Exercises for “Element of Logic”
Chapter II

Analysis of Sense, Analysis of Structure, Propositions and Arguments

Claudio Gutierrez and Luis G. Coronado

Translated from Spanish by Inés Gutiérrez

  1. Determine the prevailing language function in each of the following texts:

    1. “Something has happened to me, I can no longer doubt it. It came as an illness, not as an ordinary certainty, or evidence. It settled itself deceitfully and little by little; I felt somehow strange, somehow annoyed, nothing else. Once settled, it didn’t move, it kept quiet, and I could persuade myself that I was fine, that it was a false alarm. And now it’s growing… For example, there is something new in my hands, a certain way of holding the pipe or fork. Or is it the fork that now has a certain way of making you hold it, I don’t know. A minute ago, when I was about to enter my room, I stopped short when I felt in my hand a cold object, which attracted my attention with some sort of personality. I opened my hand, I looked: it was just the latchkey…” (Sartre. The nausea).

    2. “The appearance of each science is associated with the birth of a method that characterizes it. Method is, in general, the explicit legacy of each one of the great creators of new scientific orientations.” (Saumells. Science and the Methodical Ideal)

    3. “Be faithful to the land, my brothers, with all the power of thy virtue! May thy love and thy knowledge serve the sense of the earth! I beg and extol thee. Do not let thy virtue fly away from terrestrial things and beat with its wings the eternal walls! Oh! There was always so much misguided virtue! Restore to earth, as I do, the misguided virtue! Yes, restore it to body and to life so that it provides a sense, a human sense, to earth …” (Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

    4. "All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight." (Aristotle. Metaphysics)

    5. “Tell me, then, for many times a few words have been enough to knock down and raise men.” (Sophocles. Electra)

    6. “–My dear madwoman! I believe you eat fantasies in the evenings.
      –I like the desserts of early dawns and the jellies of twilight. Also the soups of rains…” (Carmen Naranjo. The dogs did not bark)


  2. Identify the words with a physical, biological, sociological, and logical content in the following paragraphs:

    1. “Hunger, for example, is a powerful impulse, an expression of the permanent need of food provision to supply the energy for the functioning of the corporeal and material machine, for its repairing and development. Water is also indispensable for the wellbeing of the body, and its attainment is a consequence of the thirst impulse. Both are manifestations of that ‘body wisdom’ without which life wouldn’t last long. The illusion of pain is another useful impulse, tending to health and equilibrium.” (Sinnott. The Biology of the Spirit)

    2. “Thus, Mankind, not only because of the ever-growing number of its members, but for the continuous growth of its area of individual activity, subject as it is to development in closed areas, is inevitably submitted to a formidable pressure, incessantly increased by its own movement, just because each new degree of pressure in the collective squeezing has no other effect than the elevation of each element’s expansion.” (Chardin. The Human Phenomenon, mistranslated in English as The Phenomenon of Man)


  3. Determine the number of propositions found in each text. Remove everything that is not a proposition. If you find an argument, mark the conclusion and premises.

    1. “The purpose of the work of art is to reveal an essential or projecting character, or rather an important idea, with more clearness and in a more complex way than reality itself. To attain this, it avails itself of a set of interrelated parts or elements, modifying their relations systematically.” (Taine. The Philosophy of Art)

    2. “Man is an end, not a means. Civilization as a whole straightens up to man, to each man, to each self. Or what is that idol, be it called Mankind or whatever it is called, towards whom each and every one of men must sacrifice? For I sacrifice myself for my fellow beings, for my countrymen, for my children, and they in their turn sacrifice for theirs, and theirs for theirs, and likewise in an interminable series of generations. And who receives the benefit of this sacrifice?” (Unamuno. The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations)

    3. If the actual state of Costa Rican education continues, it will result in a greater division of the social classes. It is sadly the case that the national education system is not being reformed; therefore the Costa Rican social classes will continue to move farther apart.

    4. “What distinguishes emotion is its irrationality. What is rationally opposed as love and hate can be merged in an expression: it is possible to experience pleasure in pain and pain in pleasure…” (Wolff. Introduction to Psychology)

    5. Thou shall not kill!

    6. “Yes, yes, the blood Messiah, who sacrifices and is not sacrificed, He will redeem with his blood, and I will redeem you with his own blood. He allowed you to dwell in sin, and your sin is my burden. He felt the enjoyment of pain, and I the martyrdom of the executioner. Who sacrificed the most, he or I…? And yet, the idea holds some madness. The son of man is crucified in all of us; we all struggle in the garden of Gethsemane sweating blood, but none of us redeems the other with his blood.
      My Camille... Everyone deserts me… Everything is empty and wasted… and I am alone, alone.” (Büchner. Death of Danton)

      Copyright © 1968-2006 Claudio Gutierrez and Luis G. Coronado