The threat of intellectual decadence in the context of the deactualization of formal logic

Abstract

The subject of this research is formal logic in the structure of higher professional education. The purpose of the study is to analyze the problem of reducing the volume and quality of teaching formal logic in higher professional education, especially journalism. An attempt is made to analyze the role and significance of formal logic in the structure of media knowledge from diachrony to synchrony. It is shown that formal logic in historical retrospect was subjected to certain persecution and harassment, which negatively affected the level of critical thinking of university graduates, their ability to analyze and synthesize new knowledge, establish causal relationships, and defend their beliefs. The authors see the solution to these problems in increasing the status and social significance of the discipline "formal logic" at all levels of education. The main methods used in this study include comparative historical and dialectical, which allowed us to consider the role and importance of formal logic in various historical periods with an emphasis on the specificity of a particular socio-political situation, as well as to identify the cause-and-effect relationships of the periodic displacement of formal logic from the educational process. Higher education has always been and remains a source of knowledge, thanks to which the intellectual level of a person not only increases significantly, but also helps to become successful in professional activities. In many ways, the success of university education and professional activity depends on the level of development of students' logical thinking, which consists in the conscious application of logical operations (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, systematization, classification, etc.) and logical forms of thinking (concept, judgment, inference) in accordance with the laws of logic and in the construction of mental actions taking into account these laws. The development of logical thinking in the learning process involves the development of the following skills among students of the educational programs "Journalism": to interpret various types of concepts, competently use situational words (concepts), clearly understand the essence of the second form of logical thinking – judgment, possess the logic of proof and refutation in order to avoid difficulties in modeling a thought experiment, operating hypotheses.