The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #7
When one of his audience said, “Convince me that logic is useful,” he said,
Would you have me demonstrate it?
“Yes.”
Well, then, must I not use a demonstrative argument?
And, when the other agreed, he said, How then shall you know if I impose upon you? And when the man had no answer, he said, You see how you yourself admit that logic is necessary, if without it you are not even able to learn this much- whether it is necessary or not . - Discourses of Epictetus

…arguments, like men, are often pretenders. - Plato

If we were to conduct an informal poll of American opinion concerning the most important college majors presently available to our students, almost certainly we would see the responses more or less correspond to the public’s perception of today’s most pressing issues. Topping the list of foremost academic areas of study at the university would be the physical sciences and engineering. Biology, genetics, physiology, organic chemistry, and medicine would be emphasized for the prolongation of life and the eradication of cancer and other serious disease.

Astronomy, meteorology, geology, computer science and physics would also be considered essential areas of study in order to deal with various issues of climate change, alternative energy sources and storage systems, geophysical and seismic processes, the profitable exploration of space, and nanotechnologies. Of course, engineering and mathematics in all of their many useful facets would assist and extend the activities of the physical sciences.

Next in importance would be the divisions within the business school: accounting, finance and banking, and economics. These would be considered vital areas of study for the advancement and enlargement of the activities of science, commerce and industry; all the more so for the near and distant future as our national and global financial and economic troubles persist and perhaps, multiply.

Of all these many and useful college majors mentioned in our informal poll, we would also surely find not a single vote cast for the study of philosophy. Indeed, if one were to consult a typical university catalogue of course offerings, philosophical studies would seldom be found amongst those listed to fulfill major requirements; at most, philosophy would be regarded as elective or optional.

Why should this matter? Because philosophy is absolutely essential to the operation of all the aforementioned disciplines- there is no exception! Furthermore, philosophy connects each area of study to the others: without philosophy, the findings in one field would have no relationship to, or bearing upon, the work in the others- once again, there are no exceptions!

Consequently, to the extent philosophy is shunted aside or excluded altogether, ALL of the other areas of knowledge become unproductive and, ultimately, arbitrary. Hardly a coincidence then, that our nation’s financial and economic sectors have finally been made such a mess after as many years (at least since the beginning of the 20th century) as philosophy has been regarded The Great Pariah (a member of a low social caste; outcast). And with this continued failure of reason- made possible through the absence of philosophical study in public education- will come ultimately, the failure of republican government and the demise of FREEDOM.

The branch of philosophy which specifically studies “the methods and principles used to distinguish good (correct) from bad (incorrect) reasoning” is called Logic. Since reasoning is- or is supposed to be- an active part of all intellectual activities (from Astronomy to Zoology), Logic is therefore appropriate to all intellectual occasions. We can see from the introductory quotes to this journal entry that Logic is useful and necessary not only for enabling reason in the first instance, but is also quite necessary when faulty reasoning is intentionally being used under the guise of faultless reasoning.

So what precisely does philosophy do? That is to say, how does philosophy permit the working of the academic areas of study, as well as connect each to the other? In the next journal entry, we shall consult Professor Edward Craig of Cambridge University in order to see the three basic questions philosophy attempts to answer.