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A Boole Anthology - Recent and Classical Studies in the Logic of George Boole (SYNTHESE LIBRARY Volume 291)

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This review begins with three excerpts from a review by the Finnish historian of logic Risto Vilkko (pronounced REES-toh FEEL-koh) in THE REVIEW OF MODERN LOGIC. His whole review is well worth reading.
(1) James Gasser's A Boole Anthology is a collection of seven classical and ten recent studies on George Boole's work, its background, and its intellectual frame of reference. Two of the classical articles were published during the 1860s, with the rest appearing during the latter half of the 20th century. The recent ones are based on lectures given at Lausanne on the occasion of the conference entitled "Boole 1997: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Mathematical Analysis of Logic". Gasser's anthology is a valuable contribution to the renaissance experienced by Boole studies since the publication of Desmond MacHale's biography of Boole in 1985. In addition to MacHale's book, three recent new editions of Boole's ground-breaking The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1996; 1998; 2001), an important selection of his manuscripts on logic and its philosophy [Grattan-Guinness & Bornet 1997], and the present volume are telling examples of the current lively interest in the life and thought of George Boole. Indeed, in the editor's words, "the present anthology constitutes an attempt to capture some of the 'buzz about Boole'" (p. vii).
(2) All in all, Gasser's Boole Anthology draws us a picture of George Boole, not as the founder of modern logic, but as an important mediator between traditions, and an initiator of an on-going and ever increasing development of the field of logical theory. On the one hand he was a historically sensitive scientist whose work emerges seamlessly from the Scholastic-Aristotelian tradition. On the other his novel ideas in the field of the algebra of logic paved the way for the break-through of a modern, mathematically-oriented logic at the turn of the 20th century. He was not an isolated miracle but an exceptionally gifted mathematician who was greatly influenced by several of his contemporaries. All the contributors of the volume seem to agree with Dummett that "there can be no doubt that Boole deserves great credit for what he achieved, in the sense that in those historical circumstances what he did must have been very difficult to do" (p. 79).
(3) James Gasser's A Boole Anthology is an important collection of first-rate Boole-studies.
Although, I realize how risky it is to disagree with someone as wise and learned as Prof. Vilkko, I think that the picture he gets from Gasser's BOOLE ANTHOLOGY is incorrect. I think that Boole should be honored as the founder of mathematical logic. As people come to a deeper and more nuanced view of the nature of logic, they will find that Boole had contributed much more to its transformation into a mathematical science than they had thought. So many of Boole's ideas have become so deeply entrenched in modern thinking about logic that it takes concentration to identify them and to realize that we owe our knowledge of them to Boole.
Gasser's book will help people to decide whether Prof. Vilkko is right. Another book that will help is the 2003 Prometheus edition of Boole's 1854 LAWS OF THOUGHT, ISBN 1 59102 089 1, which includes an introduction by John Corcoran, who by coincidence is one of the contributors to the Gasser anthology. Let me end this review by quoting the last paragraph of Corcoran's introduction: "It has been said that Galileo's greatest achievement was to persuade the world's scientists that physical reality is mathematical, or at least that science should be pursued mathematically. In his words, "The Book of Nature is written in mathematical characters." In a strikingly similar spirit, Boole stated: "it is certain that [logic's] ultimate forms and processes are mathematical" (Boole 1854, 12). Perhaps Boole's greatest achievement was to persuade the world's logicians that logical reality is mathematical, or at least that logic should be pursued mathematically." - Frango Nabrasa, Manatee, FL.