I recently had the
distinct displeasure of reading a rant of a would-be philosopher who
disparaged a logician, because modern logical texts are like circuit
diagrams – useful perhaps, but meant only for people with no
literary taste and ultimately unphilosophical. Personally, I find
logical texts of all sorts – whether they be ancient, modern,
formal, informal, transcendental or even Hegelian – to be
aesthetically pleasing in a way that a beautiful calculation or a
brilliant game of chess is also: as delightful in their very
existence as brightest of poems, no matter how useful they otherwise might be. And if someone complains about non-existent
philosophical import of logic, I am always reminded of Hegel's clever
quip about enthusiastic youth who are enamored by Plato's more vivid
and lively dialogues and who later become very disappointed when they
hit the abstract heights of Plato's Parmenides
and its study of dry concepts like one and many. Thus, I am not
afraid of the supposed dryness of next book in line, Wolff's
Philosophia rationalis sive logica.
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| Is this all there is to logic? |
As someone might remember, Wolff had already published a book on logic, the first in his famous
series of reasonable thoughts. The current book, on the other hand,
begins Wolff's philosophy anew, except this time in Latin. While the
German series was meant mostly for domestic markets and especially
his students, the publication of Latin versions of different parts of
his philosophy served the purpose of making Wolff's work more known
throughout Europe. Because of their more scholarly ambitions, Wolff's
Latin books contain also more material than their German equivalents.
Thus, while I first thought that Wolff's Latin logic would contain
only about 300 pages and not be much longer than its German
counterpart, I noticed quickly I had actually picked up a separately
published compendium for Latin logic, containing just the table of
contents for the actual book, which happened to be over 800 pages
long.
Just like its German
counterpart, Wolff's Latin logic contains much that would not be
dealt in a logic course these days: it is more of a book of
methodology. Thus, it is also meant to be the first book of Wolff's Latin
philosophical works in the sense that reader should first grasp how
philosophy works before actually reading some philosophy: the true
first philosophy is then ontology, because all the other parts of the
philosophy depend on it.
As starting points of
series, both books begin with an account of what philosophy is all
about. But the inflatedness of the Latin logic shows itself in the
very start, with Wolff's novel discussion of three forms of cognition
– well, it is actually novel only from the perspective of Wolff,
because it is quite reminiscent of Bilfinger's disputation with this
very topic. What is important in this beginning, is Wolff's clear
commitment on empiricism: all cognition begins with a historical
phase, where one can just learn facts through observation. The
cognition could then develop into mathematical cognition, by
quantifying the results of observation, or it could turn
philosophical by attempting to find explanations for the facts (note
that nothing speaks against cognition that is both philosophical and
mathematical, especially if the quantification helps us to discern
causal relations).
If philosophical cognition
means finding explanations for observed facts, philosopher is then a
person who can give such explanations – that is, an expert on some
topic. Philosophy, on the other hand, is for Wolff not just any
expertise. Just like in his German logic, Wolff defines philosophy as
a science of what is possible. I already noted that this definition
means actually just what science does: capacity to demonstrate
assertions from indubitable premisses.
Whereas German logic left
a rather rationalistic impression, in Latin logic Wolff admits that
experiences and experiments can well give science its required
premises, provided that they just are reliable. Indeed, although
Wolff does equate philosophical and mathematical method, he does
accept also the construction of hypotheses or reasonable, but
unproved assumptions as an incentive to scientific development. Thus,
completely axiomatic-deductive system is admitted to be a mere ideal
that we can perhaps approach, but never completely satisfy. The ideal
also instigates philosophers to remain moderately skeptical in
dilemmas where none of the options can be proven indubitably.
Wolff also notes that
philosophy might be cognized only historically, that is, we could
just e.g. read Wolffian system and learn all its propositions. Such a
historical knowledge of philosophy might be useful, but true
philosophical cognition of philosophy is achieved only when we try to
understand what philosophers say, for instance, by repeating the
experiments described in a text book.
Just like in German logic,
in Latin logic Wolff also presents a general division of philosophy.
What is remarkable is that the new division is more detailed,
especially as it comes to more empirical parts of Wolffian system.
This no doubt reflects the fact that Wolff has now actually worked
out his system in more detail and has especially realized how
important empirical observations are to the development of science.
In addition, Wolff also helpfully indicates how each part of his
system depends on some parts and serves as a foundation for others.
I’ll be continuing for a while with my account of Latin logic, and next time I shall take a look at
the difference between natural and artificial logic.
