Recent Developments in European Thought — John Shaqi
Recent Developments in European Thought
Philosophy
Recent Developments in European Thought
Civilization; Progress
To take first the point with which Mr. Russell has dealt. There is one
very important branch of inquiry, if we ought not rather to say that
there are two, which appear to belong wholly to general Philosophy and
not to any of the 'sciences'. We cannot so much as ask the simplest
question without making the implication that there is an ultimate
distinction between true assertions and false ones, and certain definite
principles by which we can infer true conclusions from true premisses.
It is thus a very important part of the true 'story of everything' to
state the principles upon which valid reasoning depends, and to
enunciate the ultimate postulates which have to be taken for granted
whenever we try to reason validly about anything. This is the inquiry
known by the name of logic. We cannot expect men whose time is fully
taken up with the task of reaching true conclusions about some special
class of facts, those which concern the history of living organisms, or
the production and distribution of 'wealth', or the stability of various
forms of government, to burden themselves with this inquiry in addition
to their other tasks. They may fairly be allowed to leave the
construction of logic to others. But the man who makes it the business
of his life to get back to ultimate first principles must plainly be a
logician, though he need not be a specialist in biology or economics or
'sociology'. One great advantage which our children should have over
their parents as students of Philosophy is that the last half-century
has been one of unprecedented advance in the study of logic. In the
'logic of relations', founded by De Morgan, carried out further in the
third volume of Ernst Schroeder's _Algebra der Logik_, and made still
more precise in the earliest sections of the _Principia Mathematica_ of
Whitehead and Russell, we now possess the most potent weapon of
intellectual analysis ever yet devised by man.
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