Logic rules...!

Long ago, in the never-to-return days, when you could enrol as a fresher at Auckland University without conniptions about whether this was the most advantageous career path, whether these were the correct subjects and courses to take me through to a distinguished and lucrative professional life among all the right people – back then before anyone invented vocational counsellors or advisors... counselling indeed was a curious science still in its infancy and scarcely heard of... (pause for breath...) Long ago, I say, before gaining entrance to popular courses and subjects required A-passes and successful interviews with deans, to say nothing of a guaranteed supply of parental money for fees, books, trips, living expenses... Way back then, a lot of us used to sign on for Philosophy I. It promised to be interesting, and it was. It had not been taught in secondary school – and in my experience at that time at Auckland Grammar, teachers pretty well incapable of teaching Maths or English, History or Chemistry, would have been incapable of Philosophy. Also, as an added attraction, Philosophy seemed to have nothing to do with anything practical.

So it was, back then, we encountered Professors W Anderson and W Anschutz, and Mr K B Pflaum. I did not know at the time that Pflaum in German means plum. All I remember about Pflaum in that first year is that he was very keen on Ludwig Wittgenstein, who then, and to this day, remains impenetrable and incomprehensible. In subsequent years Pflaum seemed reasonably lucid on Locke, Berkeley and Hume, as also about Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz. I didn’t take any of Anschutz’s courses.

The department also included Father Forsman, whom we rarely saw. He was the parish priest at Parnell, and he taught Aquinas. I heard him say at a departmental party that so long as he had his beloved Aquinas and a full wine cellar, he was content.

Now, pay attention... A lot of us gathered twice a week in Room 19 for Anderson’s lectures on Logic. This turned out to be surprisingly fascinating to me. Anderson in some ways was a silly old goat. At least twice he arrived for the lecture, academic gown and all, staggered on to the rostrum, saw that the side door had been left open and went to shut it, but instead left by the side door and we didn’t see him again until next time.

Logic meant Socratic Logic. Syllogisms, major and minor premises and conclusions, fallacies, undistributed middle... I imagine no one teaches it anywhere now. Whatever was the textbook we used – I still have it somewhere on my shelves – it should be required study for politicians and all media personnel. We learned what doesn’t follow. It does not follow that because Hone Harawira supports his iwi, he is a racist. We learned about ad hominem and non sequitur. We filled ourselves with syllogistic logic. Our exams were a joyous process of spotting fallacies and constructing elegant syllogisms.

By the time we had passed Philosophy I we were really sensitive about these things in the circumstances of public discourse. To this day it profoundly frustrates me that spokespersons and media personalities seem unable to see that some charge is logically stupid. The inability or refusal to see this seems to be behind most of the current inexcusable media beatups on issues and personalities. Old Willie Anderson actually alerted and sensitised us to What Doesn’t Follow, and it stuck. It’s this kind of thing that makes some politicians froth at the mouth about ivory tower academia. If you are not from the outset sold out to compromise and half-truths, you are uncomfortable to those who assume that “Paris is worth a mass”.