A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume IDe Morgan, Augustus
Philosophy
A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I
De Morgan, Augustus
Circle-squaring; Perpetual motion; Science -- Miscellanea; Trisection of angle
_Undecided._--In this system one premise, and want of power over another,
infer want of power over a conclusion. {335} As "Some men are not capable
of tracing consequences; we cannot be sure that there are beings
responsible for consequences who are incapable of tracing consequences;
therefore, we cannot be sure that all men are responsible for the
consequences of their actions."
_Exemplar._--This, long after it suggested itself to me as a means of
correcting a defect in Hamilton's system, I saw to be the very system of
Aristotle himself, though his followers have drifted into another. It makes
its subject and predicate examples, thus: Any one man is an animal; any one
animal is a mortal; therefore, any one man is a mortal.
_Numerical._--Suppose 100 Ys to exist: then if 70 Xs be Ys, and 40 Zs be
Ys, it follows that 10 Xs (at least) are Zs. Hamilton, whose mind could not
generalize on symbols, saw that the word _most_ would come under this
system, and admitted, as valid, such a syllogism as "most Ys are Xs; most
Ys are Zs; therefore, some Xs are Zs."
_Onymatic._--This is the ordinary system much enlarged in propositional
forms. It is fully discussed in my _Syllabus of Logic_.
_Transposed._--In this syllogism the quantity in one premise is transposed
into the other. As, some Xs are not Ys; for every X there is a Y which is
Z; therefore, some Zs are not Xs.
Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh was one of the best friends and allies I
ever had. When I first began to publish speculation on this subject, he
introduced me to the logical world as having plagiarized from him. This
drew their attention: a mathematician might have written about logic under
forms which had something of mathematical look long enough before the
Aristotelians would have troubled themselves with him: as was done by John
Bernoulli,[711] {336} James Bernoulli,[712] Lambert,[713] and
Gergonne;[714] who, when our discussion began, were not known even to
omnilegent Hamilton. He retracted his accusation of _wilful_ theft in a
manly way when he found it untenable; but on this point he wavered a
little, and was convinced to the last that I had taken his principle
unconsciously. He thought I had done the same with Ploucquet[715] and
Lambert. It was his pet notion that I did not understand the commonest
principles of logic, that I did not always know the difference between the
middle term of a syllogism and its conclusion. It went against his grain to
imagine that a mathematician could be a logician. So long as he took me to
be riding my own hobby, he laughed consumedly: but when he thought he could
make out that I was mounted behind Ploucquet or Lambert, the current ran
thus: "It would indeed have been little short of a miracle had he, ignorant
even of the common principles of logic, been able of himself to rise to
generalization so lofty and so accurate as are supposed in the peculiar
doctrines of both the rival logicians, Lambert and Ploucquet--how useless
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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