
popularity of critical thinking courses in typical 
post-secondary curricula.  First, they are perceived as 
promoting educational achievement, through the 
development of the abilities and attitudes of rational 
evaluation.  Second, they are seen as facilitating "good 
citizenship", the abilities and attitudes appropriate to 
participation in representative democracies (Glaser 
1985; Sabini & Silver 1985).  Third, it is said that the 
demands of modern social life require, even outside the 
immediate realm of politics, a critical flexibility of 
thought and attitude in the face of conflicting 
lifestyles, information overload and job obsolescence 
(Scriven 1985; Postman 1985; Daly 1986).  The connection 
between the first reason and the others is clear - "good 
citizenship" and critical flexibility consist in the 
exercise in a certain non-academic context of the same 
skills and tendencies as are demonstrative of 
rationality in an academic context. 
 The goal of critical thinking instruction can be 
characterized in a way which pays tribute to each of the 
above reasons.  Let us say that the aim is to enable the 
student to approach the ideal of being an autonomous 
thinker within a community of thinkers.  The notion of 
autonomy captures the importance of independence of 
thought, of having a point of view which is one's own; 
that of community emphasises the sense in which 
independence is constrained by the canons of 
rationality.  This ideal is one which will perhaps be 
recognised as the goal of all serious academic education 
(arguably of all education), according to those who 
practise it most self-consciously.  It is characteristic 
of successful practitioners of any discipline, academic 
or professional, that they fulfil this ideal.  It is 
also one of the most common complaints about "today's 
students" that they seem unable to do so.
 In many areas of North America, at least, critical 
thinking courses are receiving great emphasis as a means 
of addressing the perceived problem that most academic 
instruction does little to encourage the above ideal.  
Whether this perception is accurate, what are the causes 
of the problem and whether critical thinking courses are 
an adequate response are all difficult questions which 
cannot be answered here.  The question I wish to address 
is, merely, "To what extent, if any, does the inclusion 
of baby logic in critical thinking courses further the 
ideal?". 

C. The Holistic Goal of Critical Thinking Instruction

 Let us call the purpose of facilitating the 
student's growth towards becoming an autonomous thinker 
within a community of thinkers the "holistic goal of 
critical thinking instruction."  This way of describing 
it connects it with the liberal arts ideal of 
"developing the whole person" and with the Aristotelian 
notion that education has as much to do with habits and 
attitudes as with information and technical skills.  
 The relationship between the holistic goal of 
critical thinking and the technical skills which are 
exemplified by the critical thinker has been explored by 
Richard Paul (1982; and unpublished).  Partly as a 
result of his work, it is now a commonplace among 
teachers of critical thinking that it is through the 
student's acquisition of the technical skills of 
reasoning, and the consequent development of critical 
attitudes, that the holistic goal is achieved.  Critical 
thinking in the "technical" (or "weak") sense is 
necessary, but not sufficient, for critical thinking in 
the "holistic" (or "strong") sense. 
 It is not difficult to see why this is so when we 
look at the products of failed critical thinking 
instruction.  If we have taught baby logic, informal 
logic or critical thinking, we are familiar with the 
student who might be described as a "logic-chopper".  
This student has internalised the techniques of the 
course, but displays a marked lack of restraint in their 
use. He over-estimates the scope of their application, 
where this will help to refute another's argument, but 
under-estimates it in reference to the possibility of 
self-criticism.  This person lacks the balance which is 
distinctive of the critical thinker.
 Closely allied with the logic-chopper is the 
"myopic", the student who cannot generalize what has 
been learned in logic or critical thinking class to 
other academic areas, nor to matters outside the 
academic life.  Examples inside the course are seen as 
appropriate raw material for the exercise of critical 
techniques, but when arguments occur elsewhere, they are 
not recognised as such, or simply not subjected to the 
same degree of scrutiny.
 More common than the above types, but equally 
deviant from the goal of critical thinking, is the 
"chromatophobe", who wishes to have everything black and 
white.  Uncomfortable with uncertainty, this person 
prefers a decisive reaction to an issue posed (even when 
this is decisively suspending judgment!) to a difficult 
weighing of conflicting claims to credibility.
 To the extent that my caricatures have some basis 
in reality, all three of these types represent failures 
in critical thinking instruction (or else flaws in the 
raw material).  Their inadequacies are matters of 
attitude rather than of technical skill.  In my own 
experience, furthermore, there is a less than perfect 
correlation between intelligence and their avoidance.  I 
suspect that my experience here is shared by other 
critical thinking instructors.
 However, it seems reasonable to suppose that 
through appropriate training in the technical skills of 
critical thinking, and through appropriate discussion 
about the use of those skills, the attitudinal 
shortcomings can be overcome.  One who thinks about how 
to use a hammer will generally be in a better position 
to recognise when and when not to use it.  The 
assumption of more recent directions in critical 
thinking instruction is that progress towards a better 
understanding (and hence an adoption) of critical 
attitudes is maximised by explicit discussion of and 
practice in those attitudes (Resnick 1987).

D. Does Baby Logic Fulfil the Holistic Goal?

 The burning question, then, is to what extent 
courses in baby logic contribute to the development of 
critical thinking as conceived under the "holistic" 
model.  This question is not easy to answer at the 
present time. 
 The main problem is that it is an empirical 
question, and waits upon the results of empirical 
studies of pedagogical effectiveness.  I know of no 
studies which would help me answer the question.  It 
would not be surprising if none existed, for there are 
obvious difficulties in operationalizing and measuring 
highly developed critical thinking attitudes.  I would 
be grateful if anyone could bring such work to my 
attention, since it would release me from the necessity 
for the possibly contentious conceptual argument on 
which I base my answer to the question.
 My answer, clearly, is that baby logic is far from 
the best way to encourage the development of 
higher-order critical thinking.  My argument proceeds 
from the contention that simple logic is conceptually 
too barren to allow for the exercise of the attitudes 
and habits of thought which characterize the developed 
critical thinker.
 The primary reason for this is that at the level of 
elementary logic all questions are decidable in a 
determinate fashion.  Derivations do not sometimes 
produce one result, sometimes another; there are not 
alternative formulations of the truth-table for a 
particular connective; there are clear ways of 
distinguishing valid from invalid arguments.  What 
Wittgenstein (1968 ##107-8) calls the "crystalline 
purity" of logic, a feature it shares with simple 
mathematics, ensures that there is a single correct 
answer to every question one might ask.  While this 
feature may disappear when one enters the higher realms 
of logical inquiry, there is no doubt that it permeates 
the lower levels.
 From the point of view of the student, mastering 
logic then becomes a matter of learning to apply rules, 
with in each case a unique correct outcome.  There may 
be room for individual variance in such things as the 
order of derivation, but this is extremely limited.  
Most complicating factors, such as 
ambiguities of interpretation, are filtered out in 
advance of the application of logical method: they are 
unanalysable because of 
the simplicity of logical concepts.  The focus is on the 
perfection of a certain technique, and one which is 
relatively insensitive to variations in the raw 
material. 
 The purity of logic is not without its attractions. 
 The elegance of certain derivations, the curiosity of 
the differences between truth-functional connectives and 
their ordinary-language counterparts, the clarity of 
mathematical precision, all make up a world which can be 
a delight to the inquiring mind.  But it is not the 
world in which we live.  When a logic teacher launches 
into an explanation of the paradoxes of material 
implication, a line has been crossed.  It is the line 
which separates her subject from its alleged 
applicability to reasoning in real life.  It is the line 
which separates fascination with a technique from the 
development of a rational worldview.
 What is required for the development of a rational 
worldview is a functional understanding of such concepts 
as plausibility, degree of support and balance of 
considerations.  For these, and concepts like them, are 
the fulcra about which the evaluation of real-life 
argumentation turns.  To aim at any lesser degree of 
sophistication in conceptual development is either 
seriously to underestimate the complexity of argument or 
to fail to prepare one's students for the life which 
awaits them.  It is to leave oneself open to the charges 
against Socrates (Stone 1989).
 It is the very seductiveness of the simplicity of 
elementary logic which has the potential to lead 
students towards the attitudes and habits which typify 
the deviant critical thinker. Encouraging the search for 
certainty predisposes the student to be impatient with 
uncertainty: hence the chromatophobe.  When that 
impatience is manifested in the evaluation of real-life 
argumentation, we have the logic-chopper.  Even if the 
student remains sensitive to the incongruity of 
real-life argument and simple logic, the natural effect 
of emphasis on the latter is the failure to generalize: 
hence the myopic.
 If one were to search for a single word which 
describes what these deviants lack, a likely candidate 
would be "judgment".  Critical discourse in real life is 
polychromatic; the ability to distinguish fine hues is 
judgment; the pretence that such discourse can be 
evaluated in black-and-white terms cannot be sustained.


E. How to Save the Bathwater

 Having expressed the case for my thesis, I wish to 
look at some possible rebuttals, and to suggest some 
conciliatory moves I might be willing to make.
 A long time ago, a professor of philosophy for whom 
I worked as teaching assistant expressed to me the 
opinion that it was unnecessary to include any informal 
logic in an introductory course in this area, on the 
grounds that "all natural arguments are syllogistic."  
If it were sound, this argument would certainly be 
powerful ammunition against the position I am here 
supporting.  However, it overlooks some important 
distinctions.  To see why this is so, we need to clarify 
the original claim.
 I think what was meant was that given any plausible 
explicit argument encountered in real life, one could, 
by suitable choice of suppressed premisses, reconstruct 
either a valid syllogistic argument or an argument of 
the form of a common syllogistic fallacy.  There is much 
to be said for this logical point.  The problem is that 
it fails to justify the conclusion that informal logic 
is unnecessary.
 One reason for this is that there is no guarantee 
that such a reconstruction would be at all faithful to 
the intentions of the original arguer.  It will very 
often involve attributing to her universal 
generalizations, for example, to which she would 
correctly deny being committed.  As a result, unless the 
argument truly is syllogistically invalid in a simple 
way, an evaluation based on the reconstruction will 
stand a very good chance of being entirely irrelevant to 
the argument put forward by the 
arguer.  Here we can already imagine the logic-chopper 
in operation.  
 (It might be worthwhile inserting the parenthetical 
note that I do not think the present argument is 
relevant only to cases where the attempted 
reconstruction is in the form of a deductive syllogism. 
 The same problem arises for attempts involving 
inductive syllogism, containing restricted 
generalizations ("Most A ...); examples of arguments 
which are resistant to reconstruction as inductive 
enthymemes are to be found, I suggest, in the realms of 
analogical and conductive argument as well as certain 
kinds of practical reasoning.)
 The central point is that while all arguments may 
be syllogistic in the sense of being subject to 
enthymemic reconstruction, not all arguments are 
syllogistic in the sense that this reconstruction 
correctly represents the author's intentions, nor even 
her unintended commitments.  Only if the second sense 
were applicable would it follow that an adequate 
evaluation of the argument could be carried out in 
syllogistic (or quantificational) logic alone.  The 
rebuttal thus appears to be guilty of equivocation.
 A second reason is that treating all natural 
arguments as syllogistic may focus students on 
inappropriate concepts of argument evaluation.  The main 
fulcra of syllogistic evaluation are formal validity and 
the truth-value of the premisses.  Some natural 
arguments may be formally invalid, but I should hazard 
the guess that most faulty natural arguments, if 
reconstructed syllogistically, would suffer in the main 
from unacceptable premisses, suppressed or otherwise.  
It is quite natural that in teaching baby logic we 
concentrate on the clearcut assessment of formal 
validity, leaving truth to empirical science or 
observation, but this approach leaves the student ill-
equipped to deal with the complex, and more common, 
problems of unacceptability.  Informal logic is 
necessary for these purposes.
 The first rebuttal is founded, I think, on a 
misconception of the very purpose of critical thinking 
instruction.  I would say this is to facilitate the 
development of the skills of evaluative reason as 
applicable to the real-life experience of the student.  
The rebuttal seems to presuppose that it is sufficient 
to facilitate the understanding of certain formal truths 
which do not permit of wide application.
 A more plausible rebuttal starts from the 
observation that sometimes people do make argumentative 
mistakes which are simply truth-functional or 
quantificational in form.  Baby logic provides a way of 
clarifying the concepts used in the evaluation 
of these kinds of mistake.  Therefore, it seems that it 
would be foolhardy to ignore the need for students to 
incorporate these concepts by being introduced to formal 
logic.
 My reaction to this is to suggest that the concepts 
can be explained and assimilated without recourse to 
formal techniques. So-called formal fallacies such as 
affirming the consequent can be explained in natural 
language, I would suggest, much more efficiently than 
through the acquisition of familiarity with formal 
logic.  A semi-formal, abbreviational approach has much 
to recommend it: in this way, too, it is possible to 
bring in the notion, so important in the discussion of 
the truth-functional and quantificational aspects of 
argumentation, of a pattern of argument.
 It might be pointed out that explaining deductive 
patterns of argument in natural language is itself open 
to my objections about giving students an inappropriate 
sense of determinateness.  My general position is saved, 
however, by some considerations about pedagogical 
emphasis.  To familiarize students with propositional 
and predicate calculus takes a considerable length of 
time - perhaps a minimum of a month - and must be done 
in a systematic fashion to be effective: it cannot be 
done piecemeal.  Explaining deductive patterns in 
natural language can be much quicker, and need not be 
organized as a block of instructional time; it can 
instead be interspersed with other material and 
activities.  As a result, the inappropriate attitudinal 
messages which I fear induce the expectation of 
determinateness become both fewer and more diffuse.  The 
determinate aspects of argument assessment lose their 
monolithic character as evaluative paradigms.
 Since these aspects can be explained without formal 
techniques, and since formal techniques bring with them 
their own problems, it seems to me clear that we must 
take the informal approach.  In this way, too, we shall 
further the important programme of enabling critical 
thinking to throw off the shackles of its deductive 
roots.  Neither this result nor this general aim will be 
surprising to many teachers of critical thinking, but I 
hope to have provided some insight into their 
justification, and a word of warning to those who have 
not yet considered them.