The Nature of Logic

Ideas about the nature of logic, when they do not develop from a working experience of problems within logic, are likely to be “empty and jejeune”, and it might appear sensible to begin by merely saying that logic is a theory concerned with such and such problems, viz. the problems that contemporary logicians are trying to solve, and then proceed with a discussion of these special problems. A fundamental characteristic of logic is comprehensiveness. This brings out the affinity between logic and philosophy, for to be comprehensive is the aim of philosophical ambition. This is particularly true of sciences which, like mathematics, take the form of postulational systems. The intuitionalist understanding of logic as a symbolic exhibition and a theory of form has the weight of history behind it.