Logic and semantics textbook – learn to think incisively and critically

COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING by Robert C. Priddy
Oslo University 1982 (published internally, Office of Foreign Students)
Official textbook for Foreign Students preparing for the Examen Philosophicum examination under the administration of the author from 1982 – 1985.

Communication and Understanding by Robert Crichton Priddy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://robertpriddy.com/COMMUNICATION/clearing_rights.html

CONTENTS
PRINCIPLES OF EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION
1. THE OVERALL PRINCIPLE OF EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION and working definitions of some key terms
2. THE PRINCIPLE OF APPROPRIATENESS OF EXPRESSION and communication situations – Exercises.
3. THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT EQUIVALENCE OF MEANING – Exercises
4. THE PRINCIPLE OF CONCISENESS – Exercises
5. THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT PRECISION – Exercises
6. THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-CONTRADICTION – Exercises
7. PSEUDO-AGREEMENT and PSEUDO-DISAGREEMENT – Exercises
8. DEFINITION – Exercises
9. THE PRINCIPLE OF TENABILITY and untenable reports
10. OVERVIEW OF THE ANALYSIS & VERIFICATION OF MEANING
11. LOGIC – INTRODUCTION AND WORKING DEFINITIONS Particular/general; categorical/hypothetical: descriptive/prescriptive: analytic/synthetic – Exercises
12. THE PRINCIPLES OF VALID INFERENCE – Exercises and solutions
13. LOGICAL FALLACIES – Exercises and solutions
14. THE PRINCIPLE OF RELEVANCE TO AN ISSUE
15. ORDERED SURVEYS OF ARGUMENTS ON AN ISSUE – Exercises.
16. MODEL EXAMINATION QUESTIONS (as set by the author for the Examen Philosophicum at the University of Oslo, 1975-1984)

Sathya Sai Central Trust gets away with it again.

The Sathya Sai Central Trust has begun to publish some of its affairs, but only after massive pressure from the press, public and, though they do not mention the fact, from devotees, who have written many press comments about their secrecy, non-transparency, non-accountability. From the interview (below) one can clearly deduce that the flow of donations is not what it was since the spokesperson claims “it is coming up” but its “main stay is really the income from investment”.

Though S.S. Naganand claims (below) that “the adverse things that came out in the media have all died down because they realised that they were all false”, this is most obviously not true (see the chronicle of events and press reports in which the Trust was constantly implicated) . ALL ADVERSE facts were definitely not false… especially the total irregularity of the Trust’s behaviour over the massive hoarded wealth which it appropriated after Sai Baba’s death without even minimal regard to the claims of Sai Baba’s family members. The proof of this is seen in the fact that the new  financial report does not even mention the fact of illegal appropriation of huge sums of cash, gold and precious stones by the Trust despite the fact it was forbidden by its Charter. It was a financial crime which was taken for granted. Even if we put aside the question of origination of that wealth, SSB had no right to accumulate those valuables as the chairman of the Trust. He could do it only privately but then his relatives have right to inherit all that wealth. In short, the Trust continues its underhand methods and denials of fact. Further, that it refuses even now to account properly for the income of the Trust because it would reveal what Naganand refers obliquely to as “it has a number of implications from a number of avenues”. 

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/sathya-sai-central-trust-releases-annual-financial-report-152493

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