ABSTRACT
Before launching into the world of primitive logic, a clarification of terminology is useful. As a critical cognitive function, “reasoning” involves the ability to ascertain relationships between objects and events in the world. One of the primary aims of everyday reasoning and scientific reasoning alike is to discover the causes of events. Observers often want to know whether two events simply occur together in time or space, or whether there is a causal relationship between them. Reasoning is a way of organizing observations or sensory information to reach conclusions, often about causality. A “conclusion” is generally the endpoint of a reasoning process, whereas an “inference” involves the use of reasoning to reach a conclusion. “Logic” may be regarded as the science of correct, or conventional, reasoning (Ruchlis and Oddo, 1990). “Paleologic thinking,” a term coined by Arieti (1967), is a primitive form of reasoning that runs contrary to the rules of formal logic.
