On the Characteristic Art for Perfecting the Sciences Founded on Reason

Answers

• Q10JUDGMENT

  Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?

  Yes. calculation can settle disputes. Proposes a universal symbolic calculus so that disputants could settle a disagreement by sitting down and saying 'let us calculate'.

  Sed ut redeam ad expressionem cogitationum per characteres, ita sentio nunquam controversias finiri neque sectis silentium imponi posse, nisi a ratiocinationibus complicatis ad calculos simplices, a vocabulis vagae incertaeque significationis ad characteres determinatos revocemur. Id scilicet efficiendum est, ut omnis paralogismus nihil aliud sit quam error calculi, et ut sophisma, in hoc novae scripturae genere expressum, revera nihil aliud sit quam soloecismus vel barbarismus, ex ipsis grammatices hujus philosophicae legibus facile revincendus. Quo facto, quando orientur controversiae. non magis disputatione opus erit inter duos philosophos, quam inter duos Computistas. Sufficiet enim calamos in manus sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito si placet amico) dicere: calculemus.

  But to return to the expression of thoughts by characters: I hold that controversies will never be ended, nor silence imposed on the sects, unless we are brought back from complicated reasonings to simple calculations, and from words of vague and uncertain meaning to determinate characters. That is, it must be brought about that every paralogism is nothing but an error of calculation, and that a sophism expressed in this new kind of writing is in truth nothing but a solecism or barbarism, easily refuted by the very laws of this philosophical grammar. Once this is done, when controversies arise there will be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two accountants. It will suffice to take pens in hand, sit down at the abacus, and say to one another (calling in a friend, if they like): let us calculate.

  machine translation

  Calculemus passage cited to Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften vol. VII (1890), p. 200 (search results). Written c. 1680s; year given is first print in Gerhardt. Archive.org link is the Gerhardt vol. 7 scan identified via Wikimedia Commons; not opened.