Using Logic in Real Life: A Training Manual for your Rational Faculty.

Teed Rockwell
2 min readJul 15, 2021

© 2003–2021 by Teed Rockwell

With thanks (and apologies to) Charles Atlas

I wrote this text during my twenty years teaching Critical Thinking in the California State University system. It is the result of years of honing the text in response to my student’s questions, and to my own increasing understanding of the curious relationship between logic and ordinary language.

This text can be used in a course, or read by anyone who wants to think more logically. I can’t promise you that it will show you how to beat up all the Logic bullies who kick sand in your face, or throw dust in your eyes. But it does show you how to use logic to construct good extended arguments, how to analyze them for weak spots, and how to evaluate the arguments of others. You can reach each chapter directly with the links below, or go through the book in sequence by clicking on the links at the end of each chapter.

Arguments and Speech Acts

Categorical Logic

Categories, Necessity, and Sufficiency

Propositional Logic

The Logical Operators

The Logical Inference Forms

The Formal Fallacies

Tips for Translating into “Logical English”

Using Logic to Analyze an Argument

Diagramming Arguments

From Aristotelian Substances to Newtonian Mechanisms: The Rise of Modern Science

Categories and Family resemblance

Aristotle, Wittgenstein, and Artificial Intelligence

Inductive Vs. Deductive Reasoning

Causal Reasoning

Newton, Aristotle, and Plato

Teaching Logic to Mathphobic Students

Invited Paper for the 14th annual California State University Symposium on

Teed Rockwell

I am White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Male Heterosexual cisgendered over-educated able-bodied affluent and thin. Hope to learn from those living on the margins.