A.E. Van Vogt. The World of Null-A. 1945. The novel was inspired
by a work of Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity. An
Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
(1933).
Walter J. Ong seems convinced that "...formal logic is the
invention of Greek culture after it had interiorized the
technology of alphabetic writing, and so made a permanent part of
its noetic resources the kind of thinking that alphabetic
writing made possible" (Op. cit., p. 52). He reports on A.R.
Luria's book, Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social
Foundations (1976). After experiments designed to define how
illiterate subjects react to formal logical procedures (in
particular, deductive reasoning), Luria seems to conclude that
no one actually operates in formally stated syllogisms.
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés
inférieures. Paris: Alcan, 1910. (Translated as How Natives
Think by Lilian A. Clave, London: Allen & Unwin, 1926.)
Lévy-Bruhl reconnects to the notion of participation that
originates in Plato's philosophy and applies it to fit the
so-called pre-logic mentality.
Anton Dumitru. History of Logic. 4 vols. Turnbridge Wells, Kent:
Abacus Press, 1977.
In exemplifying the law of participation, Dumitru gives the
following example: "In Central Brazil there lives an Indian
tribe called Bororó. In the same region we also find a species of
parrots called Arara. The explorers were surprised to find that
the Indians claimed to be Arara themselves. [...] Put
differently, a member of the Bororó tribe claims to be what he
actually is and also something else just as real, namely an
Arara parrot" (vol. 1, pp. 5-6).
René Descartes (1596-1650), under his Latinized name Renatus
Cartesius, sees logic as "teaching us to conduct well our reason
in order to discover the truths we ignore" ("qui apprend à bien
conduire sa raison pour découvrir les vérités qu'on ignore").
For Descartes, mathematics is the general method of science.
Oeuvres de Descartes. Publiées par Charles Adam and Paul Tannery,
Eds. 11 vols. Nouvelle présentation en co-édition avec le Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique. Paris: Vrin. 1965-1973
(reprint of the 1897-1909 edition). In English, the rendition by
Elizabeth S. Haldane and George R.T. Ross was published in
London, Cambridge University Press, 1967.
"Logic is the art of directing reason aright, in obtaining the
knowledge of things, for the instruction both of ourselves and
of others. It consists of the reflections which have been made on
the four principal operations of the mind: conceiving, judging,
reasoning, and disposing" (Port Royal Logic, Introduction).
John Locke (1632-1704) was looking for simple logical elements
and rules to compound them. Certainty is not the result of
syllogistic inference. "Syllogism is at best nothing but the art
of bringing to light, in debate, the little knowledge we have,
without adding any other to it." An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (London, 1690) sets an empirical, psychologically
based perspective of logic.
George Boole (1815-1864) conceived of a logical calculus, in An
Investigation of the Laws of Thought on which are founded the
Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities (London,1854),
which eventually became the basis for digital computation.
Fung-Yu-lan. Précis d'histoire de la philosophie chinoise. Paris:
Plon, 1952.
"It is very difficult for somebody to understand fully Chinese
philosophical works, if he is not able to read the original
text. The language is indeed a barrier. Due to the suggestive
character of Chinese philosophical writings, this barrier gets
more daunting, these writings being almost untranslatable. In
translation, they lose their power of suggestion. In fact, a
translation is nothing but an interpretation" (p. 35).
Chang-tzu. cf. Anton Dumitru, Op.cit., p. 13.
Kung-Fu-tzu (551-479, BCE), whose Latinized name is Confucius,
expressed the logical requirement to "rectify the names." This
translates as the need to put things in agreement with one
another by correct designations. "The main thing is the
rectification of names (cheng ming) [...] If the names are not
rectified, the words cannot fit; if the words do not fit, the
affairs [in the world] will not be successful. If these affairs
are not successful, neither rites nor music can flourish. If
rites and music do not flourish, punishments cannot be just. If
they are not just, people do not know how to act." The conclusion
is, "The wise man should never show levity in using words;"
(Lun-yu, cf. Wing-Tsit-chan, A Source Book in Chinese
Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).
Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Logic in his view is thinking about
thinking. The whole logical theory of the syllogism is
presented in the Analytica Priora. The Analytica Posteriora gives
the structure of deductive sciences. The notion of political
animal is part of the Aristotelian political system (cf.
Politics).
Takeo Doi. Amae no kozo. Tokyo: Kobundo. 1971. (Translated as The
Anatomy of Dependence by John Bester, Tokyo/New York: Kodansho
International and Harper & Row,1973.)
Vedic texts, the collective name for Veda, defined as the science
(the root of the word seems to be similar to the Greek for idea,
or the Latin videre, to see) of direct intuition, convey the
experience of the Rsis, ancient sages who had a direct
perception of things. The writings that make up Veda are: Rig
Veda, invocatory science; Yajur Veda, sacrificial; Sama Veda,
melody; Atharva Veda, of incantation. In each Veda, there is a
section on the origin of the ritual, on the meaning, and on the
esoteric aspect.
Mircea Eliade. Yoga. Paris: Gallimard, 1960.
"India has endeavoured...to analyze the various conditioning
factors of the human being. ...this was done not in order to
reach a precise and coherent explanation of the human being, as
did, for instance, Europe of the 19th century,... but in order
to know how far the zones of the human being go and see whether
there is anything else beyond these conditionings" (p. 10).
The logic of action, as part of logical theory, deals with
various aspects of defining what leads to reaching a goal and
what are the factors involved in defining the goal and testing
the result.
Raymond Bondon, in Logique du social (translated by David and
Gillian Silverman as The Logic of Social Action: An
Introduction to Sociological Analysis, London/Boston: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1981), gives the subject a sociological perspective.
Cornel Popa, in Praxiologie si Logica (Praxiology and Logic,
Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1984) deals with social action.
Authors such as D. Lewis, A. Salomaa, B.F. Chelas, R.C. Jeffrey,
and Jaako Hintikka, whose contributions were reunited in a volume
celebrating Stig Kanger, pay attention to semantic aspects and
conditional values in many-valued propositional logics (cf.
Logical Theory and Semantic Analysis, edited by Soren Stenlund,
Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel, 1974).
The term culture originates in human practical experiences
related to nature: cultivating land, breeding and rearing
animals. By extension, culture (i.e., cultivating and breeding
the mind) leads to the noun describing a way of life. In the
late 18th century, Herder used the plural cultures to distinguish
what was to become civilization. In 1883, Dilthey made the
distinction between cultural sciences (Geisteswissenschaften,
addressing the mind) and natural sciences. The objects of
cultural sciences are man-made and the goal is understanding
(Verstehen). For more information on the emergence and use of
the term culture, see A.L. Kroeber and C. Kluckholm, Culture: a
Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, in Peabody Museum
Papers, XLVII, Harvard University Press, 1952.
Ramon Lull (Raymundus Lullus, 1235-1315) suggested a mechanical
system of combining ideas, an alphabet (or repertory) and a
calculus for generating all possible judgments. Called Ars Magna
(The Great Art), his work attracted both ironic remarks and
enthusiastic followers.
Athanasius Kircher, in Polygraphia nova et universalis ex
combinatoria arte detecta (New and universal polygraphy
discovered from the arts of combination, Rome, 1663), tried to
introduce an arithmetic of logic.
George Delgarus, in Ars signorum (The art of signs, London,
1661), suggested a universal language of signs.
John Wilkins dealt with it as a secret language (1641, Mercury,
or the Secret and Swift Messenger, and 1668, An Essay Towards a
Real Character and a Philosophical Language).
Lotfi Zadeh introduced fuzzy logic: a logic of vague though
quantified relations among entities and of non- clear-cut
definitions (What is young? tall? bold? good?).
Felix Hausdorf/Paul Mongré. Sant 'Ilario. Gedanken aus der
Landschaft Zarathustras. 1897. p. 7
W.B. Gallie (Peirce's Pragmatism, in Peirce and Pragmatism,
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1952) noticed that Peirce, "in the
Pragmaticism Papers, approaches the subject of vagueness from a
number of different sides. He claims, for instance, that all our
most deeply grounded and in practice indubitable beliefs are
essentially vague" (cf. Peirce, 5.446). According to Peirce,
vagueness is a question of representation, not a peculiarity of
the object of the representation. He goes on to specify that the
source of vagueness is the relation between the sign and the
interpretant ("Indefiniteness in depth may be termed
vagueness," cf. MSS 283, 141, 138-9). Additional commentary in
Nadin, The Logic of Vagueness and the Category of Synechism, in
The Monist, Special Issue: The Relevance of Charles Peirce, 63:3,
July, 1980, pp. 351-363.
Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1976.
-. The Extended Phenotype. New York: Oxford University Press,
1982.
Elan Moritz, of the Institute for Memetic Research, provides the
historic and methodological background to the subject in
Introduction to Memetic Science.
E.O. Wilson. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge:
Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1975.
Mihai Nadin. Mind-Anticipation and Chaos (from the series
Milestones in Thought and Discovery). Stuttgart/Zurich: Belser
Presse. 1991.
"Minds exist only in relation to other minds" p. 4. The book was
based on a lecture delivered in January,1989 at Ohio State
University.