“All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestial life but only to an imagined celestial existence… logic takes us nearer to heaven than other studies.”

—  Bertrand Russell

'Vagueness' http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/vagueness.htm, first published in The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, 1 June, 1923
1920s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to thi…" by Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

Marianne Moore photo

“Precision, economy of statement, logic employed to ends that are disinterested … liberate the imagination.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Forward to Marianne Moore Reader 1961

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“The false logic involved is: “We exist; therefore something—call it X—created us.””

Arthur C. Clarke book Crusade

Once this assumption is made, the properties of the hypothetical X can be fantasied in an unlimited number of ways.
But the entire process is obviously fallacious; for by the same logic something must have created X—and so on. We are immediately involved in an infinite regress, which can have no meaning in the real universe.

Crusade, p. 878
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Alfred Tarski photo

“Logic is justly considered the basis of all other sciences, even if only for the reason that in every argument we employ concepts taken from the field of logic, and that ever correct inference proceeds in accordance with its laws.”

Alfred Tarski (1901–1983) Polish-American logician

Introduction to Logic: and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences. (1941/2013) Tr. Olaf Helmer, pp. 108-110.

Paul Gauguin photo

“.. color being enigmatic in itself.... then to be logical we cannot use it any other way than enigmatically..”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 145

Leo Tolstoy photo

“The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

Arthur Conan Doyle photo

“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Source: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

“Most mathematicians are by nature Platonists who cheerfully, unreflectingly and habitually employ such loaded phrases as 'We assume there exists…' or 'Therefore there exists…' an entity with such and such characteristics. Challenged by the realist they would probably reply that since the truths of mathematics are absolute, universal and eternal it is hard indeed to deny them an existence independent of human intelligence.”

George Frederick James Temple (1901–1992) British mathematician

100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)

Averroes photo

“To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

The Decisive Treatise
Source: Jon McGinnis, David C. Reisman (2007) Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. p. 310

“Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science -- that is to say, by the logical analysis of the concepts and sentences of the sciences, for the logic of science is nothing other than the logical syntax of the language of science.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Foreword
Logical Syntax of Language, 1934/1937

Bertrand Russell photo

“The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. I: Definition of Pure Mathematics, p. 5
1900s
Context: The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists in the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

Related topics