Aristotle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aristotle (Greek: , Aristotls) (384 BC 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Logic Main article: Term logic With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic. Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason that Aristotle's theory of logic completely accounted for the core of deductive inference. Aristotle's scientific method Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle, however, found the universal in particular things, which he called the essence of things, while Plato finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) to a contemplation of particular imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles.[18] In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. In modern times, the scope of philosophy has become limited to more generic or abstract inquiries, such as ethics and metaphysics, in which logic plays a major role. Today's philosophy tends to exclude empirical study of the natural world by means of the scientific method. In contrast, Aristotle's philosophical endeavors encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry. In the larger sense of the word, Aristotle makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics. If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics and Mathematics; (3) Practical Philosophy and (4) Poetical Philosophy. In the period between his two stays in Athens, between his times at the Academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle conducted most of the scientific thinking and research for which he is renowned today. In fact, most of Aristotle's life was devoted to the study of the objects of natural science. Aristotle's metaphysics contains observations on the nature of numbers but he made no original contributions to mathematics. He did, however, perform original research in the natural sciences, e.g., botany, zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and several other sciences. Aristotle's writings on science are largely qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. Beginning in the 16th century, scientists began applying mathematics to the physical sciences, and Aristotle's work in this area was deemed

hopelessly inadequate. His failings were largely due to the absence of concepts like mass, velocity, force and temperature. He had a conception of speed and temperature, but no quantitative understanding of them, which was partly due to the absence of basic experimental devices, like clocks and thermometers. His writings provide an account of many scientific observations, a mixture of precocious accuracy and curious errors. For example, in his History of Animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females.[19] In a similar vein, John Philoponus, and later Galileo, showed by simple experiments that Aristotle's theory that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect.[20] On the other hand, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of "those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out (correctly, even if such reasoning was bound to be dismissed for a long time) that, given "current astronomical demonstrations" that "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then...the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them."[21] In places, Aristotle goes too far in deriving 'laws of the universe' from simple observation and over-stretched reason. Today's scientific method assumes that such thinking without sufficient facts is ineffective, and that discerning the validity of one's hypothesis requires far more rigorous experimentation than that which Aristotle used to support his laws. Aristotle also had some scientific blind spots. He posited a geocentric cosmology that we may discern in selections of the Metaphysics, which was widely accepted up until the 16th century. From the 3rd century to the 16th century, the dominant view held that the Earth was the center of the universe (geocentrism). Since he was perhaps the philosopher most respected by European thinkers during and after the Renaissance, these thinkers often took Aristotle's erroneous positions as given, which held back science in this epoch.[22] However, Aristotle's scientific shortcomings should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the many scientific fields. For instance, he founded logic as a formal science and created foundations to biology that were not superseded for two millennia. Moreover, he introduced the fundamental notion that nature is composed of things that change and that studying such changes can provide useful knowledge of underlying constants. Physics Main article: Physics (Aristotle) The five elements Main article: Classical element Aristotle proposed a fifth element, aether, in addition to the four proposed earlier by Empedocles.

Earth, which is cold and dry; this corresponds to the modern idea of a solid. Water, which is cold and wet; this corresponds to the modern idea of a liquid. Air, which is hot and wet; this corresponds to the modern idea of a gas. Fire, which is hot and dry; this corresponds to the modern idea of heat. Aether, which is the divine substance that makes up the heavenly spheres and heavenly bodies (stars and planets).

Each of the four earthly elements has its natural place. All that is earthly tends toward the center of the universe, i.e. the center of the Earth. Water tends toward a sphere surrounding the center. Air tends toward a sphere surrounding the water sphere. Fire tends toward the lunar sphere (in which the Moon orbits). When elements are moved out of their natural place, they naturally move back towards it. This is "natural motion"motion requiring no extrinsic cause. So, for example, in water, earthy bodies sink while air bubbles rise up; in air, rain falls and flame rises. Outside all the other spheres, the heavenly, fifth element, manifested in the stars and planets, moves in the perfection of circles. Politics Main article: Politics (Aristotle) In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the

part".[46] He also famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal." Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner.[47] The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different to Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city (polis) which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" (koinnia). The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together." This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with social contract theory, according to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences."[48] Rhetoric and poetics Main articles: Rhetoric (Aristotle) and Poetics (Aristotle) Aristotle considered epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be imitative, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner.[49] For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama.[50] Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals.[51] While it is believed that Aristotle's Poetics comprised two books one on comedy and one on tragedy only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived. Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plotstructure, character, style, spectacle, and lyric poetry.[52] The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions. Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis. He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic.[53] Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.[54]

Chrysippus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chrysippus of Soli (Ancient Greek: , Chrysippos ho Soleus; c. 279 BC c. 206 BC[1]) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a native of Soli, Cilicia, but moved to Athens as a young man, where he became a pupil of Cleanthes in the Stoic school. When Cleanthes died, around 230 BC, Chrysippus became the third head of the school. A prolific writer, Chrysippus expanded the fundamental doctrines of Zeno of Citium, the founder of the school, which earned him the title of Second Founder of Stoicism.[2] Chrysippus excelled in logic, the theory of knowledge, ethics and physics. He created an original system of propositional logic in order to better understand the workings of the universe and role of humanity within it. He adhered to a deterministic view of fate, but nevertheless sought a role for personal freedom in thought and action. Ethics, he taught, depended on understanding the nature of the universe, and he taught a therapy of extirpating the

unruly passions which depress and crush the soul. He initiated the success of Stoicism as one of the most influential philosophical movements for centuries in the Greek and Roman world. Logic Chrysippus wrote much on the subject of logic and created a system of propositional logic. Aristotle's term logic had been concerned with the interrelations of terms such as "Socrates" or "man" ("all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, so Socrates is mortal"). Stoic logic, on the other hand, was concerned with the interrelations of propositions such as "it is day" ("if it is day, it is light: but it is day: so it is light").[20] The earlier Megarian dialecticians Diodorus Cronus and Philo had done work in this field, and the pupils of Aristotle Theophrastus and Eudemus had investigated hypothetical syllogisms,[21] but it was Chrysippus who developed these principles into a coherent system of propositional logic.[21][22] Propositions Chrysippus defined a proposition as "that which is capable of being denied or affirmed as it is in itself" and gave examples of propositions such as "it is day" and "Dion is walking."[23] He distinguished between simple and nonsimple propositions, which in modern terminology are known as atomic and molecular propositions.[21] A simple proposition is an elementary statement such as "it is day."[24] Simple propositions are linked together to form nonsimple propositions by the use of logical connectives. Chrysippus enumerated five kinds of molecular propositions according to the connective used:[24] Logical connectives Type if and either . . . or Example if it is day, it is light it is day and light either it is day or night because it is day, it is light more likely it is day than night

because

more/less likely . . . than

Thus several types of molecular propositions, familiar to modern logic, were listed by Chrysippus, including the conjunction, the disjunction, and the conditional,[25] and Chrysippus studied their criteria of truth closely.[25] Conditional propositions The first logicians to debate conditional statements were Diodorus Cronus and his pupil Philo. Writing five-hundred years later, Sextus Empiricus refers to a debate between Diodorus and Philo.[26] Philo regarded all conditionals as true except those which with a correct antecedent had an incorrect consequent, and this meant a proposition such as "if it is day, then I am talking," is true unless it is day and I fall silent.[27] But Diodorus argued that a true conditional is one in which the antecedent clause could never lead to an untrue conclusion thus, because the proposition "if it is day, then I am talking" can be false, it is invalid.[26] However, paradoxical propositions were still possible such as "if atomic elements of things do not exist, atomic elements exists."[27] Chrysippus adopted a much stricter view regarding conditional propositions, which made such paradoxes impossible:[28] to him, a conditional is true if denial of the consequent is logically incompatible with the antecedent.[29] This corresponds to the modern-day strict conditional.[29]

Argument forms Chrysippus then made use of five different argument forms, which he considered to be the most basic:[30] Name[31] Modus ponens Modus tollens Modus ponendo tollens (1) Modus ponendo tollens (2) Modus tollendo ponens Description If A, then B. A. Therefore, B. If A, then B. Not B. Therefore, not A. Not both A and B. A. Therefore, not B Example If it is day, it is light; it is day; therefore it is light If it is day, it is light; it is not light, therefore it is not day It is not both day and night; it is day, therefore it is not night

Either A or B. A. Therefore, It is either day or night; it is day, therefore not B it is not night Either A or B. Not A. Therefore, B It is either day or night; it is not day, therefore it is night

From these five simple argument forms, non-simple forms can be constructed. The purpose of this logic was not merely to create a formal system; it was the study of the operations of reason, the divine reason (logos) which governs the universe, of which human beings are a part.[32] The goal was to find valid rules of inference and forms of proof to help people find their way in life.[21]

William of Ockham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William of Ockham ( /km/; also Occam, Hockham, or several other spellings; c. 1288 c. 1348) was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey.[1] He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century. Although he is commonly known for Occam's razor, the methodological principle that bears his name, William of Ockham also produced significant works on logic, physics, and theology. In the Church of England, his day of commemoration is 10 April.[2] Philosophical thought In scholasticism, Ockham advocated a reform both in method and in content, the aim of which was simplification. Ockham incorporated much of the work of some previous theologians, especially John Duns Scotus. From Scotus, Ockham derived his view of divine omnipotence, his view of grace and justification, much of his epistemology and ethical convictions. However, he also reacted to and against Scotus in the areas of predestination, penance, his understanding of universals, his distinction ex parte rei (that is, "as applied to created things"), and his view of parsimony. Logic In logic, Ockham wrote down in words the formulae that would later be called De Morgan's Laws,[18] and he pondered ternary logic, that is, a logical system with three truth values; a concept that would be taken up again in the mathematical logic of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Works The standard edition of his philosophical and theological works is William of Ockham: Opera philosophica et theologica, Gedeon Gl, et al., eds. 17 vols. St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 196788. For his political works, all but the Dialogus have been edited in William of Ockham, H. S. Offler, et al., eds. 4 vols., 1940 97, Manchester: Manchester University Press [vols. 13]; Oxford: Oxford University Press [vol. 4]. Philosophical writings

Summa logicae (c. 1323), Paris 1448, Bologna 1498, Venice 1508, Oxford 1675. Quaestiones in octo libros physicorum (before 1327), Rome 1637. Summulae in octo libros physicorum (before 1327), Venice 1506. Quodlibeta septem (before 1327), Paris 1487. Expositio aurea super artem veterem Aristotelis, 1323. Major summa logices, Venice 1521. Quaestiones in quattuor libros sententiarum, Lyons, 1495. Centilogium theologicum, Lyons 1495.

Theological writings Questiones earumque decisiones, Lyons 1483. Quodlibeta septem, Paris 1487, Strasbourg 1491. Centilogium, Lyons 1494. De sacramento altaris and De corpore christi, Strasbourg 1491, Venice 1516. Tractatus de sacramento allans.

Augustus De Morgan
From Wikipedia, the free encycloped Augustus De Morgan (27 June 1806 18 March 1871) was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous.[1] The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him. Mathematical work De Morgan was a brilliant and witty writer, whether as a controversialist or as a correspondent. In his time there flourished two Sir William Hamiltons who have often been confounded. The one was Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (that is, his title was inherited), a Scotsman, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh; the other was a knight (that is, won the title), an Irishman, professor at astronomy in the University of Dublin. The baronet contributed to logic, especially the doctrine of the quantification of the predicate; the knight, whose full name was William Rowan Hamilton, contributed to mathematics, especially geometric algebra, and first described the Quaternions. De Morgan was interested in the work of both, and corresponded with both; but the correspondence with the Scotsman ended in a public controversy, whereas that with the Irishman was marked by friendship and terminated only by death. In one of his letters to Rowan, De Morgan says, "Be it known unto you that I have discovered that you and the other Sir W. H. are reciprocal polars with respect to me (intellectually and morally, for the Scottish

baronet is a polar bear, and you, I was going to say, are a polar gentleman). When I send a bit of investigation to Edinburgh, the W. H. of that ilk says I took it from him. When I send you one, you take it from me, generalize it at a glance, bestow it thus generalized upon society at large, and make me the second discoverer of a known theorem." The correspondence of De Morgan with Hamilton the mathematician extended over twenty-four years; it contains discussions not only of mathematical matters, but also of subjects of general interest. It is marked by geniality on the part of Hamilton and by wit on the part of De Morgan. The following is a specimen: Hamilton wrote, "My copy of Berkeley's work is not mine; like Berkeley, you know, I am an Irishman." De Morgan replied, "Your phrase 'my copy is not mine' is not a bull. It is perfectly good English to use the same word in two different senses in one sentence, particularly when there is usage. Incongruity of language is no bull, for it expresses meaning. But incongruity of ideas (as in the case of the Irishman who was pulling up the rope, and finding it did not finish, cried out that somebody had cut off the other end of it) is the genuine bull." De Morgan was full of personal peculiarities. On the occasion of the installation of his friend, Lord Brougham, as Rector of the University of Edinburgh, the Senate offered to confer on him the honorary degree of LL. D.; he declined the honour as a misnomer. He once printed his name: Augustus De Morgan, H - O - M - O - P - A - U - C A - R - U - M - L - I - T - E - R - A - R - U - M (Latin for "man of few letters").[citation needed] He disliked the provinces outside London, and while his family enjoyed the seaside, and men of science were having a good time at a meeting of the British Association in the country he remained in the hot and dusty libraries of the metropolis. He said that he felt like Socrates, who declared that the farther he was from Athens the farther was he from happiness. He never sought to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he never attended a meeting of the Society; he said that he had no ideas or sympathies in common with the physical philosopher. His attitude was possibly due to his physical infirmity, which prevented him from being either an observer or an experimenter. He never voted at an election, and he never visited the House of Commons, or the Tower of London, or Westminster Abbey. Were the writings of De Morgan published in the form of collected works, they would form a small library, for example his writings for the Useful Knowledge Society. Mainly through the efforts of Peacock and Whewell, a Philosophical Society had been inaugurated at Cambridge; and to its Transactions De Morgan contributed four memoirs on the foundations of algebra, and an equal number on formal logic. The best presentation of his view of algebra is found in a volume, entitled Trigonometry and Double Algebra, published in 1849; and his earlier view of formal logic is found in a volume published in 1847. His most distinctive work is styled a Budget of Paradoxes; it originally appeared as letters in the columns of the Athenum journal; it was revised and extended by De Morgan in the last years of his life, and was published posthumously by his widow. George Peacock's theory of algebra was much improved by D. F. Gregory, a younger member of the Cambridge School, who laid stress not on the permanence of equivalent forms, but on the permanence of certain formal laws. This new theory of algebra as the science of symbols and of their laws of combination was carried to its logical issue by De Morgan; and his doctrine on the subject is still followed by English algebraists in general. Thus George Chrystal founds his Textbook of Algebra on De Morgan's theory; although an attentive reader may remark that he practically abandons it when he takes up the subject of infinite series. De Morgan's theory is stated in his volume on Trigonometry and Double Algebra. In the chapter (of the book) headed "On symbolic algebra" he writes: "In abandoning the meaning of symbols, we also abandon those of the words which describe them. Thus addition is to be, for the present, a sound void of sense. It is a mode of combination represented by + ; when + receives its meaning, so also will the word addition. It is most important that the student should bear in mind that, with one exception, no word nor sign of arithmetic or algebra has one atom of meaning throughout this chapter, the object of which is symbols, and their laws of combination, giving a symbolic algebra which may hereafter become the grammar of

a hundred distinct significant algebras. If any one were to assert that + and might mean reward and punishment, and A, B, C, etc., might stand for virtues and vices, the reader might believe him, or contradict him, as he pleases, but not out of this chapter. The one exception above noted, which has some share of meaning, is the sign = placed between two symbols as in A = B. It indicates that the two symbols have the same resulting meaning, by whatever steps attained. That A and B, if quantities, are the same amount of quantity; that if operations, they are of the same effect, etc." Here, it may be asked, why does the symbol = prove refractory to the symbolic theory? De Morgan admits that there is one exception; but an exception proves the rule, not in the usual but illogical sense of establishing it, but in the old and logical sense of testing its validity. If an exception can be established, the rule must fall, or at least must be modified. Here I am talking not of grammatical rules, but of the rules of science or nature. De Morgan proceeds to give an inventory of the fundamental symbols of algebra, and also an inventory of the laws of algebra. The symbols are 0, 1, +, , , , ()(), and letters; these only, all others are derived. His inventory of the fundamental laws is expressed under fourteen heads, but some of them are merely definitions. The laws proper may be reduced to the following, which, as he admits, are not all independent of one another: 1. Law of signs. + + = +, + = , + = , = +, = , = , = , = .

2. Commutative law. a+b = b+a, ab=ba. 3. Distributive law. a(b+c) = ab+ac. 4. Index laws. abac=ab+c, (ab)c=abc, (ab)d= adbd. 5. aa=0, aa=1.
The last two may be called the rules of reduction. De Morgan professes to give a complete inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey, for he says, "Any system of symbols which obeys these laws and no others, except they be formed by combination of these laws, and which uses the preceding symbols and no others, except they be new symbols invented in abbreviation of combinations of these symbols, is symbolic algebra." From his point of view, none of the above principles are rules; they are formal laws, that is, arbitrarily chosen relations to which the algebraic symbols must be subject. He does not mention the law, which had already been pointed out by Gregory, namely, (a + b) + c = a + (b + c),(ab)c = a(bc) and to which was afterwards given the name of the law of association. If the commutative law fails, the associative may hold good; but not vice versa. It is an unfortunate thing for the symbolist or formalist that in universal arithmetic mn is not equal to nm; for then the commutative law would have full scope. Why does he not give it full scope? Because the foundations of algebra are, after all, real not formal, material not symbolic. To the formalists the index operations are exceedingly refractory, in consequence of which some take no account of them, but relegate them to applied mathematics. To give an inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey is an impossible task, and reminds one not a little of the task of those philosophers who attempt to give an inventory of the a priori knowledge of the mind. Trigonometry and double algebra De Morgan's work entitled Trigonometry and Double Algebra consists of two parts; the former of which is a treatise on Trigonometry, and the latter a treatise on generalized algebra which he calls Double Algebra.The first stage in the development of algebra is arithmetic, where numbers only appear and symbols of operations such as + , , etc. The next stage is universal arithmetic, where letters appear instead of numbers, so as to denote numbers universally, and the processes are conducted without knowing the values of the symbols. Let a and b denote any numbers; then such an expression as a b may be impossible; so that in universal arithmetic there is always a proviso, provided the operation is possible. The third stage is single algebra, where the symbol may denote a quantity forwards or a quantity backwards, and is adequately represented by segments on a straight line passing through an origin.

Negative quantities are then no longer impossible; they are represented by the backward segment. But an impossibility still remains in the latter part of such an expression as which arises in the solution of the quadratic equation. The fourth stage is double algebra; the algebraic symbol denotes in general a segment of a line in a given plane; it is a double symbol because it involves two specifications, namely, length and direction; and is interpreted as denoting a quadrant. The expression then represents a line in the plane having an abscissa a and an ordinate b. Argand and Warren carried double algebra so far; but they were unable to interpret on this theory such an expression as . De Morgan attempted it by reducing such an expression to

the form , and he considered that he had shown that it could be always so reduced. The remarkable fact is that this double algebra satisfies all the fundamental laws above enumerated, and as every apparently impossible combination of symbols has been interpreted it looks like the complete form of algebra. In chapter 6 he introduced hyperbolic functions and discussed the connection of common and hyperbolic trigonometry. If the above theory is true, the next stage of development ought to be triple algebra and if truly represents a line in a given plane, it ought to be possible to find a third term which added to the above would represent a line in space. Argand and some others guessed that it was although

this contradicts the truth established by Euler that . De Morgan and many others worked hard at the problem, but nothing came of it until the problem was taken up by Hamilton. We now see the reason clearly: the symbol of double algebra denotes not a length and a direction; but a multiplier and an angle. In it the angles are confined to one plane; hence the next stage will be a quadruple algebra, when the axis of the plane is made variable. And this gives the answer to the first question; double algebra is nothing but analytical plane trigonometry, and this is why it has been found to be the natural analysis for alternating currents. But De Morgan never got this far; he died with the belief "that double algebra must remain as the full development of the conceptions of arithmetic, so far as those symbols are concerned which arithmetic immediately suggests." When the study of mathematics revived at the University of Cambridge, so did the study of logic. The moving spirit was Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, whose principal writings were a History of the Inductive Sciences, and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Doubtless De Morgan was influenced in his logical investigations by Whewell; but other influential contemporaries were Sir W. Hamilton of Edinburgh, and Professor Boole of Cork. De Morgan's work on Formal Logic, published in 1847, is principally remarkable for his development of the numerically definite syllogism. The followers of Aristotle say that from two particular propositions such as Some M's are A's , and Some M's are B's nothing follows of necessity about the relation of the A's and B's. But they go further and say in order that any relation about the A's and B's may follow of necessity, the middle term must be taken universally in one of the premises. De Morgan pointed out that from Most M's are A's and Most M's are B's it follows of necessity that some A's are B's and he formulated the numerically definite syllogism which puts this principle in exact quantitative form. Suppose that the number of the M's is m, of the M's that are A's is a, and of the M's that are B's is b; then there are at least (a + b m) A's that are B's. Suppose that the number of souls on board a steamer was 1000, that 500 were in the saloon, and 700 were lost; it follows of necessity, that at least 700+5001000, that is, 200, saloon passengers were lost. This single principle suffices to prove the validity of all the Aristotelian moods; it is therefore a fundamental principle in necessary reasoning. Here then De Morgan had made a great advance by introducing quantification of the terms. At that time Sir W. Hamilton was teaching at Edinburgh a doctrine of the quantification of the predicate, and a correspondence sprang up. However, De Morgan soon perceived that Hamilton's quantification was of a different character; that it meant for example, substituting the two forms The whole of A is the whole of B, and The whole of A is a part of B for the Aristotelian form All A's are B's. Hamilton thought that he had placed the keystone in the Aristotelian arch, as he phrased it; although it must have been a curious arch which could stand 2000 years without a keystone. As a consequence he had no room for De Morgan's innovations. He accused De Morgan of plagiarism, and the controversy raged for years in the columns of the Athenum, and in the publications of the two writers.

The memoirs on logic which De Morgan contributed to the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society subsequent to the publication of his book on Formal Logic are by far the most important contributions which he made to the science, especially his fourth memoir, in which he begins work in the broad field of the logic of relatives. This is the true field for the logician of the twentieth century, in which work of the greatest importance is to be done towards improving language and facilitating thinking processes which occur all the time in practical life. Identity and difference are the two relations which have been considered by the logician; but there are many others equally deserving of study, such as equality, equivalence, consanguinity, affinity, etc. In the introduction to the Budget of Paradoxes De Morgan explains what he means by the word. "A great many individuals, ever since the rise of the mathematical method, have, each for himself, attacked its direct and indirect consequences. I shall call each of these persons a paradoxer, and his system a paradox. I use the word in the old sense: a paradox is something which is apart from general opinion, either in subject matter, method, or conclusion. Many of the things brought forward would now be called crotchets, which is the nearest word we have to old paradox. But there is this difference, that by calling a thing a crotchet we mean to speak lightly of it; which was not the necessary sense of paradox. Thus in the 16th century many spoke of the earth's motion as the paradox of Copernicus and held the ingenuity of that theory in very high esteem, and some I think who even inclined towards it. In the seventeenth century the deprivation of meaning took place, in England at least." How can the sound paradoxer be distinguished from the false paradoxer? De Morgan supplies the following test: "The manner in which a paradoxer will show himself, as to sense or nonsense, will not depend upon what he maintains, but upon whether he has or has not made a sufficient knowledge of what has been done by others, especially as to the mode of doing it, a preliminary to inventing knowledge for himself... New knowledge, when to any purpose, must come by contemplation of old knowledge, in every matter which concerns thought; mechanical contrivance sometimes, not very often, escapes this rule. All the men who are now called discoverers, in every matter ruled by thought, have been men versed in the minds of their predecessors and learned in what had been before them. There is not one exception." "I remember that just before the American Association met at Indianapolis in 1890, the local newspapers heralded a great discovery which was to be laid before the assembled savants -- a young man living somewhere in the country had squared the circle. While the meeting was in progress I observed a young man going about with a roll of paper in his hand. He spoke to me and complained that the paper containing his discovery had not been received. I asked him whether his object in presenting the paper was not to get it read, printed and published so that everyone might inform himself of the result; to all of which he assented readily. But, said I, many men have worked at this question, and their results have been tested fully, and they are printed for the benefit of anyone who can read; have you informed yourself of their results? To this there was no assent, but the sickly smile of the false paradoxer" The Budget consists of a review of a large collection of paradoxical books which De Morgan had accumulated in his own library, partly by purchase at bookstands, partly from books sent to him for review, partly from books sent to him by the authors. He gives the following classification: squarers of the circle, trisectors of the angle, duplicators of the cube, constructors of perpetual motion, subverters of gravitation, stagnators of the earth, builders of the universe. You will still find specimens of all these classes in the New World and in the new century. De Morgan gives his personal knowledge of paradoxers.

"I suspect that I know more of the English class than any man in Britain. I never kept any reckoning: but I know that one year with another? -- and less of late years than in earlier time? -- I have talked to more than five in each year, giving more than a hundred and fifty specimens. Of this I am sure, that it is my own fault if they have not been a thousand. Nobody knows how they swarm, except those to whom they naturally resort. They are in all ranks and occupations, of all ages and characters. They are very earnest people, and their purpose is bona fide, the dissemination of their paradoxes. A great many -- the mass, indeed -- are illiterate, and a great many waste their means, and are in or approaching penury. These discoverers despise one another." A paradoxer to whom De Morgan paid the compliment which Achilles paid Hectorto drag him round the walls

again and againwas James Smith, a successful merchant of Liverpool. He found

. His mode of

reasoning was a curious caricature of the reductio ad absurdum of Euclid. He said let

, and then showed

that on that supposition, every other value of must be absurd; consequently following is a specimen of De Morgan's dragging round the walls of Troy:

is the true value. The

"Mr. Smith continues to write me long letters, to which he hints that I am to answer. In his last of 31 closely written sides of note paper, he informs me, with reference to my obstinate silence, that though I think myself and am thought by others to be a mathematical Goliath, I have resolved to play the mathematical snail, and keep within my shell. A mathematical snail! This cannot be the thing so called which regulates the striking of a clock; for it would mean that I am to make Mr. Smith sound the true time of day, which I would by no means undertake upon a clock that gains 19 seconds odd in every hour by false quadrative value of . But he ventures to tell me that pebbles from the sling of simple truth and common sense will ultimately crack my shell, and put me hors de combat. The confusion of images is amusing:

Goliath turning himself into a snail to avoid and James Smith, Esq., of the Mersey Dock Board: and put hors de combat by pebbles from a sling. If Goliath had crept into a snail shell, David would have cracked the Philistine with his foot. There is something like modesty in the implication that the crack-shell pebble has not yet taken effect; it might have been thought that the slinger would by this time have been singing -- And thrice [and one-eighth] I routed all my foes, And thrice [and oneeighth] I slew the slain." In the region of pure mathematics De Morgan could detect easily the false from the true paradox; but he was not so proficient in the field of physics. His father-in-law was a paradoxer, and his wife a paradoxer; and in the opinion of the physical philosophers De Morgan himself scarcely escaped. His wife wrote a book describing the phenomena of spiritualism, table-rapping, table-turning, etc.; and De Morgan wrote a preface in which he said that he knew some of the asserted facts, believed others on testimony, but did not pretend to know whether they were caused by spirits, or had some unknown and unimagined origin. From this alternative he left out ordinary material causes. Faraday

delivered a lecture on Spiritualism, in which he laid it down that in the investigation we ought to set out with the idea of what is physically possible, or impossible; De Morgan did not believe this.

John Venn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Donald A. Venn FRS (4 August 1834 4 April 1923), was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. John Venn, short for Donald A. Venn was born in 1834 at Hull, Yorkshire. His mother, Martha Sykes, came from Swanland, near Hull, and died while John was only three. His father was the Rev. Henry Venn who, at the time of John's birth, was the rector of the parish of Drypool near Hull. Henry Venn, a fellow of Queens', was from a family of distinction. His own father, John's grandfather, was the Rev. John Venn who had been the rector of Clapham in south London. He was a leader of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Christians centered on his church who campaigned for prison reform and the abolition of slavery and cruel sports. Memorials

Venn is commemorated at the University of Hull by the Venn Building, built in 1928. A stained glass window in the dining hall of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,

Selected works Venn, John (January 1876). "Consistency and Real Inference". Mind 1 (1). http://fairuse.org/mind/1876/01/consistency-and-real-inference. Venn, John (1881). Symbolic Logic. London: Macmillan and Company. ISBN 1421260441. http://books.google.com/? id=nisCAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+venn. Venn, John (1880). "On the Employment of Geometrical Diagrams for the Sensible Representation of Logical Propositions". Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 4: 4759. http://books.google.com/? id=GpI1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47&dq=john+venn. The Logic of Chance: An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability

First Edition (1866): Google Book Search Second Edition (1876): Google Book Search or Internet Archive or University of Gttingen Third Edition (1888): Google Book Search or Internet Archive

Venn, John (1901). Caius College. London: F. E. Robinson & Co.. http://books.google.com/?id=1A4BAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+venn. John Caius, John Venn (1904). The Annals of Gonville and Caius College. Printed for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, sold by Deighton, Bell & Co.. http://books.google.com/?id=qJmUDQaAHBwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+venn. (1904) - by John Caius, edited by John Venn

References

1. ^ Venn, John in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press,
10 vols, 19221958.

Gottfried Leibniz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (sometimes von Leibniz) (German pronunciation: [tfit vlhlm fn labnts][1] or [lapnts][2]) (July 1, 1646 November 14, 1716) was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin (~40%), French (~30%) and German (~15%).[3] Leibniz occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy. He developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and Leibniz's mathematical notation has been widely used ever since it was published. He became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. While working on adding automatic multiplication and division to Pascal's calculator, he was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685[4] and invented the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator. He also refined the binary number system, which is at the foundation of virtually all digital computers. In philosophy, Leibniz is mostly noted for his optimism, e.g., his conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created. Leibniz, along with Ren Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism. The work of Leibniz anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or prior definitions rather than to empirical evidence. Leibniz made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in biology, medicine, geology, probability theory, psychology, linguistics, and information science. He wrote works on politics, law, ethics, theology, history, philosophy, and philology. Leibniz's contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters, and in unpublished manuscripts. As of 2011, there is no complete gathering of the writings of Leibniz.[5] Philosopher Leibniz's philosophical thinking appears fragmented, because his philosophical writings consist mainly of a multitude of short pieces: journal articles, manuscripts published long after his death, and many letters to many correspondents. He wrote only two philosophical treatises, of which only the Thodice of 1710 was published in his lifetime. Leibniz dated his beginning as a philosopher to his Discourse on Metaphysics, which he composed in 1686 as a commentary on a running dispute between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld. This led to an extensive and valuable correspondence with Arnauld;[28] it and the Discourse were not published until the 19th century. In 1695, Leibniz made his public entre into European philosophy with a journal article titled "New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances".[29] Between 1695 and 1705, he composed his New Essays on Human Understanding, a lengthy commentary on John Locke's 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, but upon learning of Locke's 1704 death, lost the desire to publish it, so that the New Essays were not published until 1765. The Monadologie, composed in 1714 and published posthumously, consists of 90 aphorisms. Leibniz met Spinoza in 1676, read some of his unpublished writings, and has since been suspected of appropriating some of Spinoza's ideas. While Leibniz admired Spinoza's powerful intellect, he was also forthrightly dismayed by Spinoza's conclusions,[30] especially when these were inconsistent with Christian orthodoxy. Unlike Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz had a thorough university education in philosophy. His lifelong scholastic and Aristotelian turn of mind betrayed the strong influence of one of his Leipzig professors, Jakob Thomasius, who also supervised his BA thesis in philosophy. Leibniz also eagerly read Francisco Surez, a Spanish Jesuit respected even in Lutheran universities. Leibniz was deeply interested in the new methods and conclusions of Descartes, Huygens, Newton, and Boyle, but viewed their work through a lens heavily tinted by scholastic notions. Yet it remains the case that Leibniz's methods and concerns often anticipate the logic, and analytic and linguistic philosophy of the 20th century. Formal logic Main article: Algebraic logic

Leibniz is the most important logician between Aristotle and 1847, when George Boole and Augustus De Morgan each published books that began modern formal logic. Leibniz enunciated the principal properties of what we now call conjunction, disjunction, negation, identity, set inclusion, and the empty set. The principles of Leibniz's logic and, arguably, of his whole philosophy, reduce to two:

1. All our ideas are compounded from a very small number of simple ideas, which form
the alphabet of human thought. 2. Complex ideas proceed from these simple ideas by a uniform and symmetrical combination, analogous to arithmetical multiplication. With regard to the first point, the number of simple ideas is much greater than Leibniz thought.[citation needed] As for the second, logic can indeed be grounded in a symmetrical combining operation, but that operation is analogous to either of addition or multiplication.[citation needed] The formal logic that emerged early in the 20th century also requires, at minimum, unary negation and quantified variables ranging over some universe of discourse. Leibniz published nothing on formal logic in his lifetime; most of what he wrote on the subject consists of working drafts. In his book History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell went so far as to claim that Leibniz had developed logic in his unpublished writings to a level which was reached only 200 years later.

Gottlob Frege
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848 26 July 1925, pronounced [gtlop freg ]) was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. While he was mainly ignored by the intellectual world when he published his writings, Giuseppe Peano (18581932) and Bertrand Russell (18721970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers. Work as a logician Main article: Begriffsschrift Though his education and early work were mathematical, especially geometrical, Frege's thought soon turned to logic. His Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens (Halle a/S: Verlag von Louis Nebert, 1879) (Concept-Script: A Formal Language for Pure Thought Modeled on that of Arithmetic) marked a turning point in the history of logic. The Begriffsschrift broke new ground, including a rigorous treatment of the ideas of functions and variables. Frege wanted to show that mathematics grows out of logic, but in so doing he devised techniques that took him far beyond the Aristotelian syllogistic and Stoic propositional logic that had come down to him in the logical tradition. In effect, Frege invented axiomatic predicate logic, in large part thanks to his invention of quantified variables, which eventually became ubiquitous in mathematics and logic, and which solved the problem of multiple generality. Previous logic had dealt with the logical constants and, or, if ... then ..., not, and some and all, but iterations of these operations, especially "some" and "all", were little understood: even the distinction between a pair of sentences like "every boy loves some girl" and "some girl is loved by every boy" was able to be represented only very artificially, whereas Frege's formalism had no difficulty expressing the different readings of "every boy loves some girl who loves some boy who loves some girl" and similar sentences, in complete parallel with his treatment of, say, "every boy is foolish". It is frequently noted that Aristotle's logic is unable to represent even the most elementary inferences in Euclid's geometry, but Frege's "conceptual notation" can represent inferences involving indefinitely complex mathematical statements. The analysis of logical concepts and the machinery of formalization that is essential to Principia Mathematica (3 vols., 19101913) (by Bertrand Russell, 18721970, and Alfred North Whitehead, 18611947), to Russell's theory of descriptions, to Kurt Gdel's (19061978) incompleteness theorems, and to Alfred Tarski's (19011983) theory of truth, is ultimately due to Frege.

One of Frege's stated purposes was to isolate genuinely logical principles of inference, so that in the proper representation of mathematical proof, one would at no point appeal to "intuition". If there was an intuitive element, it was to be isolated and represented separately as an axiom: from there on, the proof was to be purely logical and without gaps. Having exhibited this possibility, Frege's larger purpose was to defend the view that arithmetic is a branch of logic, a view known as logicism: unlike geometry, arithmetic was to be shown to have no basis in "intuition", and no need for non-logical axioms. Already in the 1879 Begriffsschrift important preliminary theorems, for example a generalized form of law of trichotomy, were derived within what Frege understood to be pure logic. This idea was formulated in non-symbolic terms in his Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) (The Foundations of Arithmetic). Later, in his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Basic Laws of Arithmetic) (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1903) (vol. 2 of which was published at his own expense), Frege attempted to derive, by use of his symbolism, all of the laws of arithmetic from axioms he asserted as logical. Most of these axioms were carried over from his Begriffsschrift, though not without some significant changes. The one truly new principle was one he called the Basic Law V: the "value-range" of the function f(x) is the same as the "value-range" of the function g(x) if and only if x[f(x) = g(x)]. The crucial case of the law may be formulated in modern notation as follows. Let {x|Fx} denote the extension of the predicate Fx, i.e., the set of all Fs, and similarly for Gx. Then Basic Law V says that the predicates Fx and Gx have the same extension iff x[Fx Gx]. The set of Fs is the same as the set of Gs just in case every F is a G and every G is an F. (The case is special because what is here being called the extension of a predicate, or a set, is only one type of "value-range" of a function.) In a famous episode, Bertrand Russell wrote to Frege, just as Vol. 2 of the Grundgesetze was about to go to press in 1903, showing that Russell's paradox could be derived from Frege's Basic Law V. It is easy to define the relation of membership of a set or extension in Frege's system; Russell then drew attention to "the set of things x that are such that x is not a member of x". The system of the Grundgesetze entails that the set thus characterised both is and is not a member of itself, and is thus inconsistent. Frege wrote a hasty, last-minute Appendix to Vol. 2, deriving the contradiction and proposing to eliminate it by modifying Basic Law V. Frege opened the Appendix with the exceptionally honest comment: "Hardly anything more unfortunate can befall a scientific writer than to have one of the foundations of his edifice shaken after the work is finished. This was the position I was placed in by a letter of Mr. Bertrand Russell, just when the printing of this volume was nearing its completion." (This letter and Frege's reply are translated in Jean van Heijenoort 1967.) Frege's proposed remedy was subsequently shown to imply that there is but one object in the universe of discourse, and hence is worthless (indeed, this would make for a contradiction in Frege's system if he had axiomatized the idea, fundamental to his discussion, that the True and the False are distinct objects; see, for example, Dummett 1973), but recent work has shown that much of the program of the Grundgesetze might be salvaged in other ways:

Basic Law V can be weakened in other ways. The best-known way is due to philosopher and mathematical logician George Boolos (19401996), who was an expert on the work of Frege. A "concept" F is "small" if the objects falling under F cannot be put into one-to-one correspondence with the universe of discourse, that is, if: R[R is 1-to-1 & xy(xRy & Fy)]. Now weaken V to V*: a "concept" F and a "concept" G have the same "extension" if and only if neither F nor G is small or x(Fx Gx). V* is consistent if second-order arithmetic is, and suffices to prove the axioms of second-order arithmetic. Basic Law V can simply be replaced with Hume's Principle, which says that the number of Fs is the same as the number of Gs if and only if the Fs can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with the Gs. This principle, too, is consistent if secondorder arithmetic is, and suffices to prove the axioms of second-order arithmetic. This result is termed Frege's Theorem because it was noticed that in developing arithmetic, Frege's use of Basic Law V is restricted to a proof of Hume's Principle; it is from this, in turn, that arithmetical principles are derived. On Hume's Principle and Frege's Theorem, see "Frege's Logic, Theorem, and Foundations for Arithmetic".[2] Frege's logic, now known as second-order logic, can be weakened to so-called predicative second-order logic. Predicative second-order logic plus Basic Law V is provably consistent by finitistic or constructive methods, but it can interpret only very weak fragments of arithmetic.[3]

Frege's work in logic had little international attention until 1903 when Russell wrote an appendix to The Principles of Mathematics stating his differences with Frege. The diagrammatic notation that Frege used had no antecedents (and has had no imitators since). Moreover, until Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica (3 vols.) appeared in 191013, the dominant approach to mathematical logic was still that of George Boole (18151864) and his intellectual descendants, especially Ernst Schrder (18411902). Frege's logical ideas nevertheless spread through the writings of his student Rudolf Carnap (18911970) and other admirers, particularly Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951). Philosopher Frege is one of the founders of analytic philosophy, mainly because of his contributions to the philosophy of language, including the

Function-argument analysis of the proposition; Distinction between concept and object (Begriff und Gegenstand); Principle of compositionality; Context principle; Distinction between the sense and reference (Sinn und Bedeutung) of names and other expressions, sometimes said to involve a mediated reference theory.

As a philosopher of mathematics, Frege attacked the psychologistic appeal to mental explanations of the content of judgment of the meaning of sentences. His original purpose was very far from answering general questions about meaning; instead, he devised his logic to explore the foundations of arithmetic, undertaking to answer questions such as "What is a number?" or "What objects do number-words ("one", "two", etc.) refer to?" But in pursuing these matters, he eventually found himself analysing and explaining what meaning is, and thus came to several conclusions that proved highly consequential for the subsequent course of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of language. It should be kept in mind that Frege was employed as a mathematician, not a philosopher, and he published his philosophical papers in scholarly journals that often were hard to access outside of the German-speaking world. He never published a philosophical monograph other than The Foundations of Arithmetic, much of which was mathematical in content, and the first collections of his writings appeared only after World War II. A volume of English translations of Frege's philosophical essays first appeared in 1952, edited by students of Wittgenstein, Peter Geach (born 1916) and Max Black (19091988), with the bibliographic assistance of Wittgenstein (see Geach, ed. 1975, Introduction). Despite the generous praise of Russell and Wittgenstein, Frege was little known as a philosopher during his lifetime. His ideas spread chiefly through those he influenced, such as Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap, and through work on logic and semantics Sense and reference Main article: Sense and Reference The distinction between Sinn ("sense") and Bedeutung (usually translated "reference", but also as "meaning" or "denotation") was an innovation of Frege in his 1892 paper "ber Sinn und Bedeutung" ("On Sense and Reference"). According to Frege, sense and reference are two different aspects of the significance of an expression. Frege applied Bedeutung in the first instance to proper names, where it means the bearer of the name, the object in question, but then also to other expressions, including complete sentences, which bedeuten the two "truth values", the true and the false; by contrast, the sense or Sinn associated with a complete sentence is the thought it expresses. The sense of an expression is said to be the "mode of presentation" of the item referred to. The distinction can be illustrated thus: In their ordinary uses, the name "Charles Philip Arthur George MountbattenWindsor", which for logical purposes is an unanalyzable whole, and the functional expression "the Prince of Wales", which contains the significant parts "the prince of " and "Wales", have the same reference, namely, the person best known as Prince Charles. But the sense of the word "Wales" is a part of the sense of the latter expression, but no part of the sense of the "full name" of Prince Charles. These distinctions were disputed by Bertrand Russell, especially in his paper "On Denoting"; the controversy has continued into the present, fueled especially by Saul Kripke's famous lectures "Naming and Necessity".

Imagine the road signs outside a city. They all point to (bedeuten) the same object (the city), although the "mode of presentation" or sense (Sinn) of each sign (its direction or distance) is different. Similarly "the Prince of Wales" and "Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor" both denote (bedeuten) the same object, though each uses a different "mode of presentation" (sense or Sinn).

Alfred North Whitehead

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (15 February 1861 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education. Whitehead supervised the doctoral dissertations of Bertrand Russell and Willard Van Orman Quine, thus influencing logic and virtually all of analytic philosophy. He co-authored the epochal Principia Mathematica with Russell.
[1]

Works by Whitehead

1898. A Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications. Cambridge Uni. Press. 1960 reprint, Hafner. 1911. An Introduction to Mathematics. Oxford Univ. Press. 1990 paperback, ISBN 019-500211-3. Vol. 56 of the Great Books of the Western World series. 1917. The Organization of Thought Educational and Scientific. Lippincott. 1920. The Concept of Nature. Cambridge Uni. Press. 2004 paperback, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-59102-214-2. Being the 1919 Tarner Lectures delivered at Trinity College. 1922. The Principle of Relativity with Applications to Physical Science. Cambridge Uni. Press. 1925 (191013), with Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica, in 3 vols. Cambridge Uni. Press. Vol. 1 to *56 is available as a CUP paperback. 1925a. Science and the Modern World. 1997 paperback, Free Press (Simon & Schuster), ISBN 0-684-83639-4. Vol. 55 of the Great Books of the Western World series. 1925b (1919). An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. Cambridge Uni. Press. 1926. Religion in the Making. 1974, New American Library. 1996, with introduction by Judith A. Jones, Fordham Univ. Press. 1927. Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect. The 1927 Barbour-Page Lectures, given at the University of Virginia. 1985 paperback, Fordham University Press. 1929. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. 1979 corrected edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, Free Press. (Part V. Final Interpretation) 1929a. The Aims of Education and Other Essays. 1985 paperback, Free Press, ISBN 002-935180-4. 1929b. Function of Reason. 1971 paperback, Beacon Press, ISBN 0-8070-1573-3. 1933. Adventures of Ideas. 1967 paperback, Free Press, ISBN 0-02-935170-7. 1934. Nature and Life. University of Chicago Press. 1938. Modes of Thought. 1968 paperback, Free Press, ISBN 0-02-935210-X. 1947. Essays in Science and Philosophy. Runes, Dagobert, ed. Philosophical Library. 1947. The Wit and Wisdom of Whitehead. Beacon Press.

1951. "Mathematics and the Good" in Schilpp, P. A., ed., 1951. The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, 2nd. ed. New York, Tudor Publishing Company: 666-81. Also printed in:

in The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, 1941, P. A. Schilpp, Ed.; in Science & Philosophy; Philosophical Library, 1948.

1953. A. N. Whitehead: An Anthology. Northrop, F.S.C., and Gross, M.W., eds. Cambridge Univ. Press. Price, Lucien, 1954. Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, with Introduction by Sir Ross David. Reprinted 1977, Greenwood Press Reprint, ISBN 0-8371-9341-9, and 2001 with Foreword by Caldwell Titcomb, David R. Godine Publisher, ISBN 1-56792129-9.

[edit] Works about Whitehead and his thought

Browning, Douglas and Myers, William T., eds., 1998. Philosophers of Process. Fordham Univ. Press. ISBN 0-8232-1879-1, contains some primary texts including: "Critique of Scientific Materialism" "Process" "Fact and Form" "Objects and Subjects" "The Grouping of Occasions"

Chul Chun: Kreativitt und Relativitt der Welt beim frhen Whitehead: Alfred North Whiteheads frhe Naturphilosophie (19151922) - eine Rekonstruktion, mit einem Vorwort von Michael Welker, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2010, ISBN 9783-7887-2352-1 Contemporary Whitehead Studies (book series). Rodopi. Durand G., 2007. "Des vnements aux objets. La mthode de l'abstraction extensive chez A. N. Whitehead". Ontos Verlag. Grattan-Guinness, Ivor, 2000. The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870-1940. Princeton Uni. Press. ------, 2002, "Algebras, Projective Geometry, Mathematical Logic, and Constructing the World: Intersections in the Philosophy of Mathematics of A. N. Whitehead," Historia Mathematica 29: 427-62. Many references. Griffin, David Ray, 2007. "Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy. An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance", New York: State University of New York Press. Hartshorne, Charles (1972). Whitehead's Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-1970. University of Nebraska Press Henning, Brian G. The Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality, and Nature in a Processive Cosmos. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Holtz, Harald and Ernest Wolf-Gazo, eds. Whitehead und der Prozebegriff / Whitehead and The Idea of Process. Proceedings of The First International Whitehead-Symposion. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg i. B. / Mnchen 1984. ISBN 3-49547517-6 Johnson, A. H. (Allison Heartz), Ed., (2007) The Wit and Wisdom of Alfred North Whitehead. Kessinger Publishing.

Kneebone, G., 2001, (1963). Mathematical Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics. Dover reprint: ISBN 0-486-41712-3. The final chapter is a lucid introduction to some of the ideas in Whitehead (1919, 1925b, 1929). LeClerc, Ivor, ed., 1961. The Relevance of Whitehead. Allen & Unwin. Lowe, Victor, 1962. Understanding Whitehead. Johns Hopkins Uni. Press. ------, 1985. A. N. Whitehead: The Man and His Work, Vol. 1. Johns Hopkins U. Press. ------, and Schneewind, J. B., 1990. A. N. Whitehead: The Man and His Work, Vol. 2. Johns Hopkins U. Press. Martin, Richard Milton, 1974. Whitehead's Categorial Scheme and Other Essays. Martinus Nijhoff. Mays, Wolfgang, 1959. The Philosophy of Whitehead. Allen & Unwin. ------, 1977. Whitehead's Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics: An Introduction to his Thought. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Mesle, C. Robert, 2008. Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead," Templeton foundation Press. ISBN 978-1-59947-132-7 Nobo, Jorge L., 1986. Whitehead's Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity. SUNY Press. Willard Quine, 1941, "Whitehead and the rise of modern logic" in Schilpp (1941). Reprinted in his 1995 Selected Logic Papers. Harvard Univ. Press. Rapp, Friedrich and Reiner Wiehl, eds. Whiteheads Metaphysik der Kreativitt. Internationales Whitehead-Symposium Bad Homburg 1983. . Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg i. B. / Mnchen 1986. ISBN 3-495-47612-1 Rescher, Nicholas, 1995. Process Metaphysics. SUNY Press. ------, 2001. Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues. Univ. of Pittsburg Press. Siebers, Johan, 2002. The method of speculative philosophy: an essay on the foundations of Whitehead's metaphysicis. Kassel: Kassel University Press GmbH. ISBN 3-933146-79-8 Schilpp, Paul A., ed., 1941. The Philosophy of A. N. Whitehead (The Library of Living Philosophers). New York: Tudor. Smith, Olav Bryant, 2004. Myths of the Self: Narrative Identity and Postmodern Metaphysics, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, [ISBN 0-7391-0843-3], contains a section called 'Alfred North Whitehead: Toward a More Fundamental Ontology' that is an overview of Whitehead's metaphysics. Stengers, Isabelle, 2002. Penser avec Whitehead. Seuil. Weber, Michel, 2006. Whitehead's PancreativismThe Basics. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Will, Clifford, 1993. Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics. Cambridge University Press.

Charles Sanders Peirce

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Sanders Peirce ( /prs/ like "purse";[8] September 10, 1839 April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, born at 3 Phillips Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peirce was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. Today he is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism. In 1934, the philosopher Paul Weiss called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician".[9] An innovator in mathematics, statistics, philosophy, research methodology, and various sciences, Peirce considered himself, first and foremost, a logician. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits, the same idea as was used decades later to produce digital computers.[10] Works Peirce's reputation rests largely on a number of academic papers published in American scientific and scholarly journals such as Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The Monist, Popular Science Monthly, the American Journal of Mathematics, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, The Nation, and others. See Articles by Peirce, published in his lifetime for an extensive list with links to them online. The only full-length book (neither extract nor pamphlet) that Peirce authored and saw published in his lifetime[65] was Photometric Researches (1878), a 181-page monograph on the applications of spectrographic methods to astronomy. While at Johns Hopkins, he edited Studies in Logic (1883), containing chapters by himself and his graduate students. Besides lectures during his years (18791884) as Lecturer in Logic at Johns Hopkins, he gave at least nine series of lectures, many now published; see Lectures by Peirce. Harvard University bought from Peirce's widow soon after his death the papers found in his study, but did not microfilm them until 1964. Only after Richard Robin (1967)[66] catalogued this Nachlass did it become clear that Peirce had left approximately 1650 unpublished manuscripts, totaling over 100,000 pages.[67] Most of it remains unpublished, except on microfilm. For more on the vicissitudes of Peirce's papers, see Houser (1989).[68] The first published anthology of Peirce's articles was the one-volume Chance, Love and Logic: Philosophical Essays, edited by Morris Raphael Cohen, 1923, still in print. Other one-volume anthologies were published in 1940, 1957, 1958, 1972, 1994, and 2009, most still in print. The main posthumous editions[69] of Peirce's works in their long trek to light, often multi-volume, and some still in print, have included: 193158: Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (CP), 8 volumes, includes many published works, along with a selection of previously unpublished work and a smattering of his correspondence. This long-time standard edition drawn from Peirce's work from the 1860s to 1913 remains the most comprehensive survey of his prolific output from 1893 to 1913. It is organized thematically, but texts (including lecture series) are often split up across volumes, while texts from various stages in Peirce's development are often combined, requiring frequent visits to editors' notes.[70] Edited (16) by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss and (78) by Arthur Burks, in print from Harvard and online via InteLex. 197587: Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to The Nation, 4 volumes, includes Peirce's more than 300 reviews and articles published 18691908 in The Nation. Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner and James Edward Cook, out of print except online via InteLex. 1976: The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, 4 volumes in 5, included many previously unpublished Peirce manuscripts on mathematical subjects, along with Peirce's important published mathematical articles. Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1977: Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between C. S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby (2nd edition 2001), included Peirce's entire correspondence (19031912) with Victoria, Lady Welby. Peirce's other published correspondence is largely limited to the 14 letters included in volume 8 of the Collected Papers, and the 20-odd pre1890 items included so far in the Writings. Edited by Charles S. Hardwick with James Cook, out of print. 1981now: Writings of Charles S. Peirce, A Chronological Edition (W), Volumes 16 & 8, of a projected 30. The limited coverage, and defective editing and organization, of the Collected Papers led Max Fisch and others in the 1970s to found the Peirce Edition Project (PEP), whose mission is to prepare a more complete critical chronological edition. Only seven volumes have appeared to date, but they cover the period from 18591892, when Peirce carried out much of his best-known work. W 8 was published in November 2009; and work continues on W 7, 9, and 11. In print from Indiana U. and (16) online via InteLex.

1985: Historical Perspectives on Peirce's Logic of Science: A History of Science, 2 volumes. Auspitz has said,[71] "The extent of Peirce's immersion in the science of his day is evident in his reviews in the Nation [...] and in his papers, grant applications, and publishers' prospectuses in the history and practice of science", referring latterly to Historical Perspectives. Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1992: Reasoning and the Logic of Things collects in one place Peirce's 1898 series of lectures invited by William James. Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner, with commentary by Hilary Putnam, in print from Harvard. 199298: The Essential Peirce (EP), 2 volumes, is an important recent sampler of Peirce's philosophical writings. Edited (1) by Nathan Hauser and Christian Kloesel and (2) by PEP editors, in print from Indiana U. 1997: Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking collects Peirce's 1903 Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" in a study edition, including drafts, of Peirce's lecture manuscripts, which had been previously published in abridged form; the lectures now also appear in EP 2. Edited by Patricia Ann Turisi, in print from SUNY. 2010: Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings collects important writings by Peirce on the subject, many not previously in print. Edited by Matthew E. Moore, in print from Indiana U.

John Stuart Mill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.[2] He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method.[3] Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.

Works Theory of liberty Main article: On Liberty Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. One argument that Mill develops further than any previous philosopher is the harm principle. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself. He does argue, however, that individuals are prevented from doing lasting, serious harm to themselves or their property by the harm principle. Because no-one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself also harms others, and destroying property deprives the community as well as oneself.[14] Mill excuses those who are "incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society". Mill argues that despotism is an acceptable form of government for those societies that are "backward", as long as the despot has the best interests of the people at heart, because of the barriers to spontaneous progress.[15] Though this principle seems clear, there are a number of complications. For example, Mill explicitly states that "harms" may include acts of omission as well as acts of commission. Thus, failing to rescue a drowning child counts as a harmful act, as does failing to pay taxes, or failing to appear as a witness in court. All such harmful omissions may be regulated, according to Mill. By contrast, it does not count as harming someone if without force or fraud the affected individual consents to assume the risk: thus one may permissibly offer unsafe employment to others, provided there is no deception involved. (Mill does, however, recognise one limit to consent: society should not permit people to sell themselves into slavery). In these and other cases, it is important to keep in mind that the arguments in On Liberty are grounded on the principle of Utility, and not on appeals to natural rights.

The question of what counts as a self-regarding action and what actions, whether of omission or commission, constitute harmful actions subject to regulation, continues to exercise interpreters of Mill. It is important to emphasise that Mill did not consider giving offence to constitute "harm"; an action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals of a given society. On Liberty involves an impassioned defence of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one. Mill's view on social liberty and tyranny of majority Mill believed that the struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history. For him, liberty in antiquity was a contest... between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government." Mill defined "social liberty" as protection from "the tyranny of political rulers." He introduced a number of different tyrannies, including social tyranny, and also the tyranny of the majority. Social liberty for Mill meant putting limits on the rulers power so that he would not be able to use his power on his own wishes and make decisions which could harm society; in other words, people should have the right to have a say in the governments decisions. He said that social liberty was the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. It was attempted in two ways: first, by obtaining recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights; second, by establishment of a system of "constitutional checks". However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not enough. He stated, "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. View on liberty John Stuart Mills view on liberty, which was influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah Warren, is that the individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others. Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their good being and choose any religion they want to. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society. Mill explains, The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.[16]