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This volume provides a unified account of the history of attempts to convert mathematical proof to a syllogistic form of reasoning, from Aristotle to major advances in logic in the nineteenth century. The analysis of the debate provides insights into the relationship between philosophy and mathematics.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: Aristotelian Syllogism and Mathematics in Antiquity and the Medieval Period
- 2: Extensions of the Syllogism in Medieval Logic
- 3: Syllogistic and Mathematics: The Case of Piccolomini
- 4: Obliquities and Mathematics in the 17th and 18th Centuries: From Jungius to Wolff
- 5: The Extent of Syllogistic Reasoning: From Rüdiger to Wolff
- 6: Lambert and Kant
- 7: Bernard Bolzano on Non-Syllogistic Reasoning
- 8: Thomas Reid, William Hamilton and Augustus De Morgan
- Conclusion
About the author
Paolo Mancosu is Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of numerous articles and books in logic and philosophy of mathematics, and three books on the publishing history of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the context of the cultural Cold War. He has held teaching positions at Stanford, Oxford, and Yale, and was visiting professor at the Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne as Chaire d'excellence internationale Blaise Pascal for 2021-2022.
Massimo Mugnai is Professor Emeritus at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa. His research focuses on the philosophy Leibniz and the history of logic. He has previously held positions at the University of Florence and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem.
Summary
This volume provides a unified account of the history of attempts to convert mathematical proof to a syllogistic form of reasoning, from Aristotle to major advances in logic in the nineteenth century. The analysis of the debate provides insights into the relationship between philosophy and mathematics.
Additional text
This book holds significant interest for specialists in formal logic, particularly those with a penchant for historical analysis, as well as for scholars in philosophy with a focus on the methodology of sciences, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics.
