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Your confusion is common. Inference and induction vs deduction. Validity vs Truth. Criticism vs Justification.

We can deduce logically within any tautology (in any axiomatic system), because the information is complete.

We can identify contradictions logically (in both axiomatic and rational systems), where information is sufficient to do so.

We cannot *infer* logically a truth proposition, we can only *theorize* logically. Because information is incomplete, and therefore insufficient for deduction.

That is the limit of what logic can do for us: assist us in the test of internal consistency and non-contradiction (an act of criticism or falsification), and assist us in the formation of theories.

In addition, once we construct a theory, we can test a theory:

– We can test for external correspondence (empiricism)

– We can attempt to falsify by external correspondence. (parsimony)

– We can test for existential possibility. (Operational Definitions, Operationalism, Operationism, Intuitionism) and that we are not substituting imaginary information.

– We can test for morality (the absence of involuntary transfer, Propertarianism)

And even then, when we have done our due diligence in internal consistency, external correspondence, attempts at falsification (parsimony), existential possibility free of imaginary substitution,

There are no non-tautological, non-trivial, and therefore certain premises. As such, the limit of logic (and why people like me criticize formal logic when used for other than its narrow utility) is in either falsification of statements, or the construction of theories that can be further tested. But you cannot determine truth propositions of non-tautological non-trivial propositions by logical means.

The function of logic is criticism, not truth. Once exhaustively criticized, you can say an argument or proposition is valid in the sense that it is well constructed. But this says nothing about the truth of the argument or proposition. It says only that it is well constructed.

A theory that survives all criticism has been validated (“strong”), not true. It is the tests themselves that are sufficiently critical to validate the theory. As such, tests are valid, and theories have been validated. Whether we want, in turn, to say that a theory is ‘valid’ is a matter of whether we want to suggest that the theory itself (an instance of an inference), is a criteria for action (worthy of risking costs).

I prefer to refer to “valid tests”, and to “warrantied” or “truthful” theories in order to avoid any taint of justificationism.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.