Critical Reasoning and Logic

Rating:
Summary: Utter Hogwash
Review: This book is a laughable attempt at a noble topic. Not worth the paper that it is printed upon, this book oozes of pompous self-importance and fallacious argument. I've seen better texts on these topics in the $1 bin at the senior center.

His foundation for the 'Critical Objectivist' caste is based on comical blunders in even the simplest logic. He asserts, for example, that if the Critical Objectivist believes something, then it is true for all people and societies, regardless of if they adopt his axioms or not. He argues against Relativism with the following:

"...if there are realities (plural), then there must be a reality (singular)..."

Thus, he asserts from that there must be only one reality. Continuing, he goes on to say that the Relativist must collapse into self-contradiction, with the humorous attempt:

"A relativist might claim, for example, that the doctrines of Christianity are true because they are held to be true in a given society and that the doctrines of Buddhism are true because they are held to be true in a different given society." He goes on to describe how these two theories differ with respect to theism. The sad blindness for Boyd is his simple inability to grasp that the Relativist would hold those to each be true *for the respective societies*, which leads to the obvious logical form:

C(x) : x is a member of a Christian society
B(x) : x is a member of a Buddhist society
G(x) : x asserts that there is a god
(All x)[C(x) -> G(x)]
(All x)[B(x) -> ~G(x)]

For which no obvious contradiction exists, yet Boyd asserts that a contradiction does exist, and thus Relativism is faulty. Sadly, this is in a *logic* textbook.

I truly hope that this is not Boyd's opus.