History of Logic by Anton Dumitriu

The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jun., 1980), pp. 370-371
Published by: Association for Symbolic Logic
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370

REVIEWS

rather a viewing of clippings from the original reels. The result is, as one would expect, that he
has produced a report rather than a history; it is often full of welcome and little-known details of
history of logic, but interpretation is bland or even non-existent. The cast of the net has also been
rather too wide. For example, the chapters on the application of logic to twentieth-century problems embrace quantum mechanics, relativity, dialectics, linguistic philosophy, induction, and the
logic of scientific discovery; fifty sections have only pages 62-132 of Volume III to make their
points, so that each section is too brief to state satisfactorily either the logic involved or the application being made. The same criticism applies to Dumitriu's rapid presentation of the postRomantic logicians (Vol. III, pp. 235-259) and their psychologistic contemporaries (Vol. III, pp.
311-352).
Dumitriu's historiography is put to a severe test in the last volume, for the history of mathematical logic has been fraught with controversies over the nature of logic and its relationship with
set theory and mathematics in general, and handicapped by the slow recognition of metalogic as
separate from logic. How would a film director cope with this? The chapter on algebraic logic
(pp. 39-50) is exceedingly disappointing; the usual things (but nothing else) are said about Boole,
Peirce receives just over a page, Schroder thirteen lines. Among the later developments, those on
many-valued logics (including modal logics, pp. 145-181) and formalism and proof theory (pp.
182-223) include some longer takes, though the text usually reads like a script (A did this, B did
that, and so on). And regrettably, some developments that have aroused great interest are either
ignored or given only the briefest exposure: for example, the substitutional interpretation of
quantification (indeed, little is said about quantification anywhere), free logic, natural deduction
(five lines on p. 143, with Popper's contributions overlooked), and Quine's logical systems (eight
lines on p. 141). No points of substance are made anywhere about Cantor or Lesniewski, despite
the variety of their influences on logic; the absence of Lesniewski from the chapter on the paradoxes
and their solutions (pp. 113-117) is particularly painful.
In the more substantial chapters, only the familiar scenes are shown. The Frege chapter (pp.
51-63) is devoted largely to the elementary parts of his symbolism; there is not even an indication
of how his logicist thesis is articulated. The Peano chapter (pp. 64-86) similarly runs over the
logical, set-theoretical, and arithmetical notions, though there is also a useful passage on Peano's
attention to definitions (pp. 77-80). The chapter on Principia mathematics
(pp. 87-112) involves a
basic mistake for any history of logic: The prehistory of the work in Russell and Whitehead's
earlier writings is overlooked, with the result that the motivations to its principal ideas are lacking.
Judgements, when made at all, are tendentious. For example, on pages 88-89 the need to axiomatise logic is ascribed to Hilbert's influence, whereas Russell was so removed from Hilbert's views
that he did not even assess the consistency and independence of his axiom system. Again, the
critical comments on Russell's admittedly curious remarks on definitions (p. 111) overlook the
important use made in Principia mathematics of contextual definition.
The above assessment is presented with a keen sense of my own ingratitude. I have done enough
historical study to know how much hard work it involves, and the labour required here from
author, translators, and publisher to put nearly thirteen hundred pages on the market must have
been immense. Yet the result is disappointing, chiefly because of Dumitriu's conception of his
task, with his "open book" view that the texts alone, or condensed versions of them, will constitute
a history of logic. He quotes with approval Aristotle's comment that "he who does not philosophize, philosophizes" (Vol. I, p. x), but he himself exemplifies the rider that such inexplicit philosophy can be the least valuable of all.
If I were to compare this history with its predecessors, then I would describe it as "Bocheiiski
writ large." Those familiar with Bochefiski's History of formal logic (cf. XXV 57) will recall the
cinematographic style used there-brief extracts strung together, newsreel-style, as sequences of
short takes. Dumitriu summarises more than he quotes, but the effect is the same. Bochefiski's
readers are also grateful for his extensive bibliographies and indexes, and by and large they are
well served by Dumitriu also. Neither author, however, allows himself to go beyond these limitswhich is a pity, for beyond film-watching is creative film-writing, where history becomes interesting
and important.
I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS
ANTON

DUMITRIU.

Istoria logical. Editura Didacticg ?i Pedagogici, Bucharest 1969, 1049

pp.

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REVIEWS

371

ANTON DUMITRIU. Istoria logicii. Second, revised and enlarged, edition of the preceding and
Roumanian original of History of logic. Editura Didacticd ?i Pedagogicd, Bucharest 1975, 1212
PP.

Librairie
ROBERT BLANCHE. La Logique et son histoire: d'Aristote a' Russell. Collection U.
Armand Colin, Paris 1970, 366 p.
Il n'existait jusqu'ici aucune histoire de la logique un peu developpee due a un auteur de langue
franqaise. L'ouvrage de Robert Blanche comble cette lacune pour une periode qui va de la logique
grecque a la naissance de la logique contemporaine. L'ouvrage clairement redige, ecrit dans une
bonne langue, se lit avec plaisir.
Mais il faut bien constater que, en depit du sous-titre, I'auteur a consacre proportionnellement
beaucoup plus de place a la logique classique et aux premieres tentatives de mathematisation de la
logique qu'aux oeuvres de pionniers comme Frege et Russell. Pour tout ce qui concerne la logique
classique l'information est abondante et a jour si l'on tient compte de la date de parution de
l'ouvrage et de son dMlaid'elaboration. L'expose ne neglige ni les commentaires traditionnels ni
les recherches entreprises a la lumiere de la logique mathematique contemporaine. L'auteur s'efforce
de degager une vue synthetique faisant place sans parti pris aux differents apports et il y parvient
souvent avec bonheur. Les chapitres consacres a Aristote, aux megariques, aux stoiciens illustrent
bien sa maniere. De meme la logique medievale, les apports de la Renaissance et Leibniz sont
traits egalement d'agreable faqon.
La situation change quand on aborde la logique posterieure a 1850. La quality de la presentation
demeure. Mais, surtout en ce qui concerne les tres grands noms, l'information semble moins solide.
On peut comprendre qu'a propos de Boole l'auteur n'ait pas voulu entrer dans des details techniques. Il est regrettable que l'amateur de details soit renvoye en tout et pour tout a l'ouvrage de
Liard (1878), Les logiciens anglais contemporains (413), et au Treatise de Jorgensen (4241). De
meme, en ce qui concerne Frege et Russell, l'expose est a la fois acceptable en ce sens, qu'il ne
contient pas d'affirmation erronee, et insuffisant en ce qu'il manque de relief et ignore tout ce que,
depuis bien des annees, les recherches sur Frege et Russell ont apporte.
Des references bien choisies auraient pu aider le lecteur; en fait, au fur et a mesure que l'on
avance vers la fin de l'ouvrage, elles sont de moins en moins nombreuses et de plus en plus arbitrairement choisies.
Malgre ce desequilibre, ce livre rendra de grands services aux etudiants depourvus de culture
mathematique, interesses surtout par la logique ancienne et classique. Pour ce qui concerne les
cent dernieres annees, ils trouveront une esquisse qui ne saurait les dispenser de recourir a des
ROGER MARTIN
etudes plus etoffees.
ALEX ORENSTEIN. Willard Van Orman Quine. Twayne's world leaders series, no. 65.
Twayne Publishers, Boston 1977, 180 pp.
Rather bravely, Orenstein sets out to furnish the uninitiated reader with an integrated view
of Quine's philosophical thought in less than sixty thousand words. The treatment is sympathetic,
the book mainly uncritical. "To a certain extent, the present work is ordered to reflect Quine's
intellectual development." The principal topics are ontological commitment, meaning and reference, logical truth, analyticity, holism, indeterminacy of translation, and behaviorism; there is
little on technical logic.
Presuppositions are meagre; even truth-functions and quantifiers are presented as if they might
be new to the reader. To place Quine's philosophy in perspective, Orenstein supplies the needed
sketches of doctrine from Frege, Russell, Carnap, Tarski, and others. He quotes very liberally
from Quine's own writings. Indeed the reviewer finds that the most successful portions of the book
are those that are thickest with quotation. For it is difficult to improve on Quine through paraphrase, given the lucidity and elegance of his prose.
Orenstein is a responsible expositor of Quine's philosophy. Some of his summaries are sharp
and crisp (as of Duhemian holism and of Quine's clash with Chomsky's innateness hypothesis),
others somewhat cloudy (on observation sentences and on views of '2 plus 2 equals 4'). He is skilled
at keeping his account simple without great sacrifice of accuracy. The book is thoughtfully organized, though there is occasional flitting from topic to topic. As is inevitable in so short a treatment
of so broad a subject, there is some lack of depth. On balance, Orenstein may be seen as moderately

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