Between Calculus and Semantic Analysis. Symbolic Knowledge in the Origins of Mathematical Logic

JAVIER LEGRIS

Symbolic Knowledge from Leibniz to Husserl

COLLEGE PUBLICATIONS

Lugar: LONDRES; Año: 2012; p. 79 - 113

The aim of this paper is to apply the notion of symbolic knowledge, conceived by G. W. Leibniz, to the understanding of some problems in the origins of mathematical logic in the 19th Century. I will try to show that this notion knowledge was implicitly in the philosophical assumptions of the founders of mathematical logic. More specifically, the paper will be will focused on the work of three big pioneers of mathematical logic: George Boole, Ernst Schröder and Gottlob Frege. The case of Frege is particularly interesting. Frege´s position seems to contradict some of the ideas underlying what I shall call the “tradition of symbolic knowledge”: His ideas on concept formation based on the analysis of judgeable contents are clearly distinguished from the methodology of symbolic knowledge.