5 Most Influential Logicians In the History of Humankind
The pioneers of modern logic
Aristotle
He is arguably the greatest logician and the most influential thinker of all time. He is considered the father of modern logic, and the founder of ethical reasoning. His logical deductions have been applicable throughout the generations and are still relevant to this day.
He was born in Stagira, northern Greece, around 384 BC. He lost his parents at a young age and was brought up by his older sister and her husband. Though the record of his early education seems convoluted, it is believed that he studied medicine, following in his father's footsteps. When he was 17, he moved to Athens to pursue higher education. Athens was the modern equivalent of the gamut of the best universities in the world. It was the best place to broaden your horizons in critical thinking. Aristotle enrolled in the institution founded by Plato. He was brilliant and remained in the academy for 20 years, although he was never considered Plato’s successor because of the differences in their fundamental philosophical ideologies.
Aristotle was the one who invented the logic of categorical syllogism (a deductive argument where the conclusions are made based on two premises). He was the first logician to deduce conclusions based on the premise at hand systematically. Eg. Sam is a man, all men are mortal. Based on these two premises, it could be concluded that Sam is mortal. He also had a great influence on the history of psychology. He was the first to write a book that dealt with the specifics of psychology and the soul. In this book, he basically talks about the idea of abstraction that rules over the mind and body of a human being. He also worked on ethics and how physical temptation takes control of your mind.
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel, a very good friend of Einstein, is one of the most brilliant logicians of all time. His most notable work would undoubtedly be ‘Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.’ He is known for connecting classical logic, Intuitionistic logic, and Modal logic. He was one of the closest friends to Einstein and used to walk every day with him at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton.
I have already written a piece about Gödel, his contributions, and his tragic end. You can read it here:
His incompleteness theorem to this day remains one of the quintessential influences in the field of mathematics. Let us consider the statement,
“This sentence is false.”
If it’s true, that makes the sentence false, and if it’s false, then the sentence is true. This might sound like a silly thought experiment, but this was the question that led Gödel to discover his theorems. His theory had to do with the constraints under which mathematical proofs are bounded. Every proof in mathematics, from complex to simpler ones, is constituted of axioms, and the proof of a statement is done in mathematics with their help. Prominent mathematicians were eager to demonstrate that mathematics is absolute and there are no contradictions in this field. But then came Gödel who completely revolutionized our thinking on how mathematics works.
Alfred Tarski
He is one of the greatest Polish mathematicians and logicians. He was born in 1901 in Warsaw, Poland. In his early life, he got his education from the University of Warsaw, and after he completed his studies, he devoted some of his years to be a teacher at the same university. When he moved to the United States, he was first involved academically with the University of California. During his time as a professor, he was responsible for percolating a positive influence on many students to choose mathematics as their primary area of study, as many were nervous and afraid to do so.
He is one of the quintessential influencers on theories of truth. To grasp his contribution, one must first have an idea of his core philosophy under the theory of truth, which is called “Convention T.” There are several questions that we could ask regarding the truth. And we could analyze whether the statement is true based on the correspondence we draw. At least this was the route we took before. Tarski, on the other hand, had a different analysis in mind regarding the truth. Instead of just limiting oneself to wandering about the characteristics of a certain statement to analyze whether it’s true, he imposes a question, going one step further in his analysis. He asks, “What makes a certain truth projection of the adequate persona of the truth?”
Bertrand Russell
His characteristics are not just limited to those of a logician but also those of a mathematician, a philosopher, and a political activist. He was born in 1872 in Wales. His family strongly detested conservatism and was open-minded and liberal. His father was a politician and a writer. His mother was one of the early advocates for pushing birth control in the United Kingdom. By 17, he had ingrained this basic idea that there is no life after death. By the time he was 18, he had fully become an atheist, discarding God from his life. The only thing that seemed to guide his moral compass then was logic.
He works in analytics. Philosophy is popularized in western culture, specifically in the Anglosphere. He was also the co-author of Principia Mathematica. He was the one who systematically wrote down the history of western philosophy from the times of the pre-Socrates era. His political stance was as strong as his ideologies, and he had strong opinions regarding war and freedom of expression, which could be roughly correlated to freedom of speech in the United States. His philosophical principles and logical deductions are still relevant to this day.
Gottlob Frege
He could undoubtedly be regarded as the inventor of modern logic and the founder of analytic philosophy. He was born in 1848 in Wismar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His father was the headmaster at the local girls’ school. During his time at the university, he studied a wide range of disciplines, such as chemistry, mathematics, and philosophy. He devoted his life to teaching. A good mathematician couldn’t be separated from a good logician, and he said it best:
“Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.”
To tell the truth, he was a speck of dust in the wind during his time. During his lifetime, no one really took a keen interest in his works, and he didn’t gain that much popularity. His works slowly gained recognition and left an everlasting impact on critical thinkers. He was the writer of one of the three most crucial logical texts of all time. He is also credited as the inventor of prepositional calculus (quantification logic). Before this, Aristotle’s categorical logic was popular among the community of critical thinkers. He is also the pioneer of the term “linguistic turn,” which is often used by philosophers in terms of the language that they use and to examine it. He was also a strong advocate of logicism, which proclaims that math can be reduced to logical statements.
Contributed by Rishab Karki and curated by the author.
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