The Science Of Correct Thinking: Logic

The Science of Correct Thinking: Logic
Revised and Enlarged
Celestine N. Bittle, O.M.Cap (Order of Capuchin Friars Minor)
Bruce Publishing Company, 1937 386 p

Fr. Celestine Nicholas Bittle (1897-1962) was a noted author, philosopher, military chaplain, and the first principal of Messmer High School in Milwaukee, WI. His other philosophical works include “The Domain Of Being: Ontology”, “Reality and the Mind: Epistemology” and “Man And Morals: Ethics”.

In the preface to this work on logic, Fr. Bittle comments, “Far too many errors in the solution of problems are due to loose reasoning and to an ignorance of the laws which govern our mental operations.” He wrote this during the time between the two world wars when the great 20th century battle of “-isms” – including the most insidious, “Modernism” – was raging. Seventy-six years after publication, the errors about which Fr. Bittle warned us have encircled our society; those who deplore right reason have succeeded in sinking Western culture into mindlessness. Divorce between thought and reality is everywhere one looks: in our discourse, our politics, our science, in how we define humanity, and in our sustaining institutions, including, sadly, the Faith. A pre-lunacy-era work like “The Science of Correct Thinking” is needed now more than ever if we are to have any hope for a return to sanity.

Written to be used as a textbook for college students, this work is absolutely joyful to read cover-to-cover, as Fr. Bittle’s style is lyrical and quite beautiful. The organization of topics is coherent and easy to follow. Although a pure beginner will need to employ just a bit of elbow grease to gain ground, understanding of even the most complex concepts is there for the taking, thanks to Fr. Bittle’s stepwise approach to the material.

The book is divided into four parts: Ideas and Terms, Judgment and Propositions, Deduction, and Induction. Each chapter builds upon the definitions and concepts presented in the preceding chapters; within a chapter, concepts are introduced to the mind, precisely defined, and then demonstrated through examples, often using symbolic equations and real world situations together, but mostly the latter. When equations are used, they truly aid in understanding and never confuse it. A reader coming out the other side of this work will without question have a firm foundation on how to think correctly. Chapter 6, “Judgment and Proposition”, is perhaps one of the most crucial sections and deserves an especially careful reading:

“Truth and falsity, then, lie in the judgment not in the ideas taken alone for themselves… judgment is an act of the mind pronouncing the agreement or disagreement of ideas among themselves… it is an act of the intellect affirming or denying one idea of another… no other act of the mind has this peculiarity that it claims to be true [or false].”

The answer to the question of how the mind judges is, in my opinion, fundamental. Is the mind internally compelled to judge as it does, whereby it is the mind itself that makes the judgment true? Or does the mind accept truth because it recognizes it as truth? This goes straight to the nature of reality: is it something we create (subjective relativism) or is it something we apprehend (objective reality)? Fr. Bittle comes down unabashedly on the side of Thomism: the world is real, and not a creation of our minds.

It’s a shame that the discipline of logic, as classically taught here by Fr. Bittle, has been slowly adulterated with relativism and skepticism, and then finally pushed aside as superfluous. I think it was done by design so that those who would fundamentally transform society would have a docile, mush-minded populace that could be easily led astray by even the most obvious falsehoods.

Below is the table of contents showing the topics and organization of this work. I highly recommend this book, and Fr. Bittle in particular as a very able instructor in the science of correct thinking.

Introduction – Philosophy and Logic

PART I – IDEA AND TERM
I. Nature of the Idea
II. Kinds of Ideas
III. Universals
IV. Terms
V. Definition and Division

PART II – JUDGMENT AND PROPOSITION
VI. Nature of Judgment and Proposition
VII. General Types of Propositions
VIII. Special Types of Propositions
IX. Opposition of Propositions
X. Eductions

PART III – INFERENCE AND ARGUMENTATION: DEDUCTION
XI. Nature of Reasoning
XII. Categorical Syllogism
XIII. Syllogistic Figures and Moods
XIV. Varieties of Categorical Syllogisms
XV. Hypothetical Syllogisms
XVI. Variations of the Syllogism

PART IV – INFERENCE AND ARGUMENTATION: INDUCTION
XVII. Nature of Induction
XVIII. The Logical Foundation of Induction
XIX. Inductive Method
XX. Probability
XXI. Fallacies