‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic
in order to be True.
It also needs to be epistemologically correct.’
Oscar Hoffman, 1930-2017

This morning (February 22, 2013, thanks FB) I had a very interesting discussion with my son.

Trying to ‘soften’ him up to my arguments I said: “I don’t understand how a person with such a command of logic as yourself is unwilling to accept that…”

I should have seen this coming:
“If you have such an admiration for MY logic why don’t YOU accept that…”
That very moment I recalled a lecture by Professor Oscar Hoffman: ‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic…’

How do you translate that to a 13 years old?

“Look here. Being Logical is only the beginning. You cannot do anything without it but it isn’t enough just by itself. It’s only the formal side of Things”.
And that was the very moment when inspiration hit me:
“Let me give you an example. You have a lot of wooden pieces: spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones..etc. and two boards with holes in them: circles, squares, triangles. Your task is to put each wooden piece through the corresponding hole but you must also follow a second rule: half the wooden pieces are made of red oak and they belong to the red board while the other half are made of birch and they belong to the blue board”.

“Let’s presume you have no idea about either geometry or kinds of wood. Using logic you might separate red oak from fir using the grain and then learn to thread various shapes each through the corresponding hole. But no amount of logic will ever enable you to associate the correct pile of wooden pieces to which colored board unless somebody tells you which pile is made of red oak and which pile is made of fir.
Savvy?”

I’m proud to report that he got the point!

Present day edit.
He remembers the discussion but neither of us can recall where it started!