PhilosophersGeorge Boole
George Boole
He treats logic as an algebra: reasoning becomes calculating with symbols.
Analytic philosophy1815 · 1864 United KingdomLincoln
Life
British mathematician and logician, self-taught, later a professor at Queen's College, Cork. He showed that reasoning can be written as an algebra, founding the symbolic logic now used in circuits and computers (Boolean algebra). He saw these as the very laws of thought.
Main works
1854
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought
Expresses the laws of reasoning in an algebraic calculus.
1847
The Mathematical Analysis of Logic
The first version of his algebra of logic.
1859
A Treatise on Differential Equations
A standard textbook on differential equations.
In his own words
« The design of the following treatise is to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed; to give expression to them in the symbolical language of a Calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceDoes God exist?God
AtheismTheism
Stated
He favoured belief in a supreme intelligent cause and a moral governor of the world, while doubting that natural religion can prove it with certainty.
Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, ch. XIII (1854)