Method and the improvement of the mind in eighteenth-century logic. Guest Lecture - Prof Peter Anstey (University of Sydney)

Most eighteenth-century logic texts contain a fourth and final part on method. However, conceptions of method differ markedly from one text to another. This paper examines a variety of these conceptions of method and the extent to which method is claimed to improve the mind of the reasoning agent. In some cases this improvement has a moral dimension, and in some cases the discussion of method provides a segue into further reflections on the conduct of the understanding. The upshot of this survey is that, while there is a variety of standard features of method – analysis and synthesis, a commitment to the theory of principles, a conception of the nature of the sciences – there is no standard conception of method in eighteenth-century logic. Four logics are examined, two in English and two in French: those of Isaac Watts and William Duncan, and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz and Etienne Bonnot de Condillac.