Formal Logic
Or, The Calculus of Inference, Necessary and Probable

Helping to overturn long-standing assumptions, this important 1847 work treats logic as a branch of mathematics, more specifically as algebra.

Augustus De Morgan (Author)

9781108070782, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 August 2014

358 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.46 kg

From the end of antiquity to the middle of the nineteenth century it was generally believed that Aristotle had said all that there was to say concerning the rules of logic and inference. One of the ablest British mathematicians of his age, Augustus De Morgan (1806–71) played an important role in overturning that assumption with the publication of this book in 1847. He attempts to do several things with what we now see as varying degrees of success. The first is to treat logic as a branch of mathematics, more specifically as algebra. Here his contributions include his laws of complementation and the notion of a universe set. De Morgan also tries to tie together formal and probabilistic inference. Although he is never less than acute, the major advances in probability and statistics at the beginning of the twentieth century make this part of the book rather less prophetic.

Preface
1. First notions
2. On objects, ideas, and names
3. On the abstract form of the proposition
4. On propositions
5. On the syllogism
6. On the syllogism (cont.)
7. On the Aristotelian syllogism
8. On the numerically definite syllogism
9. On probability
10. On probable inference
11. On induction
12. On old logical terms
13. On fallacies
14. On the verbal description of the syllogism
Appendices.

Subject Areas: History of mathematics [PBX]