John Venn : a life in logic / Lukas M. Verburgt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Verburgt, Lukas M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Venn, John, 1834-1923.

Venn, John.

University of Cambridge--Faculty--Biography.

University of Cambridge.

Logicians--England--Biography.

Logicians.

Philosophers--England--Biography.

Philosophers.

Universities and colleges--Faculty.

England.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 411 pages : illustrations (black and white), genealogical tables ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2022.

Summary:

"John Venn is remembered today as the inventor of the famous "Venn diagram." The postmortem fame of the namesake diagram has until now eclipsed Venn's own status as one of the most accomplished logicians in his day. Praised by John Stuart Mill as a "highly successful thinker" with much "power of original thought," Venn profoundly influenced nineteenth-century philosophers, ranging from Mill and Henry Sidgwick to Charles Sanders Peirce. Venn was heir to a clerical, Evangelical dynasty but religious doubts led him to resign Holy Orders and instead turn to an academic life, writing influential textbooks on probability theory and logic and advocating for education reform, including for women's education. Venn also collaborated with Francis Galton in the unofficial Anthropometrical Laboratory, and, through his writing and teaching, a direct line can be traced from Venn and his circle to the development of analytic philosophy in the work of W. E. Johnson, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, and C. D. Broad. Through family descent, Venn was connected to eminent Victorians like Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf. This essential book explores Venn's life and work in context, taking readers on his journey from Evangelical son to Cambridge don. The picture that emerges of Venn, the person, is of a man with many sympathies-sometimes mutually reinforcing and at other times outwardly contradictory"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Family, Childhood, and Youth (1834

53

2. Student (1853

57

3. Curate (1857

62

4. Intellectual Breakthrough (1862

5. Moral Scientist (1862

69

6. Probability (1866

7. Religious Thinker (1867

73

8. Logic Papers (1874

80

9. Algebraic Logic (1881

10. Dereverend Believer and Amateur Scientist (1883

90

11. Empirical Logic (1889

12. Biographer (1891

1923.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-395) and index.

Local Notes:

Copy 1. Binding: Includes dust-jacket.

ISBN:

9780226815510

022681551X

OCLC:

1257021188