The Monist (Volume 7) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1897. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE MONIST. THE LOGIC OF RELATIVES. 1. Three Grades of Clearness.--The third volume of Professor Schroder's Exact Logic, } which volume bears separately the title I have chosen for this paper, is exciting some interest even in this country. There are in America a few inquirers into logic, sincere and diligent, who are not of the genus that buries its head in the sand, --men who devote their thoughts to the study with a view to learning something that they do not yet know, and not for the sake of upholding orthodoxy, or any other foregone conclusion. For them this article is written as a kind of popular exposition of the work that is now being done in the field of logic. To them I desire to convey some idea of what the new logic is, how two "algebras," that is, systems of diagrammatical representation by means of letters and other characters, more or less analogous to those of the algebra of arithmetic, have been invented for the study of the logic of relatives, and how Schroder uses one of these (with some aid from the other and from other notations) to solve some interesting problems of reasoning. I also wish to illustrate one other of several important uses to which the new logic may be put. To this end I must first clearly show what a relation is. Now there are three grades of clearness in our apprehensions of the meanings of words. The first consists in the connexion of the word with familiar experience. In that sense, we all have a clear idea of what reality is and what force is, --even those who talk so glibly of mental force being correlated with the physical forces. The second grade consists in the abstract definition, depending upon an analysis of just what it is that makes the word applicable. An example of defective apprehension in this grade is P...