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At 08:30 12/05/00 +0800,nicola wrote:
>Paul, what was it that you liked about Hegel's Philosophy of Nature, and
>why do you consider it superior to his Logic? And, who - what - is Boole
>(sounds like an anti-hive treatment)?
>Nicky
>
>
It is about 30 years since I read this stuff so that I am relating
what I can remember from then.
I think that what appealed about the philosophy of nature was that he
was commenting on what was recognisably sound material in astronomy
maths etc, though I cant recall that he added very much to it - analogous
to Engels Dialectics of Nature.
The logic had about as much logic to it as parsons sermon, an arbitrary
and unsupported association of ideas with no formal basis, or external
criterion of proof, no clearly stated axioms or rules of deduction.
Boole was a rough contemporary of Hegel's, the professor of Logic
at the University of Cork in Ireland. Though his position at the time
was less prestigious there is absolutely no doubt who made the
more lasting contribution to the development of Logic. Boole in his book
The Laws of Thought, suceeded with Leibnitz project of arithmetising
logic, establishing in the process both the methodology of subsequent
abstract algebra and of 20th century symbolic logic.
His formalisation became universally accepted as the best logical basis
for mechanised logic with the development of computers in the
20th century. A simplified form of his logic is taught in introductory
maths and computing courses across the world.
in
Paul Cockshott (clyder@gn.apc.org)
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