Port-Royal Logic

The Logic of Port- Royal is the common name of the book La logique, ou l'art de penser, an important work on logic. It was first published anonymously in 1662 by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole. The two were two prominent Jansenists, of which there were many in the area of Port -Royal. Blaise Pascal also said to have contributed parts of the text. The book was preceded by the grammar of Port- Royal ( 1660).

The Logic of Port -Royal is written in the vernacular, was used in England and France, and as popular logic textbook to the 20th century. It contains strong elements Cartesian metaphysics and epistemology in her; Arnauld was one of the philosophers who criticized Descartes ' Meditations on First Philosophy.

The book is considered a paradigmatic example of the traditional term logic.

In the logical- semantic propaedeutic of Tugendhat and Wolf the logic of Port -Royal is designated as work which initiates the second, the modern phase of the logic in the reasonable Aristotle older logic that characterized " by a preponderance of epistemological and psychological questions " is. It is followed by the third phase of logic, which is initiated by Frege's Begriffsschrift.

The philosopher Louis Marin studied the book. Michel Foucault saw it as one of the foundations of the modern episteme.

In Germany the book by Leibniz was received, but then fell into oblivion.