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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.
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