Peirce's Truth-functional Analysis and the Origin of the Truth Table

We explore the technical details and historical evolution of Charles Peirce's articulation of a truth table in 1893, against the background of his investigation into the truth-functional analysis of propositions involving implication. In 1997, John Shosky discovered, on the verso of a page of t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:History and philosophy of logic 2012-02, Vol.33 (1), p.87-97
Main Author: Anellis, Irving H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
03-03
Peirce
primary: 03B05
propositions
secondary: 01A55-01A60
truth tables
truth-functional analysis
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Summary:We explore the technical details and historical evolution of Charles Peirce's articulation of a truth table in 1893, against the background of his investigation into the truth-functional analysis of propositions involving implication. In 1997, John Shosky discovered, on the verso of a page of the typed transcript of Bertrand Russell's 1912 lecture on 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism' truth table matrices. The matrix for negation is Russell's, alongside of which is the matrix for material implication in the hand of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is shown that an unpublished manuscript identified as composed by Peirce in 1893 includes a truth table matrix that is equivalent to the matrix for material implication discovered by John Shosky. An unpublished manuscript by Peirce identified as having been composed in 1883-1884 in connection with the composition of Peirce's 'On the Algebra of Logic: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation' that appeared in the American Journal of Mathematics in 1885 includes an example of an indirect truth table for the conditional.
ISSN:0144-5340
1464-5149
DOI:10.1080/01445340.2011.621702