Definition:Symbolic Logic/Historical Note

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Historical Note on Symbolic Logic

The discipline of symbolic logic was invented, way before its time, by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, whose first forays failed to exert much infulence.

If controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two accountants. For it would suffice to take their pencils in their hands, to sit down to their slates, and to say to each other (with a friend as witness if they liked): Let us calculate.


While this idea made little headway at the time, it became the source of the symbolic logic developed by George Boole and then evolved by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.


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