2009/11/11 by K. G. Valente · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Philosophy and History of Science #Philosophy #Art history #Art
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0007087409990380
openalex publication_date 2009/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
In his influential Laws of Thought (1854), the mathematician George Boole presented a formulation of logic using algebraic expressions and manipulations. His widow, Mary Everest Boole, undertook an ambitious project of disseminating his ideas by introducing lay audiences to the law of pulsation, a prescription for correct reasoning that incorporates two of his fundamental insights. Contemporary scholarship presents a fragmented picture of Mary Boole, regarding her largely as a source of information on the religio-psychological impetus for her husband's contributions to logic, among other matters. Some studies rightly acknowledge that her better-known commentary on educational reform relates to a promotion of the Laws of Thought, yet these typically fail to expand on how she articulated such relationships for readers. This paper provides a more complete understanding of her efforts by examining texts on various subjects motivated by a dedication to propagating as much as fulfilling the intellectual legacy she associated with her husband. In doing so it considers her interventions - like those undertaken by other Victorian women who sought to cultivate scientific enterprises - within a contextual framework broad enough to include strategic responses to cultural realities and possibilities.