(1) Symbolic Logic and its Applications (2) The Development of Symbolic Logic (3) An Introduction to Logic (4) Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic

Abstract

(1) WHETHER Mr. MacColl is the Athanasius of symbolic logic or only its Ishmael, the fact remains that he seems unable to come to an agreement with other exponents of the subject. But he contends that his system “in the elastic adaptability of its notation bears very much the same relation to other systems (including the ordinary formal logic of our text-books) as algebra bears to arithmetic.” The present work contains the results of a series of researches dating from the year 1872. Portions have appeared at intervals in various magazines, English and French. Points on which he lays considerable stress, and in which he does not command the uniform assent of the other symbolic logicians, are these:—(a) that he takes statements and not terms to be in all cases and necessarily the ultimate constituents of symbolic reasoning; (b) that he goes quite beyond the ordinary notation of the symbolists in classifying propositions according to such attributes as true, false, certain, impossible, variable; (c) that in regard to the existential import of propositions, while other symbolists define the null class o as containing no members, and understand it as contained every class, real or unreal, he, on the other hand, defines it as consisting of the null or unreal members o₁, o₂, o₃, &c., and considers it to be excluded from every real class. A chapter is devoted to the solution of Prof. Jevons's so-called inverse problem.

(1) Symbolic Logic and its Applications.

By Hugh MacColl. Pp. xi + 141. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906.) Price 4s. 6d. net.

(2) The Development of Symbolic Logic.

By A. T. Shearman. Pp. xi + 242. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1906.) Price 5s. net.

(3) An Introduction to Logic.

By H. W. B. Joseph. vii + 564. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) Price 9s. 6d. net.

(4) Thought and Things, or Genetic Logic.

By James Mark Baldwin. Vol. i. Functional Logic, or Genetic Theory of Knowledge. Pp. xiv + 273. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 10s. 6d. net.