Hugh MacColl
Encyclopedia
Scot
A Scot is a member of an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland, derived from the Latin name of Irish raiders, the Scoti.Scot may also refer to:People with the given name Scot:* Scot Brantley , American football linebacker...
who trained as a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and became a logician. MacColl was the youngest son of a poor highland
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
family which was at least in part Gaelic-speaking. Hugh's father died when he was still an infant, and Hugh was brought uplargely thanks to the efforts of his elder brother, Malcolm MacColl
Malcolm MacColl
Malcolm MacColl , British clergyman and publicist, was the son of a poor Scottish crofter or labourer in Glenfinnan who died when his son was still a boy. Despite this difficult beginning, MacColl's intellectual exertions enabled himself - and his younger brother Hugh - to succeed in obtaining an...
, an Anglican clergyman and friend and political ally of William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
. Early in his acquaintanceship with Gladstone, Malcolm MacColl persuaded the Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
politician to provide funds for Hugh's education at Oxford. It was proposed to send him to St Edmund Hall
St Edmund Hall, Oxford
St Edmund Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Better known within the University by its nickname, "Teddy Hall", the college has a claim to being "the oldest academical society for the education of undergraduates in any university"...
, but Gladstone made this conditional on Hugh MacColl agreeing to take orders in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. Hugh MacColl refused this condition and, as a result, never obtained a university education, which may have limited his contribution to philosophy, and certainly prevented him from ever obtaining a formal academic position.
After a few years working in different areas of Great Britain, MacColl moved to Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he developed the greater part of his work and went on to become a French citizen. He is known for three main accomplishments:
- In 1877-79, while working out a problem involving integrationIntegralIntegration is an important concept in mathematics and, together with its inverse, differentiation, is one of the two main operations in calculus...
, he published a four-part article setting out the first known variant of the propositional calculusPropositional calculusIn mathematical logic, a propositional calculus or logic is a formal system in which formulas of a formal language may be interpreted as representing propositions. A system of inference rules and axioms allows certain formulas to be derived, called theorems; which may be interpreted as true...
, calling it the "calculus of equivalent statements", preceding Gottlob FregeGottlob FregeFriedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on...
's Begriffschrifft. He subsequently published 11 articles in Mind, 1880-1908, and a text, in an effort to draw the attention of philosophers to his work.
- C. I. LewisClarence Irving LewisClarence Irving Lewis , usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logician, he later branched into epistemology, and during the last 20 years of his life, he wrote much on ethics.-Early years:Lewis was born in...
credited MacColl's late work on the nature of implication as the source of the basic ideas behind Lewis's pathbreaking work in modal logicModal logicModal logic is a type of formal logic that extends classical propositional and predicate logic to include operators expressing modality. Modals — words that express modalities — qualify a statement. For example, the statement "John is happy" might be qualified by saying that John is...
.
- MacColl's work represents one of the first approaches to logical pluralism where he explores the possibilities of modal logic, logic of fiction, connexive logicConnexive logicConnexive logic names one class of alternative, or non-classical, logics designed to exclude the so-called paradoxes of material implication. The characteristic that separates connexive logic from other non-classical logics is its acceptance of Aristotle's Thesis, i.e...
, many-valued logic and probability logic.
MacColl was not obscure in his day. He was a lifelong regular contributor to the Educational Times. His correspondents included the logicians William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons was a British economist and logician.Irving Fisher described his book The Theory of Political Economy as beginning the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical...
and Charles Sanders Peirce. He also corresponded, and argued in print, with the young Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, and reviewed Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
's 1898 Universal Algebra for Mind. Nor is he forgotten now; there is an ongoing MacColl Project, a joint venture of Greifswald University in Germany and the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
, which intends to publish a critical edition of his work. Furthermore, the group of logic and epistemology at the University of Lille
Université Lille Nord de France
The University of Lille -Nord de France , located in Lille, France, is a center for higher education, academic research and doctoral studies located over multiple campuses in the Academie de Lille....
(France) develop MacColl's suggestions for a dynamic free logic. The December 1999 issue of the "Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic
Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic
The Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic was an international journal of philosophy started in May 1996. The journal considered submissions in any of the areas associated with Philosophical Logic and with the application of logic in conceptual analysis. The journal was edited at the Department of...
" published the proceedings of a 1998 conference devoted to MacColl's work.
MacColl published two novels, now forgotten, containing elements of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
that reveal social and moral values to which he gave full expression in his 1909 Man's Origin, Destiny, and Duty, an apology for Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
.
External links
- Special Hugh MacColl issue of the Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic.Nordic Journal of Philosophical LogicThe Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic was an international journal of philosophy started in May 1996. The journal considered submissions in any of the areas associated with Philosophical Logic and with the application of logic in conceptual analysis. The journal was edited at the Department of...
(Vol. 3 no. 1) - Hugh MacColl bibliography from that special issue, by the MacColl Project.
- "Symbolic logic and its applications" By Hugh MacColl, full .PDF on Google Books.