ABSTRACT
In order to apprehend the full range and nature of the inter-relations that exist between objects, social constructs and individuals, it is necessary for the rational agent to become directly involved with the objects of knowledge. Science is concerned to broaden our objective knowledge, whilst the humanities are purely for our entertainment or, more generously perhaps, for our cultural betterment. On the Platonic view, understanding was not the domain of the emotions but purely of Reason, so that Rhetoric alone could have no virtue but as a medium for explication under the command of Reason. By the time of Aristotle, Plato’s pupil one which has since become the hall-mark of Western culture, decisively established. In A System of Logic, J. S. Mill argues in favour of a broader conception of logic. He says that it may be seen as both the Science and Art of Sound Reasoning and recognises that the term ‘reasoning’ itself is an ambiguous syllogism.
