Civitas Blog

Smuggled out of LSE were some handouts of one of Professor John Worrall’s introductory logic lectures. As one would expect, they demonstrate the basics of constructing truth functional sentences. For example, in showing the intricacies of the Conjunction in semantic logic he explains…

- Bush is President of the US and a great orator
- Is false because although the first conjunct is true, the second is false
- And both need to be true for a conjunction to be true

And

- The Sun is a great newspaper and under the control of a Europhobic geriatric Australian
- Is also false, although the second conjunct is true, the first is false

And

- Bush is a great orator and a great defender of environment
- Is false because both conjuncts are false

As an example of truth functional compound sentences, we are offered

- Bush is an idiot and Blair is Bush’s poodle

As an example of idiomatic truth functionality, we get

- Bush is a threat to the world’s environment and directly controlled by his big businessmen backers

Negation is aptly demonstrated by

- It’s not the case that Blair is a liar
- Is FALSE because ‘Blair is a liar’ is true

And finally, the disjunctive sentence

- Either Blair goes soon OR I will go out of my mind

Now, as you can see, on the face of it, this is a logic lecture like any other. But take a moment to examine those examples very carefully. It is very subtle, just as one would expect of a senior academic, but one can just about make out some highly structured political views being disseminated through the sentences on offer. Would it be too radical an interpretation to suggest that John Worrall is promoting urgent concern for the environment and a pro-European Union position? He also seems to suggest that, perhaps, George Bush, Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch are not forces for good in world politics.

It is fascinating that even in a logic lecture (where the emphasis is naturally on objective truth) the correct political values can be put forward without being at all distracting to the essential lesson. At LSE, where a great number of foreign students take up studies, this scheme is of particular value as an introduction to the rational and open discourse that so typifies the British political system.

Seeing this in action already at a university level, the DfES’s idea of introducing the values of citizenship to school children now seems entirely workable. Indeed, I would suggest that the DfES hire John Worrall as a consultant to explain how to introduce these sorts of values into all subjects. After fitting a lesson in world politics into a logic class, placing a lesson on, for example, how to respect Islamic culture into a Spanish lesson would be a doddle!

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In other DfES news, a brief mention that our ominous prediction that the government would take a more active interest in the Supplementary School sector appears to be coming to fruition. A heavily government subsidised charitable body mutates into a national agency. Our many fears over these developments are explained in the December Civitas Review (warning: large PDF file).