truth

Oh what a tangled web we weave. We call these discussions "threads" (of thought). Sometimes they are best referred to as (tangled) "webs." But no matter, they are fun and good exercise for my aging brain.
Joe you answered my question on the use value of logic with something like, "It permits me to see the illogicality around me." I understand. It takes intelligence to recognize stupidity. The most poignant scene in the movie, "Monster," was when the heroine tried to impress prospective employers with obviously naive remarks, thinking they were taken as sophisticated. It was SO sad.
Our discussion seems to boil down to a debate betweem the value of formal abstract logic and the Pragmatists' logic of Instrumentalism. If logic is not a tool to be USED for purposes of problem solving, in the "real world" then it amounts to no more than a game for mathematically talented individuals. That's why it seems to me that your disdain of "merely empirical objections" is misguided. Logic is a tool for dealing with problems we confront in the empirical world. A purely formal logic is valueless (to me) if it does not serve to solve problems. If I want to develop a sense of the nature of (my) Reality, I would rather meditate on the nature of my experience as such. If we argue that that is too subjective a path to "real" knowledge, I must remind us that the axioms upon which logic (and all thinking) rest are inherently subjective. They feel true or self-evident, but that's only so, as far as we know, for human minds (and, of course, such minds are conditioned by historical and cultural exigencies). If we argue that axioms are not solipsitically "true", not totally subjective, because they are SHARED by other minds, I'll concede to the extent of calling them "inter-subjective. "But to my mind that is STILL subjective, albeit, perhaps the subjectivity of a species (or cultural sub-species?).
OOPS! THIS SHOULD HAVE POSTED IN THE THREAD "NON-CONTRADICTION".