“The design of the following treatise is to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed; to give expression to them in the symbolic language of a Calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic and construct its method; to make that method itself the basis of a general method for the application of the mathematical doctrine of Probalities; and, finally, to collect from the various elements of truth brought to view in the course of these inquiries some probable intimations concerning the nature and constitution of the human mind.

“That this design is not altogether a novel one it is almost needless to remark, andit is well known that to its two main practical divisions of Logic and Probabilities a very considerable share of the attention of philosophers has been directed.”
        -George Boole

By only dealing with abstract symbols, a proposition can be analyzed without concern to the meaning. The meaning can be reintroduced after a solution is found. This abstraction makes Boolean logic a basis for computer science, switching theory, graph theory, and other branches of mathematics.

Boolean logic is a two value system with statements being either ‘true’ or ‘false.’ This can be represented by “1” and “0” or an on condition and an off condition, the only two states known to a modern electronic computer. With Boolean logic, the computer became more than a simply numeric machine and became a general purpose device.

Any person who has conducted a search for information can thank Boole for the “AND”, “OR”, and “NOT” operators that can narrow the search to a few likely useful sources from thousands of possibilities. As modern research further combines the fields of computer science, philosophy, neurology, linguistics, and logic based on the early work of Boole, students in interdisciplinary programs such as Occidental College’s Cognitive Science program may or may not have a different opinion of George Boole depending on their current grade point average.

Author: Paul Koenig

References:
Anonymous. “boole.html”. 25 Sep 1998. <http://cc.kzoo.edu/~k95mm04/boole.html>

Boole, George. “The Laws of Thought”. New York: Dover (First American printing)

MacTutor. 1996. “Boole”. 25 Sep 1998. <http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Boole.html>

Newmann, James. 1988. Commentary on Symbolic Logic, George Boole and a Horrible Dream. In “The World of Mathematics”. Vol. 3. Redmond: Tempus

Parsons, Roger. “Roger p@rsons_world of George Boole”. 25 Sep 1998. <http://homepages.enterprise.net/rogerp/george/boole.html>

Schroeder, Michael. 1997. “A Brief History of the Notation of Boole’s Algebra”. 25 Sep 1998. <http://www.hf.uio.no/filosofi/njpl/vol2no1/history/>