Existential graphs: What a diagrammatic logic of cognition might look like

Ahti Veikko Pietarinen*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    32 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This paper examines the contemporary philosophical and cognitive relevance of Charles Peirce's diagrammatic logic of existential graphs (EGs), the 'moving pictures of thought'. The first part brings to the fore some hitherto unknown details about the reception of EGs in the early 1900s that took place amidst the emergence of modern conceptions of symbolic logic. In the second part, philosophical aspects of EGs and their contributions to contemporary logical theory are pointed out, including the relationship between iconic logic and images, the problem of the meaning of logical constants, the cognitive economy of iconic logic, the failure of the Frege-Russell thesis, and the failure of the Language of Thought hypothesis.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)265-281
    Number of pages17
    JournalHistory and Philosophy of Logic
    Volume32
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2011

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • History
    • History and Philosophy of Science

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