19th Century British Philosophy S.

1 total work

The Laws of Discursive Thought, Being a Textbook of Formal Logic

by James McCosh

Published 1 February 1992

Traditional formal logic, based on the Aristotelian syllogism, had come under attack in the 19th century from a number of different directions. On the one hand there was the Kantian school, led in Britain by Sir William Hamilton, which saw logic as part of an idealist metaphysics; on the other hand there was the school of Mill, which sought to dethrone the syllogism in favour of the new logic of induction. In opposition to both these schools of thought, McCosh insists on the lasting value and importance of the old logic of Aristotle and the medieval schoolmen. Much of McCosh's work has no real claim to originality, being merely a lucid exposition of an old subject. Where he is original is in his discussion of the notion. Our errors arise, he claims, more often from obscure and confused notions than from fallacious inferences - hence the importance of getting our concepts clear before attempting to employ them in reasoning. Notions, McCosh insists, are independent of and prior to their linguistic expression; language is a useful tool for the communication of thought but not its essential medium.