2.2 THE IDEA OF AN 'ALPHABET OF THOUGHT'

When George Boole tried in 1847 and 1854 to find out -and formalize- the "laws of thought", he basically conceived "thought" as a set of algebraically-expressed concept manipulations. Llull in 1274 also did, but unlike Boole he felt he not only needed a set of allowable manipulations (combinations) but also a finite set of elementary truths to begin with. These he called "dignities" (a plural to translate the greek "axioms") or "absolute principles", nine in number, plus 45 additional basic concepts (in groups of nine) he called "relative principles" (including consistency or contradiction), "rules" (including quantity or modality), "subjects", "virtues" and "vices". He added them basic manipulation rules (essentially a relational calculus) and a validation procedure (basically, expanding possible combinations and following them until either two concepts reinforced themselves -thus lending credence to the conclusion- or else a contradiction appeared -which meant that the hypothesized conclusion had to be negated). As Boole later, Llull firmly believed that human thought (logical reasoning) was amenable to symbolic treatment, unified procedures and objective follow-up and control.