An Investigation of the Laws of Thought by George Boole

An Investigation of the Laws of Thought by George Boole

A classic of pure mathematics and symbolic logic . the publisher is to be thanked for making it available. -- Scientific American
George Boole was on of the greatest mathematicians of the 19th century, and one of the most influential thinkers of all time. Not only did he make important contributions to differential equations and calculus of finite differences, he also was the discoverer of invariants, and the founder of modern symbolic logic. According to Bertrand Russell, Pure mathematics was discovered by George Boole in his work published in 1854.
This work is the first extensive statement of the modern view that mathematics is a pure deductive science that can be applied to various situations. Boole first showed how classical logic could be treated with algebraic terminology and operations, and then proceeded to a general symbolic method of logical interference; he also attempted to devise a calculus of probabilities which could be applied to situations hitherto considered beyond investigation.
The enormous range of this work can be seen from chapter headings: Nature and Design of This Work; Signs and Their Laws; Derivation of Laws; Division of Propositions; Principles of Symbolical Reasoning; Interpretation; Elimination; Reduction; Methods of Abbreviation; Conditions of a Perfect Method; Secondary Propositions; Methods in Secondary Propositions; Clarke and Spinoza; Analysis, Aristotelian Logic; Theory of Probabilities; General Method in Probabilities; Elementary Illustrations; Statistical Conditions; Problems on Causes; Probability of Judgments; Constitution of the Intellect. This last chapter, Constitution of the Intellect, is a very significant analysis of the psychology of discovery and scientific method.

GEORGE BOOLE (1815 - 1864) was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. Besides rudimentary lessons from his father, a shoemaker, and a few years at local schools, Boole was largely self-taught. Revealing his aptitude for many subjects at an early age, he began his career already at age 16 as a teacher at a village school. In his leisure time he tackled the daunting works of Newton, Laplace, and Lagrange on physics and mathematics. By the age of twenty-four he was submitting original papers to the Cambridge Mathematical Journal and at age twenty-nine he won a medal from the Royal Society for his contributions to mathematical analysis. He continued to so impress his contemporaries that five years later he was appointed professor of mathematics at Queens College, Cork in Ireland, even though he had no university degree. Boole was awarded the Keith Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1855 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857. He received honorary degrees of LL.D. from the University of Dublin and the University of Oxford.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781603863155
ISBN 10	160386315X
Title	An Investigation of the Laws of Thought
Author	George Boole
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Watchmaker Publishing
Year published	2010-04-02
Number of pages	336
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.