Socratic Logic - Reasoning

The following are the notes I have taken from Peter Kreeft's wonderful Socratic Logic textbook. I highly recommend you buy it. This is a book which deals with classical logic (as opposed to modern symbolic logic.) It is easily the best overall book on logic I have ever read and one of the few I have that are worth making notes from. I even have a small duotang with these notes in it I can carry around and reference on a regular basis.

Mapping Complex Arguments Using Argument Maps

There are basically five steps:

A. Read argument slowly, carefully and multiple times.

B. Break the argument down into its steps.

a) Underline each proposition and add a number before it.

b) circle each premise / conclusion indicator.

c) Copy the propositions onto a logical map, with arrows leading from premises to conclusion.

C. Evaluate the entire argument by evaluating each sub-argument.

Constructing Syllogisms

A. Know what conclusion you want to prove.

B. Put your conclusion into logical form.  You should end up with two terms, S and P.

C. Find a good middle term.

(Through instinct, intuition, imitation, practice.)

D. Check your syllogism for validity.

E. Check propositions for truth or falsehood.