View source for Philosophy:A System of Logic

{{Short description|1843 book by John Stuart Mill}}
{{Infobox book
| name = A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
| image = A system of logic.jpg
| caption = 
| author = [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|John Stuart Mill]]
| country = United Kingdom
| publisher = 
| language = English
| release_date = 1843
| media_type = Print
| pages = 
| image_size = 150 px
}}
'''''A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive''''' is an 1843 book by English [[Biography:Philosopher|philosopher]] [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|John Stuart Mill]].

==Overview==
In this work, he formulated the five principles of [[Philosophy:Inductive reasoning|inductive reasoning]] that are known as [[Philosophy:Mill's Methods|Mill's Methods]]. This work is important in the philosophy of science, and more generally, insofar as it outlines the empirical principles Mill would use to justify his moral and political philosophies.

An article in "Philosophy of Recent Times" has described this book as an "attempt to expound a psychological system of logic within empiricist principles.”

This work was important to the history of science, being a strong influence on scientists such as [[Biography:Paul Dirac|Dirac]].<ref name=FarmeloDirac>{{cite book| last=Farmelo | first=Graham |  title=The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius | isbn=9780571222780| publisher=Faber and Faber| year=2009}}</ref><ref name=MillInfluenceDirac>{{cite journal| journal=Isis | last=Cassidy | first=David C.| title=Graham Farmelo. The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom| year=2010 | volume=101 | pages=661| doi=10.1086/657209 | publisher=[[Organization:University of Chicago Press|University of Chicago Press]]|quote=Farmelo also discusses, across several chapters, the influences of John Stuart Mill...}}</ref> ''A System of Logic'' also had an impression on [[Biography:Gottlob Frege|Gottlob Frege]], who rebuked many of Mill's ideas about the [[Philosophy:Philosophy of mathematics|philosophy of mathematics]] in his work ''[[Philosophy:The Foundations of Arithmetic|The Foundations of Arithmetic]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The foundations of arithmetic; a logico-mathematical enquiry into the concept of number|last=Frege|first=Gottlob|date=1980|publisher=Northwestern University Press|isbn=0810106051|edition=2nd|location=Evanston, Illinois|oclc=650|translator-last=Austin|translator-first=J. L.}}</ref>

Mill revised the original work several times over the course of thirty years in response to critiques and commentary by [[Biography:William Whewell|Whewell]], Bain, and others.

==Introduction==
Begins with a discussion of difficulty of a preliminary definition of what Logic is but gives one. Mill asserts his right to do this,  " I do this by virtue of the right I claim for every author, to give whatever provisional definition he pleases of his own subject".
He concludes with "Logic, then, is the science
of the operations of the understanding which are subservient to the estimation
of evidence"

==Book One==
This Book is headed "Of Names and Propositions".

Mill begins with a "simple" quotation from [[Biography:Thomas Hobbes|Thomas Hobbes]] which although simple contains the essence of what leads to the greater complexities there are in naming things and ideas.

In Chapter VI of this book Mill gives a look back at the different kinds of proposition.
"We then examined the different kinds of Propositions, and found that, with
the exception of those which are merely verbal, they assert five different
kinds of matters of fact, namely, Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time,
Causation, and Resemblance; that in every proposition one of these five is
either attirmed, or denied, of some fact or phenomenon, or of some object
the unknown source of a fact or phenomenon."

==Book Two==
This book is headed "Of Inference, or Reasoning, in General".

Mill begins with the retrospect that we have concluded that propositions assert. We now move "to the peculiar problem of the Science of Logic, namely, how
the assertions, of which we have analysed the import, are proved or disproved"

In Chapter I of this book Mill emphasies the practicality of the type of Logic He values and hopes this book will promote. "There is no more important
intellectual habit, nor any the cultivation of which falls more strictly within
the province of the art of logic, than that of discerning rapidly and surely the
identity of an assertion when disguised under diversity of language".

==Book III==
This book is headed "Of Induction"

The centrality of Induction to Mills System of Logic is emphasized by such statements as,
"What Induction is, therefore, and what conditions render it legitimate,
cannot but be deemed the main question of the science of logic ,the question
which includes all others." 

==Book IV==
This book is headed
"Of Operations Subsidiary to Induction"

Mill writes that this book is needed because, 

"The consideration of Induction, however, does not end with the direct
rules for its performance. Something must be said of those other operations
of the mind, which are either necessarily presupposed in all induction, or are
instrumental to the more difficult and complicated inductive processes".

==Book V==
This book is headed "On Fallacies"

The five classes of fallacies being, Fallacies of Simple inspection, or a priori fallacies, Fallacies of   Observation, Fallacies of Generalization, Fallacies of ratiocination, Fallacies of Confusion. 

==Book VI== 
This book is headed "On the Logic of the Moral Sciences".

John Stuart Mill thought this a very important chapter for the social progress he so keenly sort.

"The backward state of the Moral Sciences can only be remedied by applying to them the methods of Physical Science, duly extended and generalized".

==Editions==
* Mill, John Stuart, ''A System of Logic'', University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, 2002, {{ISBN|1-4102-0252-6}}

*System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive
Being a Connected View of the
Principles of Evidence and the
Methods of
Scientific Investigation
by JOHN STUART MILL
BOOKS I-III AND APPENDICES 
<ref>https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mill-the-collected-works-of-john-stuart-mill-volume-vii-a-system-of-logic-part-i</ref>

* System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive
Being a Connected View of the
Principles of Evidence and the
Methods of
Scientific Investigation
by JOHN STUART MILL
BOOKS IV-VI AND APPENDICES <ref>https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mill-the-collected-works-of-john-stuart-mill-volume-viii-a-system-of-logic-part-ii</ref>

==See also==
* [[Philosophy:Emergentism|Emergentism]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* ''Philosophy of Recent Times'', ed. J. B. Hartmann (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), I, 14.

==External links==

===Online editions===
* 1843. Google Books: [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_y4MEAAAAQAAJ Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/asystemlogicrat21millgoog Vol. II] (first edition)
* 1846. Google Books: [https://books.google.com/books?id=LVAYAAAAIAAJ All]
* 1851. Google Books: [https://archive.org/details/asystemlogicrat00millgoog Vol. I], Vol. II missing? Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/details/systemoflogic00milluoft Vol. I], Vol. II missing? (third edition)
* 1858. Google Books: [https://archive.org/details/asystemlogicrat08millgoog All]
* 1862. Google Books: [https://archive.org/details/asystemlogicrat10millgoog Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/asystemlogicrat09millgoog Vol. II]
* 1868. Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/details/asystemoflogic01milluoft Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/asystemoflogic02milluoft Vol. II]. Also [https://archive.org/details/a592839101milluoft Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/a592839102milluoft Vol. II]. Also [https://archive.org/details/ASystemOfLogicRatiocinativeAndInductive Vol. I] (seventh edition)
* 1872. Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/details/systemoflogicrat01milliala Vol. I], [https://archive.org/details/systemoflogicrat02milliala Vol. II]. Also partial HTML [http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/poltheory/mill/sol/ version].(eighth edition)
* 1882. Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/details/systemofratiocin00milluoft All]
* 1882. Project Gutenberg: [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27942 All]
* {{librivox book | title=A System of Logic | author=Mill}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:System of Logic}}
[[Category:Philosophy of science]]



{{Sourceattribution|A System of Logic}}