THE MEANS AND END OF MENTAL TRAINING: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND THE LOGICAL
§ 1. Introductory: The Meaning of Logical
Special topic of this chapter
In the preceding chapters we have considered (i) what thinking is; (ii) the importance of its special training; (iii) the natural tendencies that lend themselves to its training; and (iv) some of the special obstacles in the way of its training under school conditions. We come now to the relation of logic to the purpose of mental training.
Three senses of term logical
The practical is the important meaning of logical
In its broadest sense, any thinking that ends in a conclusion is logical—whether the conclusion reached be justified or fallacious; that is, the term logical covers both the logically good and the illogical or the logically bad. In its narrowest sense, the term logical refers only to what is demonstrated to follow necessarily from premises that are definite in meaning and that are either self-evidently true, or that have been previously proved to be true. Stringency of proof is here the equivalent of the logical. In this sense mathematics and formal logic (perhaps as a branch of mathematics) alone are strictly logical. Logical, however, is used in a third sense, which is at once more vital and more practical; to denote, namely, the systematic care, negative and positive, taken to safeguard reflection so that it may yield the best results under the given conditions. If only the word artificial were associated with the idea of art, or expert skill gained through voluntary apprenticeship (instead of suggesting the factitious and unreal), we might say that logical refers to artificial thought.
Care, thoroughness, and exactness the marks of the logical
In this sense, the word logical is synonymous with wide-awake, thorough, and careful reflection—thought in its best sense (ante, p. 5). Reflection is turning a topic over in various aspects and in various lights so that nothing significant about it shall be overlooked—almost as one might turn a stone over to see what its hidden side is like or what is covered by it. Thoughtfulness means, practically, the same thing as careful attention; to give our mind to a subject is to give heed to it, to take pains with it. In speaking of reflection, we naturally use the words weigh, ponder, deliberate—terms implying a certain delicate and scrupulous balancing of things against one another. Closely related names are scrutiny, examination, consideration, inspection—terms which imply close and careful vision. Again, to think is to relate things to one another definitely, to "put two and two together" as we say. Analogy with the accuracy and definiteness of mathematical combinations gives us such expressions as calculate, reckon, account for; and even reason itself—ratio. Caution, carefulness, thoroughness, definiteness, exactness, orderliness, methodic arrangement, are, then, the traits by which we mark off the logical from what is random and casual on one side, and from what is academic and formal on the other.
Whole object of intellectual education is formation of logical disposition