- Irving Anellis “Some Views of Russell and Russell's Logic by His Contemporaries, with Particular Reference to Peirce”
初めの辺りを引くと次の通り。
… If one read the published comments in the decade between publication of Russell’s Principles (1903) and Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), one would in all likelihood be brought to conclude that the work of Peirce and Schröder was still at the forefront of logical research, and that it would, in the foreseeable future, be the point of departure for continued research.
An examination of archival documents of Charles Peirce, Christine Ladd-Franklin, and others shows a tendency for strong denigration of Russell and his work in logic during the years 1903 to 1913 among many of Russell’s contemporaries, especially, but not exclusively his older contemporaries. Ladd-Franklin, for example, wrote a note in which she complains that Russell (and Whitehead) wrote as if Peirce and Schröder had never existed, clearly insinuating that Russell plagiarized the work of Peirce and Schröder, while Peirce for his part found Russell’s work “nauseating,” and philosopher William James bluntly called Russell “ass,” saying he would prefer being “a-logical, if not illogical” than adopt Russell’s techniques.
Not until after the close of World War I, and thus roughly five years after the third volume of Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica appeared, that is, beginning in 1918, do we clearly notice the adoption of the estimation by the community of historians and philosophers of logic at large that the logistic of Frege and Russell, and particularly the logical system of the Principia, is superior to, has surpassed, and ought to replace, the classical Boole-Schröder calculus, and that the latter is limited and in some measure obsolescent, if not obsolete.…
Russellに対しては随分ひどい言葉が投げ掛けられていますね。W.Jamesさんは、まさか放送禁止用語ではないですよね。それほど危なくない方の意味ですよね。
終わりを次に引く。
One can quote a number of logicians and philosophers in the last years of the late 19th century and into the second decade of the 20th who found the work of Peirce and/or Schröder to be still at the forefront of logical research; among them William James, Edwin Bidwell Wilson, Josiah Royce, William Clifford, and others, while Peirce and Schröder formed something of a mutual admiration society. Whether their fin de siècle assessments were correct or not, it is clear that there was little certainty or unanimity regarding the accomplishments of Russell, either in The Principles of Mathematics, nor yet even in his and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, at the time they appeared, and that Peirce and Schröder were not yet easily dismissed as having fallen into oblivion or obsolescence.
Russellが覇権を取るのも楽じゃなかったわけだ。
PS. Netでアメリカの小さな出版社を見つける。LogicやHistory of Logic、それに哲学の本を色々出している。かなりマイナーな本も見受けられる。19世紀ドイツにおけるマイナーな論理学者・哲学者のマイナーな本など。Frege以前の19世紀ドイツにおける論理学研究状況のみを調べたmonographの参考文献表にしか出てこないような本である。同じことを調べている人しかまず買いそうもない本である。そして同じことを調べている人は、この地球上に数人しかいないのではないかと思われる。すごい本を出すものだ。あきれるというか、感心するというか、その意気込みに敬服します。
でも面白そうなのも少しあったので、後日注文しようかな。
