Renaissance of Linguistics

La Logique ou l'art de penser, better known as the Port-Royal Logic (hereinafter Logic), was the most influential logic text from Aristotle to the end of the nineteenth century. The authors were Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, philosophers and theologians associated with the Port-Royal Abbey, a center of the heretical Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. The first edition appeared in 1662; during the authors' lifetimes four major revisions were published, the last and most important in 1683. The 1981 critical edition by Pierre Clair and François Girbal lists 63 French editions and 10 English editions (the 1818 English edition served as a text at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford). The work treats topics in logic, grammar, philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, and metaphysics. The Logic is a companion to General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar, written primarily by Arnauld and “edited” by Claude Lancelot, which appeared in 1660. In general the semantics of the Logic are situated in the context of the Cartesian theory of ideas. Its value to us today resides in its combination of deep insights and confusions.

THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION