Illogical statement

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I started informally looking at logic a while back and have greatly enjoyed it. Maybe someday I'll be able to do it properly. In the meantime, I'd appreciate advice on a statement I read recently.

There'd been a string of shootings in a small city. The cops eventually ran the shooter to ground and arrested him. In an obvious attempt to reassure local residents, a city politician told reporters that the city was now as safe as it had been before...

To my mind, that's nonsense. True, bullets aren't flying around the streets anymore, but on the other hand, the fact that somebody could pop up and start shooting essentially at random means that they really weren't safe to begin with.

Am I off-base with the way I'm looking at this? If not, then how would his logical failure be classified?

Thanks.

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@Timmie,

What you need to understand about "logic" is that its application is limited by agreed context.

Quote:

...as safe as it had been before...

is perfectly logical if the former "state of safety" (without gunman X) is agreed by all parties to have been lessened by a factor which has now been removed.. The fact that you are disagreeing about the definition of "that state" (i.e that it generated that factor irrespective of subsequent events which implied "removal") transcends straight logic, which has nothing to say about the interpretation of premises.
In short "logic" is based on static set theory in which premises are assumed to refer to agreed set membership properties. In real life, those properties can be nebulous, temporary or dynamic. Contexts can shift. Agreement is socially functional/motivated rather than objective. Logic is just one aspect of semantics, albeit an important one.

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@fresco,

I'll buy that. Thanks for your time.

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@Timmie,

IMHO, the key part of the statement, " the city was now safe as it had been before", seems to be a proposition, proposed by the speaker to be True, for acceptance by the public. It has the subject "city" but its predicate "safe" is very vague and unclear, where we don't know precisely what is what or what makes what. How safe was the city before the crime was solved? What precise statistic makes our city safe anyway? What exactly made our city "safe(r)"? Therefore, it is unsuitable for logical treatment. The predication needs to be more precise to draw a proper conclusion.

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@Timmie,

Timmie wrote:

There'd been a string of shootings in a small city.
The cops eventually ran the shooter to ground and arrested him.
In an obvious attempt to reassure local residents, a city politician
told reporters that the city was now as safe as it had been before...

To my mind, that's nonsense. True, bullets aren't flying around
the streets anymore, but on the other hand, the fact that somebody
could pop up and start shooting essentially at random means that they
really weren't safe to begin with.

True; thay were not.
In earlier times, the citizens were required
to be armed in their own defense.

Timmie wrote:

Am I off-base with the way I'm looking at this?

No. U r on base.

Timmie wrote:

If not, then how would his logical failure be classified?

Thanks.

He was depending on them to be dum enuf
to not think of what u did.

WELCOME to the forum, Timmie.
Prosper in its use.

David

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@Chairman201,

Quote:

The predication needs to be more precise to draw a proper conclusion.

That equates to what I have said above about agreement on the "truth status" of premises. Logic is merely a formal operation based on the assumption of such agreement.

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@Timmie,

Timmie wrote:

I started informally looking at logic a while back and have greatly enjoyed it. Maybe someday I'll be able to do it properly. In the meantime, I'd appreciate advice on a statement I read recently.

There'd been a string of shootings in a small city. The cops eventually ran the shooter to ground and arrested him. In an obvious attempt to reassure local residents, a city politician told reporters that the city was now as safe as it had been before...

To my mind, that's nonsense. True, bullets aren't flying around the streets anymore, but on the other hand, the fact that somebody could pop up and start shooting essentially at random means that they really weren't safe to begin with.

Am I off-base with the way I'm looking at this? If not, then how would his logical failure be classified?

Thanks.

Illogical

In a free society

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Illogical statement

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