George Boole Quotes on Knowledge
George Boole (1815–1864), the self-taught English mathematician whose Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847) and An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) founded the algebra of logic that bears his name, gave philosophical analysis its most decisive nineteenth-century instrument. The Laws of Thought presents deductive reasoning as the systematic manipulation, under well-defined operations, of symbols whose values can be set to 0 or 1 — the formal core of subsequent symbolic logic, of digital circuit design, and of computer science. Boole framed the project as itself a contribution to the philosophy of mind, treating logic as the science of the laws by which the human intellect proceeds.
Quotes
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Attributed to George Boole:
“The laws of thought are the laws of mathematics.”
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Attributed to George Boole:
“Logic is the science whose business it is to investigate the laws of valid reasoning.”
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Attributed to George Boole:
“Symbols obey laws of operation as numbers do.”
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Attributed to George Boole:
“The probability of a conclusion is determined by the probabilities of its premises.”
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“You will feel interested to know the fate of my mathematical speculations in Cambridge . One of the papers is already printed in the Mathematical Journal . Another, which I sent a short time ago, has been very favourably received, and will shortly be printed together with one I had previously sent.”
George Boole in letter to a friend, 1840, cited in: R. H. Hutton , " Professor Boole ," in: Henry Allon The British Quarterly Review. (1866), p. 147; Cited in Des MacHale. George Boole: his life and work, Boole Press, 1985. p. 52 -
“Boole to De Morgan , 19 June 1843; in: G.C. Smith. The Boole-DeMorgan Correspondence 1842-1864 , Oxford University Press 1982. p. 10”
Some months ago I took the liberty of troubling you for a reference to Laplace . In your reply for which it still remains to me to thank you, you were pleased to express an interest in the subject of investigation alluded to in my letter. I have now drawn up a paper embodying the principal results of the inquiry which I have had some thoughts of laying before the Royal Society. Before taking a ste -
“In presenting this Work to public notice, I deem it not irrelevant to observe, that speculations similar to those which it records have, at different periods, occupied my thoughts. In the spring of the present year my attention was directed to the question then moved between Sir W. Hamilton and Professor De Morgan ; and I was induced by the interest which it inspired, to resume the almost-forgotte”
p. i: Lead paragraph of the Preface; cited in: R. H. Hutton , " Professor Boole ," (1866), p. 157 -
“p. ii: Lead paragraph of the Introduction”
THEY who are acquainted with the present state of the theory of Symbolical Algebra, are aware, that the validity of the processes of analysis does not depend upon the interpretation of the symbols which are employed, but solely upon the laws of their combination. Every system of interpretation which does not affect the truth of the relations supposed, is equally admissible, and it is thus that the -
“1850s”
Letter to William Thomson (2 January 1851), indicating his early work on what has since become known as Boolean logic . -
“Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.”
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought(1854) | p. 244; Cited in: Michael J. Katz (1986) Templets and the Explanation of Complex Patterns, p. 123