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I am confused what the sentence "This isn't just true in logic." mean?
I can think of two possible meanings of the aforementioned sentence:

  1. This is not true in logic -- there is no chance that this could be true in logic.
  2. This is true in logic -- this is not only true in logic, but also true in some other fields.

And unfortunately, due to lack of context, I could not figure out what the intended meaning was. What is the correct meaning one would extract out of this sentence?

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  • 2) This might be true in other disciplines. 1) is what you say. Those are the two meanings.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 10, 2017 at 19:07

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"This is not just true in logic": Here "not just" means "not only", and the negative relates to the adverb, "just". It means it is true in logic, and in other fields too.

Compare with "This just is not true in logic". Here the adverb is an intensifier. It could be replaced by "simply". It means it is not true in logic (whether or not it is true in other fields).

So, for example "(P & ¬P) -> Q" is not just true in logic. Whereas inductive reasoning just isn't true in logic.

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It's probably the second one. The word order suggests that the "not" of "isn't" is being applied to "just". When speaking this sentence, you would probably emphasize the word "just".

If the first meaning was intended, the sentence would probably have been simply "This isn't true in logic."

One could also say "This just isn't true in logic." In that case, the word "just" adds emphasis, and tends to suggest that no further explanation will be given.

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I think something can't be true in logic but could be true philosophically or in a hypothetically situation.

In those scenarios I could say "this is not true in logic".

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