The real nature of logic is so metaphysically simple and immediately knowable that no one could possibly have any excuse for overlooking it save for living in a permanent state of unconsciousness, especially the longer they have been alive, or being extremely young. It is also so abstract that it is extremely easy for fools to neglect it, deny it, or misunderstand it gravely. Of the utmost simplicity since it could not depend on anything other than itself, as it is always the other way around (all other things by necessity hinge on logic), the laws of logic are true in themselves. If it was not true that one thing does or does not follow by logical necessity from another, it would be true that it follows from the nature of reality by logical necessity that logic is false, but this requires that logical necessity is still true. Similarly, if nothing was true, then this would be true, so it is impossible for there to be no truth. These and other logical axioms, like a thing being what it is and contradictions being impossible, cannot be false.
In their ideological stupor, as they have not understood these inherent truths for what they are and think of logic as some other thing, certain people claim the Greek philosopher Aristotle of the 3rd century BC/BCE invented logic. What can only be true cannot be invented, but whether or not Aristotle had erroneous ideas about the laws of logic, this does not so much as mean he is the first person to allegedly formally ponder them. Even if unrecorded in writing, this would not have to be true that no one else has correctly or incorrectly reflected on reason (and this, like all truths, is a matter of logical necessity and possibility). Anyone can become a rationalist because reason is inherently true, and so it is universally accessible. All a person has to do, whatever their historical era or gender or race or social standing or personality or experiences and beliefs up to that point, is stop making assumptions and identify that logical axioms cannot be false, necessitating that a multitude of other truths which are incapable of being false and thus also absolutely certain are also true. Logic is not subjective comprehension or laws of nature or physical objects/environments or a characteristic of the divine entity. Logic governs all other things because it cannot have been any other way.
Reason is inherently true, yes. To be false, it would still have to be true. Thus, Aristotle cannot have made it true or done anything more than at best discovered or articulated aspects of it (and from what I have read of his works, he is absolutely not a rationalist). Logic is not just true of other things--a brick is a brick, but the law of identity and the deductive truth that if an object is a brick, it is not a tree are not the same as the physical objects themselves. No one needs to receive education to realize this, for it is true independent of sociality and teaching and awareness. Anyone can discover such things if they actually try in a rationalistic manner. My consciousness exists and I could not perceive or have knowledge, which is exclusively contingent on alignment with the necessary truths of reason, without being conscious in order to think, but logical truths are not my thoughts: they are true independent of my thoughts.
Indeed, I cannot perceive anything, even if I was still a pathetic irrationalist in the passive grip of certain assumptions and philosophical neglect or in active assent to other assumptions, without existing in order to perceive passively or think actively; however, this too is a logical necessity that depends not on consciousness, but on reason itself. Did Aristotle realize such things with no assumptions? If not, then he would not have been rational, for one's own conscious existence is the only immediately self-evident thing alongside the logical axioms it itself depends on--even that I am perceiving an individual sensory experience is not self-evident, since that is a separate fact contingent on me already being conscious, and doubting or denying this does not rely on it. Did he say anything at all which contradicts this or other logical necessities that he did not recant? Then Aristotle would still be irrational. Regardless, he cannot have invented logic because necessary truths cannot be created, altered, or rendered untrue.
The glorification of famous historical figures (and people still do this with pastors and scientists and authors), as if philosophical ideas matter because of them and not the other way around at best if they were selectively rational, or as if fallacies become true because they cling to them or necessary truths cannot be known without their literary prompting, is wholly irrationalistic. Living earlier in history does not make a person's philosophy or the person themself rational or special. Aristotelian philosophy does not matter unless it conforms to logic, and yet even if it was true—and Aristotle made many assumptions and claimed many things which are demonstrably false due to pure reason or assumed other things, therefore not holding to strictly rationalistic epistemology.
Newton is sometimes credited with "discovering" gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree when literally anyone who had basic visual human experiences had observed gravitational effects. Perhaps few people pondered it, but many would have perceived it in daily life. Newton neither invented nor discovered gravity [1]; it would have seemingly been around as long as the universe and, if it truly spanned the entire world as sensory evidence strongly suggests, would have been noticeable for anyone else inhabiting the same world as Newton. However, logic is far more fundamental than gravity. Gravity cannot exist apart from the physical universe, and it might not be universally constant across the entire cosmos, which no limited human can observe all at once anyway (and subjective sensory perceptions cannot prove gravitational phenomenal are really occurring as perceived beyond our mental imagery). Logic, in contrast, cannot be created or start to exist no matter what, not even if God wished it [2], because logic cannot be false. It is always inherently true independent of all else, the latter having to be consistent with the former to even be possible.
Historical philosophers tended to be, to rather extreme degrees, fucking idiots revered by fools of later generations only because of fame and because they impacted later fools who looked to tradition or literature and the like instead of reason. Even when they are right on a given point, without being genuine rationalists, they could not have known the truth in question. As a non-rationalist, Hume could not have known that one event following another on its own never proves the former caused the latter, as opposed to believing this via assumptions. Why? Since reason is inherently true, even believing something that is true and otherwise demonstrable apart from starting with the recognition of logical axioms for what they are, and making no assumptions along the way to that recognition, means that someone cannot know. They have made assumptions, which are by nature not knowledge. Aristotle, in this manner and many others, was not rational. More significantly, logic is true in itself independent of historical events or belief or anything else. It cannot have been invented even by the preexisting God.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful, and it is true in itself no matter what you believe or prefer.
[2]. For just some of my elaboration on such metaphysical facts, see here:
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