SEMANTIC ILLOGICALITY IN THE PROCESS OF THINKING

Abstract

Objective. The article is aimed at establishing an empirical connection between semantic illogicality and other properties of thinking. Illogicality is defined as the semantic opposite of judgments, which is objectified in contradictory theses that cannot be true at the same time. The author assumes that illogic is one of the lower levels of thinking and is actualized in the case of an individual’s inability to rise to the operationalization of cognitive material using the laws of formal logic. Research methods: theoretical (analysis of procedural characteristics of thinking); empirical (“Method of textual gaps”); mathematical statistics (arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, oscillation coefficient, correlation coefficient, linear regression analysis). The results. Mathematical and statistical analysis of the empirical material showed that the use of illogical formulations in the construction of meaning is typical for more than half of the researched. At the same time, the number of such formulations is insignificant and fluctuates quite strongly, so that it is possible to establish the regularity of their appearance. It is characteristic that the number of illogical formulations increases during the execution of the task. Illogical judgments are moderately inversely related to logical judgments. The phenomenon of illogic lowers the overall level of meaning formation, but this tendency is not pronounced. Conclusions. Semantic illogicality is an attempt to direct the narrative, to reveal cognitive subjectivity in a situation where the judgment can be formed only on the principle of opposition to the existing thesis. Illogicality plays a tactical role in the formation of general meaning and is revealed when constructive formal logical ways of unfolding the discourse become unavailable. Due to the production of illogicality, the subject ignores the meaning that is poorly crystallized for him/her and moves on to the crystallization of the original meaning. This is a tactical "mistake" on the way to the correct answer. Prospects for further research are to determine the links between illogic and other types of judgments that are conceptual for the formation of the general meaning and to compare manifestations of illogicality in different periods of ontogenesis.

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