[jeffreylkarl]

Thank you, Professor. That definitely helped.

I may have answered my second question as I was typing it up. I was a little confused about real supposition in abstract terms. McCall lists “Justice is a virtue” as an example.

Maybe it’s better just to ask for some further reading on the subject of supposition? McCall lists Jacques Maritain’s ‘Introduction to Logic’ as a great resource, but I’m not sure if this covers informal logic. Or perhaps one of the books on the bibliography page covers the topic of supposition?

[jeffreylkarl]

Hi Professor,

Yes, that helped. I actually had to read you response, go reread the passage in the book, and then reread your response once more.

It sounds like singular concepts are concepts that extend to one specific thing (I want to avoid using the word “individual” here), while individual concepts are universals, extending to an infinite number of singulars, that are taken individually – or maybe it’s better to say “taken one at a time?”

McCall said earlier in the chapter that as comprehension increases extension decreases. Does an individual concept side step this inverse relationship? I can see how saying “this man” might call to mind the image of a specific man and his unique traits, whereas saying the term “my father” limits the universal concept “father” to just one of its many singulars without at all changing the image of the universal concept. It seems a bit “gentler” or “less restricting” I suppose.

Is this correct? I have just one other question about the chapter on Terms and wanted to see if I could first grasp the singular concept vs. individual concept distinction.

Thank you, again.

[jeffreylkarl]

I’m reading “Basic Logic” by Raymond McCall. I chose this one primarily because Professor Casey referred to it as “a gem.” So far, so good.

You can find some pretty inexpensive copies by typing the ISBN into Google.

Or try half.com.

[jeffreylkarl]

Here are some free online versions of the bibliography:

The Science of Logic by Peter Coffey

Basic Logic by Raymond McCall

A Practical Study of Argument by Trudy Govier

Update:

The book Professor Casey referred to as “a gem” in his first lecture (Basic Logic by Raymond McCall) can be found at half.com and AbeBooks for only a few dollars.

[Author]

Posts