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Logic diagrams are becoming increasingly popular. Today, they are used in research areas such as neural networks, genetics, artificial intelligence, semantics, electrical engineering, programming, argumentation theory and proof theory.

But this broad interest was not always given in the history of logic diagrams. While there were several periods in the history of logic in which diagrams were intensively used and analysed, there were also periods in which diagrams and geometric figures were rejected. The consequence of these conflicting valuations of diagrams led to the thesis that there were several research efforts on diagrams in the history of logic, which have never been fully reappraised to this day. Research results on logic diagrams were forgotten at regular intervals.

Euler diagram

The aim of this blog is to make the research results on the history and philosophy of logic diagrams more accessible. One focus is on the study of logic diagrams which have a family resemblance to Euler and Venn diagrams and were used in three periods in (early) modern logic. Another focus is the application of these logic diagrams in today’s research. A central research area at present is the application of the so-called „Calclus CL“ in AI and information sciences.

The blog offers a digital repository of historic texts which are difficult to access as well as information on current historical and systematic research results from the field of diagrammatic reasoning such as conferences, applications and published texts.

In sum, the blog documents the activities of the History and Philosophy of Euler-Venn-Diagrams project, which is located at the FernUniversität in Hagen (Institut for Philosophy, Principal Investigator: PD Dr. Jens Lemanski).