Being Logical 逻辑思考
先看看Aristotle对于人类的定义，"Human are rational animals." 不是intelligent animals，不是emotional animals，真正将我们人类与动物区分开的是我们的理智，rationality，the logus.
Human
01 What is logic
Then what's rationality? what's logic? Well, many would assume that it's just a way of thinking, unsullied by emotional evils. But I would say, it's more of an attitude towards life. As the author of Being Logical said, the art of logic "goes to the very core of what we are".
The art of logic is like no other, for it goes to the verycore of whatwe are.The poet Pindar offersus some; radicaladvice when he tells us to“become what you are"- -bywhich he means“become human." If“being logical”isnotexactly the sum total of“being human," it is, I like to think,a very important part of it.
02 why
The ultimate purpose of reasoning and logic: to arrive at truth
“真理”这概念似乎听起来很玄学，似乎是古希腊智者才会追求的东西，但是实际上它与我们生活是紧密相关的，举几个例子：当你和一个人自己讨厌的人意见不合的时候，你是会calm down and assess who's right，还是squeal your protests even if you are wrong? ；当你作为senior member，知识、能力受到junior member质疑的时候，你是squash them into submission 还是 introspect yourself carefully?
In most cases, it's not that we don't know what's the right thing, it's just that we are accustomed to do the easy thing.
03 Principles
向物理一样，逻辑世界也是有基本前提的，这里的基本前提的，只不过这时的principle，不单单适用于一个学科，而是适用于人类生活的所有理性世界。
使用越广泛的原则，往往越为抽象，如果你暂时无法理解下面的原则，不用慌。
No. 1 THE PRINCIPLE OF IDENTITY
Stated: A thing is what it is
The world is a composition of individuals. It's not a complete homogenous mass. An apple is an apple. It's not an orange, a banana or a pear.
No. 2 T H E PRINCIPLE OF THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE
Stated: Between being and non-being there is no middle state.
Something exist or not. Becoming is not a process from non-being to being, but an alternation already in the realm of being/existence.
想到美剧权力的游戏里面，瑟曦曾经说过一句话"when you play games of thrones, you win or you die, there's no middle ground", 在存在与否的命题下，是没有中立场的。
No.3 T H E PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON
Stated: There is a sufficient reason for everything.
Every thing in universe has its reason of existence. Nothing is self-explanatory or the cause of itself. What become the cause of another thing?
万物的存在都可以找到它们的理由。这种purpose从小处讲，就比如是每个问题的存在都有其原因，发掘事物背后的原因是解决问题的第一步，即从A → B → C，一步步深入，找到root cause。但是从大处讲，则是有关于人的使命, mission. Mary Fisher在号召全美关注艾滋病的演讲中也提到，“but I believe that in all things there is a purpose”，她因为艾滋病倒下，其中的purpose使得她共和党大会（Republication National Convention）挺身而出，为所有艾滋病代言。
No. 4 T H E PRINCIPLE OF CONTRADICTION
Stated: It is impossible for something both to be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.
In the same respect refers to "the mode of existence"; that is, something can't be / not be in terms of existence and mode of existence at the same time. Contraditions are the opposite of truth. Reasons of contradtions
这条原则中朴素的哲学观也令人深思。There's no absolutely same things. Of course, there's no same human beings. But the endless competitions and camparisons with our peers stem from the very poisonous conception that children are same, so the only way to go forward is to push others backwards.
04 How to communicate logically
To become logical, you need to have a perspective shift and start to look at the world through the lens of logic.
You will see, the whole world is divided into mental world and objective world. The mental world, aka. human knowledge, consists of three elements: word, idea and facts.
Logus
Now keep that in mind. All the speeches, thoughts, objects can be broken down to these "atoms".
现在开始实战。
1) Formulate the idea. This is the root and most fundamental thing to do. Many of us find ourselves floundering, stumbling from word to word, having something at the tip of our tongue, but just can't put it clearly. You will mistake that as a lack of words, but the crux is that you are not even clear about what you are going to say. So before saying or writing, ask your self, "what kind of idea do I want to convey?"
2) Find the accurate expressions. Be it careless or deliberate, the vague expressions is littered in our writings. Sometimes, the ambiguity happens when you don't think clearly; some times, the word in question has multiple meanings; other times, the term is not defined. The third reason is the main culprit. General terms abound in English vocabulary, especially the abstract ones. You want to talk about "empathy", but our understanding about it differs. So think clearly, clarify you term and choose accurate words.
3) Construct argument. A typical argument is composed of a premise statement and a conclusion statement. To persuade others, show your opinions is not enough, you must equip it with evidence, aka. premise statements. A sound argument calls for true, strong premise at the same time. Also correct arrangement of the premises is also critical to an argument's validity. During the process, one has to keep frequent tabs on the objective world to see if the argument faithfully presents the correspondence between ideas and objective facts or whether it fits into an established theory or system of thought which correspond with the reality.
4) Be attentive. The last but not least step is to assess your argument. Again, check it against the objective world. The crux here, is to be attentive. It's too easy to let go of small, but erroneous mistakes or pass a case as a repetition of past ones. Great patience and attention need to be devoted to a good argument. Don't just look, see. Don't just hear, listen.
05 Illogical thinking
非逻辑思维很多我这边只举几个常见的。
从原因上讲，有以下几类：
1）Evasive Agnosticis: The attitude that humans always lack enough knowledge regarding a particular issue to be able to make a definite judgment about it.
2）Cynicism or naive optimism: Be totally negative or positive about something without enough evidence. This is most typical mistakes we will make. When we are upset by clogged traffic, every collegue seems act against us. When we are in good mood, we affirm everuthing as positive.
3）Narrow-Mindednes: Refuse other possibilities and hold on to your believes or opinions.
4）Emotion and Argument： The more intense emotion is, the harder to think clearly, judge responsibily
可以归为下面两类：⭐
No. 1 The wrong structure
1. disprove: The fact that there is no concrete proof against a position does not constitute an argument in favour of the position. I cannot claim to be right simply because you can't prove me to be wrong. ⭐
2. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: The temporal precedence of one event over another is not irrelevant in considering whether there might be a causal relationship between the two
3. false dilemma: Attempt to persuade people there are only two possibilities when the truth is that there are a lot. ⭐
4. beg the question: repetition/variation of the conclusion
No. 2 The wrong basis
1. Diversionary Tactic: use laughter to dismiss the issue or play on the symphaies of an audience
2. expert: it is argument, not just the word of the experts,which should be carrying the authoritative weight⭐
3. vibe: Divert the audience attention away by attacking the opponents' life instead of rebutting his argument [The Ad-Hominem Fallacy] ⭐
4. crowd: the assumption that the mere fact that most people believe proposition X to be true is sufficient evidence to allow us to conclude that proposition X is true
5. tradition: The history of practice should not become simply the excuse of using or rejecting it. We should look at its practical value.
6. source: Knowing a source to be generally bad, you assume that everything coming from that source must necessarily be bad.
在上面所有的例子里，可以发现的共性是，我们把判断正误、好坏的依据都建立在与论证本身无关的因素上了，因此如果要真正be logical, rational, 我们要尽量排除无关因素的影响，把注意力放到 intellectual substance本身上来，if you want to prove you are right, demonstrate it.
What should move people in a sound argument is its intellectual substance, the ideas and their interconnections—and not whatever emotional overtones the argument may carry with it. A conclusion should be accepted not because we feel good about it but because we see that it is true and therefore worthy of our acceptance.
Reference: Being Logical: A Guide To Good Thinking
