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Laws of Logic

There are three basic laws of rational discourse: the Law of Identity, the Law of Non-Contradiction, and the Law of Excluded Middle. The Law of Identity states that everything has an identity and characteristics that make it what it is. The Law of Non-Contradiction says that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time. The Law of Excluded Middle means that a statement must either be true or false, with no middle ground. These laws are considered universal and unbending, and are discovered rather than invented.

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245 views2 pages

Laws of Logic

There are three basic laws of rational discourse: the Law of Identity, the Law of Non-Contradiction, and the Law of Excluded Middle. The Law of Identity states that everything has an identity and characteristics that make it what it is. The Law of Non-Contradiction says that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time. The Law of Excluded Middle means that a statement must either be true or false, with no middle ground. These laws are considered universal and unbending, and are discovered rather than invented.

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Unity of Gamers
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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There are three basic laws that all people use when they

engage in rational discourse.

These are :

[1] the Law of Identity

[2] the Law of Non-Contradiction

[3] the Law of Excluded Middle.

Here we shall briefly describe these laws and why we are


rational to hold to them:

The Law of Identity states that everything has an identity. Central to


identity are certain characteristics that constitute the entity (a ball,
person, dog, watch). An entity without an identity cannot exist because it
would be nothing, therefore, for any entity to exist it must exist with an
identity. According to this axiom, an entity cannot possess two identities,
for example, a tennis ball cannot be a table, and a truck cannot be a dog.
Moreover, an entity can possess more than one characteristic, such as a
tree being both rough and brown.

The Law of Non-Contradiction says that a statement cannot be both


true and false. It asserts that the two propositions “A is B” and “A is not
B” are mutually exclusive. We all use this intuitively. If a scholar suspects
that the conclusion to her deductive argument contradicts one of her
premises then she knows she has to go back to evaluate the premises.
Why? Because she realizes that she made an error in logic and that her
conclusion cannot logically follow. Another example could be a mother
suspicious of her son’s story of what he had been doing with his friends
the day before. Why? Because when she asks him questions about it he
recounts multiple events that appear to contradict each other. The
mother thus suspects her son of getting up to mischief because of the
imaginative lengths he goes to, to convince her by harmonizing
contradictory accounts.

The Law of the Excluded Middle says that a statement such as


“There is a cup on the table” is either true or false, and that there is no
other alternative. In other words, the so-called “middle” position, that
the cup “is both on the table and not on the table” is excluded on logical
grounds.

There are two primary reasons for affirming these laws. First, those who
deny them undoubtedly use them in their denials. This not only
demonstrates that the laws are unavoidable but that to deny them is self-
contradictory. Second, these laws are intuitively obvious and self-
evident. In fact, so much so that the burden of the proof would be on the
skeptic to provide a logical defeater of them.

Further, what does it mean to call the above-mentioned laws


“universal,” and what is meant by them being called “laws?” First,
when philosophers refer to them as universal, this means that they are
universally applicable. They do not only apply to some events or
occasions. For example, that a traffic light is not a dog (the Law of
Identity) is not only true in Africa but also in Asia. Second, they are laws
in that they are unbending, without exception, and that deviation from
them is impossible. And finally, these laws are discovered. They were not
invented by people.

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