Exercises in logic
Gustaaf Houtman
Exercises for each session
• For each meeting, come ready with an example that
demonstrates the role of different types of logic—be it deductive,
inductive, abductive, or practical—in either (a) a specific
phenomenon such as a monastery or school or (b) routine
activities like shopping, making life decisions, or travelling.
• You may consult AI for assistance if you verify the accuracy of its
responses.
• https://claude.ai/chat
• https://bard.google.com/chat
• https://chat.openai.com/
• Bing Chat with GPT-4
examples
Personal Decisions
1.Budgeting: If you know you have a fixed income each month and certain bills to pay,
deductive logic helps you conclude how much you can spend on other things.
2.Health Choices: If you read that regular exercise can improve your health, you might use
inductive logic to decide to start a workout routine, expecting similar benefits.
Social Interactions
3.Understanding Intent: If a friend is avoiding eye contact and giving short answers, you might
use abductive logic to hypothesize that something might be bothering them.
4.Planning Events: When organizing a get-together, you might use practical logic to choose a
location that's convenient for the majority of your friends.
Work or School
5.Project Deadlines: If you know a project is due in a week and it will take three days to
complete, deductive logic tells you that you need to start no later than four days before the
deadline.
6.Learning from Feedback: If your teacher marks certain types of mistakes on your paper, you
might use inductive logic to conclude that avoiding these mistakes in future papers will improve
your grades.
examples
Shopping
1.Comparing Prices: When buying items in bulk is cheaper per unit, you use inductive logic to
decide that you'll save money by buying in bulk based on the specific prices you've observed.
2.Quality Assessment: If you've bought a particular brand before with good quality, you might use
abductive logic to choose the same brand again, assuming the quality has remained consistent.
Travel
3.Packing: If the weather forecast predicts rain, deductive logic tells you to pack an umbrella.
4.Choosing a Route: If you've noticed that a particular road is usually congested during rush hour,
you might use inductive logic to take a different route, expecting it to be faster.
Problem-Solving
5.Troubleshooting Tech Issues: If your Wi-Fi isn't working, you might use abductive logic to
hypothesize that the issue could be with the router and decide to restart it.
6.Finding Lost Items: If you can't find your keys and remember having them in the kitchen, you
might use practical logic to start your search there.
• These examples illustrate how different types of logic—deductive, inductive, abductive, and
practical—are applied in everyday life to make decisions, solve problems, and understand the world
around us.
• Personal Decisions
1.Budgeting: If you know you have a fixed income each month and certain
bills to pay, deductive logic helps you conclude how much you can spend
on other things.
2.Health Choices: If you read that regular exercise can improve your
health, you might use inductive logic to decide to start a workout routine,
expecting similar benefits.
• Social Interactions
• Understanding Intent: If a friend is avoiding eye contact and giving short
answers, you might use abductive logic to hypothesize that something
might be bothering them.
• Planning Events: When organizing a get-together, you might use practical
logic to choose a location that's convenient for the majority of your friends.
