#oortrait

Inktober 2018 Day 3 TES III:Morrowind: Hlaalu Hlaalu was one of the big Houses of Morrowind, their focus was on business and diplomacy

The colour linked to the House was yellow/brown

14x9 cm

Blind

In the Grip Of Syllogisms

Clarity often arrives when one accepts a harsher fact, a perfectly logical argument can still be built on assumptions that reality never promised to satisfy.

In simple terms, a syllogism is a very basic logical machine, you put in two statements (premises), and if they are structured correctly, a third statement (the conclusion) follows. This form of reasoning existed long before Kant, especially in the work of Aristotle, who treated syllogisms as the backbone of formal logic. What Immanuel Kant did was not invent syllogisms but analyze how the human mind uses them when it tries to think about itself and the world.

Kant noticed something important and uncomfortable, the mind tends to push logical forms beyond what evidence supports. In his analysis of reason, he identified several kinds of syllogistic reasoning that the mind naturally produces. These are not just classroom exercises. They show how humans end up believing they know things that actually go beyond possible experience.

Kant divides these into three broad families. First, there is the categorical syllogism. This is the classic structure people learn in logic classes. It deals with categories and membership. For example. All mammals breathe air. Whales are mammals. Therefore, whales breathe air. Kant associates this structure with how we think about substances and stable things in the world. The mind tries to treat the self in the same way as if there must be a permanent “thing” behind thoughts. But Kant argues that this leap is not justified. We observe thoughts occurring; we do not observe a metaphysical object called the soul. The syllogistic form seduces the mind into inventing one.

Second, there is the hypothetical syllogism. This one is about conditions and chains of causes. If A happens, then B happens. A happens. Therefore, B happens. Kant connects this to how reason searches for complete causal explanations. The mind does not like loose ends. It keeps asking what caused the cause, and what caused that cause, and so on. Eventually it tries to imagine a total explanation of the entire universe. Kant’s point is blunt, the logical structure pushes us toward the idea of a complete chain, but experience never gives us the whole chain.

Third, there is the disjunctive syllogism. This one works with alternatives. Either A or B must be true. A is not true.Therefore, B is true. Kant links this pattern to the way reason tries to think about the totality of reality, as if all possibilities must fit into a final system. The mind moves from logical alternatives to the idea of a complete world-order. Again, Kant argues that this is reason extending itself beyond what can actually be known.

Here is the key brilliant point many people miss. Kant is not saying syllogisms are wrong. They are valid logical forms. The problem appears when the mind assumes that because a conclusion logically follows from premises, the conclusion must describe reality itself. Logic guarantees internal consistency; it does not guarantee that the premises correspond to things that exist independently of our thinking.