NOL Seminar with Sara L. Uckelman
published: 2021-11-05
event date:
2021-11-22
The Nordic Online Logic Seminar is organised monthly over Zoom, with expository talks on topics of interest for the broader logic community. The seminar is open for professional or aspiring logicians and logic aficionados worldwide. If you wish to receive the Zoom ID and password for it, as well as further announcements, please subscribe here: https://listserv.gu.se/sympa/subscribe/nordiclogic.
Next talk: Monday, November 22, 17.00-18.30 CET (UTC+1), on Zoom. (Note the later starting time.)
Title: John Eliot’s Logick Primer: A bilingual English-Wôpanâaak logic textbook
Speaker: Sara L. Uckelman, Associate professor at the Department of Philosophy, Durham University
Abstract:
In 1672 John Eliot, English Puritan educator and missionary, published The Logick Primer: Some Logical Notions to initiate the INDIANS in the knowledge of the Rule of Reason; and to know how to make use thereof [1]. This roughly 80 page pamphlet focuses on introducing basic syllogistic vocabulary and reasoning so that syllogisms can be created from texts in the Psalms, the gospels, and other New Testament books. The use of logic for proselytizing purposes is not distinctive: What is distinctive about Eliot’s book is that it is bilingual, written in both English and Wôpanâak (Massachusett), an Algonquian language spoken in eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. It is one of the earliest bilingual logic textbooks, it is the only textbook that I know of in an indigenous American language, and it is one of the earliest printed attestations of the Massachusett language.
In this talk, I will:
• Introduce John Eliot and the linguistic context he was working in.
• Introduce the contents of the Logick Primer —vocabulary, inference patterns,
and applications.
• Discuss notions of “Puritan” logic that inform this primer.
• Talk about the importance of his work in documenting and expanding the
Massachusett language and the problems that accompany his colonial approach to
this work.
References
[1] J.[ohn] E.[liot]. The Logick Primer: Some Logical Notions to initiate the INDIANS in the knowledge of the Rule of Reason; and to know how to make use thereof. Cambridge, MA: Printed by M.[armaduke] J.[ohnson], 1672.