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1. Introduction to Logic
Lecture 1
David Gordon
Mises Academy
February 13, 2012

2. If something is true and we deduce something else from
it following the rules of logic, then the conclusion will be
true too.
Truth versus validity—a valid conclusion is one that
follows the rules of logic. This doesn’t mean that a valid
conclusion is true. The conclusion is guaranteed to be
true only if the premises are true. If you start with
something false, a validly deduced conclusion can be
either true or false.

3. ●Distinction between Concept and Mental Picture
(Joyce calls this Phantasm)
●Concepts are universal
●Repugnant concepts
●Concepts are our ideas of things

4. ● A Name names an object, in view of a concept
● Scholastic logic uses a two names theory of a proposition. Both subject and
predicate are names.
● Proper names tell nothing about the object
● Significant singular terms = definite descriptions
● Proper names are non-connotative
● Positive and negative terms
● Contradictory vs. Contrary Opposition
● First and Second Intention

5. When you heard the terrible news from Arizona,
were you completely surprised? Or were you, at
some level, expecting something like this atrocity to
happen? …
The Climate of Hate

6. “The just wage represents people taking out of the
system in consumption no more than they put in
by production. This, by definition, constitutes
equilibrium. But how do we know that just wages
will support a family? Directly, we don’t. But,
indirectly, we do, because the contrary proposition
is absurd. If we assert in general that wages in
general should not support the family, then
economics becomes an absurd science with no
real purpose. If economic systems in general just
don’t work, then we must choose between chaos
or Keynesianism.”

7. “The first lesson is that property is originally
communal (owned by the community). Indeed,
the very idea of a purely private property is a
contradiction in terms, since the right to
private property must be recognized by the
community to have any value. For example, the
owner must be able to call upon the police to
be able to exclude others from his property, or
his property cannot be said to be private at all.”
●Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market, p.116

8. “The [marginal productivity] theory tries to figure
the ‘independent productivity’ of capital and labor,
but this number is in fact the only precisely known
number in all of economics: it is precisely zero.
Neither capital nor labor produces anything
without the other. . .The productivity of a given
process may be reliably measured and compared
with other production processes, but the
productivity of factors within the process cannot
be reliably measured; one can only make a
judgment about them, a judgment that cannot be
reduced to mathematics.”

9. “So which kind of science is economics, normative
or positive? I will suggest that the question is
meaningless. Every science, insofar as it really is a
science, is both positive and normative. Every
science, insofar as it is a science, insofar as it a
science, must be ‘normalized’ to some criteria of
truth. These truths arise from two sources: an
internal and an external source. The internal
criteria involve a science’s proper subject matter
and
methodology. . .In addition, there must be external
criteria of truth, and these truths can only come
from one or more higher sciences.”

10. Yet consider the absurdity of the claim that we have a
right to spend every nickel of our pretax income. If
taxes were purely voluntary, our government would not
be able to raise revenue to build roads or schools. It
could not field an army … perhaps those who oppose
compulsory taxation should just move to a country
where taxes are voluntary. But there is
no such country. Given that reality, our best option is
to have an intelligent conversation about what services
we want government to provide and who should be
taxed to pay for them.
●Robert H. Frank, The Economic Naturalist’s Field