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Article 2623 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cpshelle@logos.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: Historical Origins of Logic
Message-ID: <1992Jan10.143218.25965@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1992 14:32:18 GMT
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rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
[...]
> Yes, but it also changed it.  From that time on philosophy became
> universalist because the ability of the individual to control his
> particular piece of the particular decreased.

How about a feminist theory of the origins of logic?  All schools of
greek philosophy were influenced by (and often used paraphrases of as
a method) their mythology.  It is a fact of early greek history that
the greek settlers in the hellenic peninsula displaced a matriarchal
society, the pelasgians, who became a very numerous underclass (as
often seems to have happened with indo-european expansions).  The
sociological tensions between the greek and pelasgian classes continued
through classical times, resulting (for instance) in many of the slave
riots in the greek cities.

This tension also informed much of greek mythology, often in the form
of male/female estrangement---natural to the conflict between a
patriarchal society and a matriarchal one.  Thus, classical greek myth
abounds with fearsome amazons and unnatural islands of lesbians.  Their
society was also know for the frequency of `the greek vice', and
institutionalized mysogeny.  

Greek philosophers, living in this milieu and attentive to the precedents
of their mythology, developed a view of the world that divided all and
sundry into binary oppositions: male and female.  No doubt the male
corresponds to `truth', while the female represents `false'.

Ha ha, only serious!

				Cam

PS.  For the sarcastically challenged, insert tongue in cheek and reread.
--
      Cameron Shelley        | "Syllogism, n.  A logical formula consisting
cpshelle@logos.waterloo.edu  |  of a major and a minor assumption and an
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     |  inconsequent."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  |				Ambrose Bierce


