Logic Beyond the Canon

MARKO Jakić is a philosopher working in ethics, political philosophy, and the history of logic, with a particular focus on the Croatian philosophical tradition. His work asks a question that matters well beyond the seminar room: how can we tell whether our moral and political convictions can actually be defended by argument, or whether we simply hold them because they suit us?

The Confluence: What would you say to someone who thinks formal logic is disconnected from “real” philosophical questions about how to live?

Dr. Jakić: There is some truth in this view. Formal logic by itself would remain silent on questions such as what kind of life is good, or which values should we accept. It cannot guarantee the truth of our claims, still less the moral acceptability of their conclusions: it is possible to construct a formally valid argument [one where the conclusion really does follow from the starting assumptions] that proceeds from morally repugnant assumptions. [For example: “All people from group X are dangerous; this person is from group X; so this person is dangerous” is logically valid, yet its first assumption is false and hateful.]

Formal logic by itself is therefore not a complete theory of practical life; we also need experience, moral judgement, empathy, and practical wisdom. It does not follow, however, that logic is disconnected from how we ought to live.

As soon as we attempt to justify an answer to that question, we are already within the domain of logic. If we claim that all human beings possess equal dignity, yet exclude a particular group from the rights that follow from that dignity, we must explain why, and if we justify our own conduct by a principle we would not accept if others applied it to us, we face a problem of consistency.

Logical analysis does not solve the moral problem, but it often shows where we genuinely disagree, about facts, about values, or simply because the conclusion does not follow. I would compare logic to a compass that shows whether the path we have taken leads to where we claim we wish to go. It cannot select our fundamental values for us, but it compels us to consider their consequences, and this matters not only for philosophical debate: laws, political decisions, and computer algorithms already contain assumptions and rules of inference [built-in rules for drawing conclusions], and if those hidden assumptions are not clearly visible, today’s sophisticated systems may merely reproduce flawed premises with greater formal precision. [A hiring algorithm trained on a company’s past decisions, for instance, can faithfully reproduce that company’s old biases while appearing perfectly objective.]

The Confluence: How did you first get drawn into logic as a research focus?

Dr. Jakić: Because my work is in ethics and political philosophy, I constantly encounter the difference between positions that appear morally acceptable at first sight and positions that can genuinely be defended by argument. It is one thing to state one’s convictions regarding concepts such as justice or human dignity, but much more demanding to show from which assumptions those convictions arise, and whether they can be applied consistently even to cases that do not suit us.

Logic is not simply a kind of symbolic calculus [using symbols to represent arguments, as in mathematics]; it is a discipline that studies the structure of valid inference [whether a conclusion actually follows from the reasons given], present at the very core of philosophy even when we do not employ symbolic notation.

The Confluence: For a reader who only knows the “big Western canon,” what’s distinctive about how logic and philosophical argument have developed in the Croatian tradition?

Dr. Jakić: Standard accounts of the history of philosophy can create the impression that philosophy developed exclusively in a few major European centres, while smaller traditions merely adopted ideas formed elsewhere. But the legacy of authors associated with Croatian cultural heritage, such as Herman of Dalmatia, Juraj Dragišić, Frane Petrić, and Ruđer Bošković, reveals a much more complex picture: they participated directly in European debates and reshaped different intellectual influences.

An important characteristic of the Croatian tradition is its openness. It did not emerge as a closed national school founded on a single method, but developed at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Central European, and Slavic worlds, its authors writing in Latin, Italian, German, and Croatian, studying and teaching in Rome, Florence, Padua, Vienna, and Zagreb.

In the nineteenth century, logic in Croatia also acquired a cultural role, building a domestic philosophical culture in the national language, creating terminology, writing textbooks, and modernising the institutional teaching of philosophy. The distinctiveness of the Croatian tradition lies primarily in the way logic developed at the intersection of languages, cultures, and disciplines, between scholasticism [the high point of medieval philosophy and theology] and humanism [the Renaissance movement that revived the study of ancient Greek and Roman writing], philosophy and the natural sciences.

The history of Croatian philosophy is therefore not merely an appendix to the great Western canon, because that canon itself was never truly closed or composed only of a few great names.

The Confluence: Is there a Croatian philosopher or logician you think deserves to be much better known internationally?

Dr. Jakić: The greatest Croatian philosopher and scientist is Ruđer Bošković, a native of Dubrovnik. He is not internationally unknown, especially as a scientist, but his philosophical importance, a highly rational methodology underlying his theory of matter and forces, has not yet received sufficient recognition.

If I had to single out just one figure, though, I would choose Juraj Dragišić, also known by the Latinised name Georgius Benignus de Salviatis, born around 1445, a Franciscan friar, philosopher, theologian, and humanist active in Urbino, Pisa, and Florence, who moved in circles associated with Cardinal Bessarion, Pope Leo X, and Pico della Mirandola [among the most influential churchmen and thinkers of the Italian Renaissance].

His work on logic, Dialectica nova, published in Florence in 1489, sought to bring together different schools of logic and provided a very early systematic treatment of almost all the moods of the fourth syllogistic figure [rarer patterns of argument which Aristotle did not classify as a separate fourth figure], which alone makes him interesting to historians of logic.

He participated in debates on freedom of the will, the origin of evil, and the authenticity of prophecies, defended Pico della Mirandola and Girolamo Savonarola [a Florentine preacher later executed for heresy], and, at the start of the sixteenth century, opposed the destruction of Hebrew books during the Reuchlin controversy [a campaign to confiscate and burn Jewish religious texts in the German lands].

He was not a modern liberal thinker, but he displayed intellectual courage and a willingness to challenge dominant opinion by means of argument, even when doing so brought him difficulties. His works should be studied as part of the general history of European Renaissance philosophy, rather than merely as a curiosity in Croatian cultural history.

The Confluence: If you could get a general reader to understand one thing about why logic matters, what would it be?

Dr. Jakić: Logic makes our arguments accountable for their consequences. If we accept the premises but reject their conclusion simply because we do not like it, we must either show that the inference is invalid or reconsider one of our own assumptions; we cannot simply disregard the consequences of our convictions when they become uncomfortable.

This is perhaps the greatest practical value of logic. Its primary purpose is not the art of winning an argument or correcting other people’s mistakes. It teaches us that we must apply the same criteria to ourselves and to others, and to distinguish what we know from what we merely assume.

Logic has an important corrective role in public life: it helps us recognise manipulation, false dilemmas [presenting only two choices when there are really more], and attempts to present an emotional reaction as evidence.

What is especially interesting, though, is logic’s self-reflective dimension [its ability to check our own thinking, not just other people’s]: it protects us from our own psychological tendency toward self-deception. We are usually very good at identifying inconsistencies in people with whom we disagree, but far less successful when we make the same mistakes ourselves.