Item #2304795 Versuch uber die combinatorische Methode, ein Beytrag zur angewandten Logik und allgemeinen Methodik. Christian August Semler.

Versuch uber die combinatorische Methode, ein Beytrag zur angewandten Logik und allgemeinen Methodik

Dresden: Waltherschen Hofbuchhandlung, 1822. Hard Cover. Near Fine / No Jacket. Item #2304795

Rebound in black cloth with new end sheets. Ink ownership stamps on title page.

xxviii, 200 pp. 8vo. Printed on laid paper. A little-known but significant early treatise of mathematical logic. Semler was influenced by the combinatory mathematics of Karl Friedrich Hinderburg (1741-1808) and was familiar with Leibniz through the work of Ploucquet and Lambert. In the Versuch "Semler emerged as a forerunner of the English logicians George Boole and Stanley Jevons. He persistently demanded the enumeration of all possible combinations which could be formed from the specified terms for classes. First Semler exhibited all such combinations of classes; then he eliminated the various classes or combinations of classes that contradicted the given premises." He "studied the logic of relations in Ploucquet's work very carefully; in particular, he noted that in the case of certain relations the law of commutativity cannot be considered universal. In the latter case, Semler perceived one of the formal differences between the calculus of relations and the logic of classes. He was conversant not only with Ploucquet's logical results but with those of Lambert as well." (Styazhkin, History of Mathematical Logic from Leibniz to Peano, pp. 138-39). In addition to the added essay, the text of this second edition seems augmented over that of the first (Dresden 1811) which had 118 pages. The work is scarce, this edition especially so: all of the printed references consulted to date (Styazhkin, C.I. Lewis, Venn Collection, Baldwin's Dictionary) note only the 1811 edition; neither edition found in WorldCat.

Price: $450.00