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nydus/The Game of LogicPublic

This instructional book presents a logic game played with a diagram and nine counters. It explains how to express propositions through the relationship between things and their attributes.

Page 12 of 126
Table of Contents

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

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Our ingenious American cousins have invented a phrase to express the position of a man who wants to join one or the other of two parties--such as their two parties 'Democrats' and 'Republicans'--but can't make up his mind WHICH. Such a man is said to be "sitting on the fence." Now that is exactly the position of the red counter you have just placed on the division-line. He likes the look of No. 5, and he likes the look of No. 6, and he doesn't know WHICH to jump down into. So there he sits astride, silly fellow, dangling his legs, one on each side of the fence!

Now I am going to give you a much harder one to make out. What does this mean?

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This is clearly a DOUBLE Proposition. It tells us not only that "some x are y," but also the "no x are NOT y." Hence the result is "ALL x are y," i.e. "all new Cakes are nice", which is the last of the three Propositions at the head of this Section.

We see, then, that the Universal Proposition

"All new Cakes are nice"

consists of TWO Propositions taken together, namely,

             "Some new Cakes are nice,"
        and "No new Cakes are not-nice."

In the same way

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